Nineteen Nineteen [Hardcover]

John Dos Passos (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In his day John Dos Passos' name was spoken in the same critical voice as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Some of his reputation arose from this book, 1919. It is the follow-up work to The Forty-Second Parallel and traces several characters through the times that surround them. Charlie Anderson sets off for Paris as America enters the war and Dos Passos weaves his adventures and those of other fictional characters with current events and historical figures. With this method, Dos Passos is able to create a work of fiction and comment on the period, which witnessed America's transformation from an isolated country to an expansionist power.

Review

Mr. Dos Passos has quintessentialized and distilled, compressed and foreshortened, until he is able to give the overtones of common chatter without resorting to a dreary literalism. -- The New York Times Book Review, John Chamberlain

Product Details

• Hardcover: 412 pages
• Publisher: Amereon Ltd (June 1940)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0884113450
• ISBN-13: 978-0884113454
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,775,676 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dos Passos: The Forgotten Giant, December 1, 1999

By 

P.W. Anghinetti (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nineteen Nineteen (Hardcover)

It seems almost impossible that John Dos Passos has slid into anonymity--his considerable literary reputation once rivaled that of his close friend and drinking buddy, Ernest Hemingway--but few readers today recognize him at all. Part of a trilogy that he published in 1932, entitled, "USA," ("The 42nd Parallel," and "The Big Money") "Nineteen Nineteen" is a novel of extraordinary historical sweep and stylistic craft. Dos Passos was influenced by the great experimental genius of James Joyce's "Ulysses," a novel that revolutionized fictional narration. Using several experimental techniques, fictional and non-fictional biographies, a poetic, stream of conscious voice entitled, "The Camera Eye," and a cinematic-montage technique that Dos Passos called, "Newsreels," this novel sweeps a decade's events from 1910 to 1919. The middle novel of the trilogy, "Nineteen Nineteen" traces historical events, particularly the devastating results of World War I, and individuals caught-up in the gigantic forces that reshaped the 20th Century. His historical portraits, or biographies, of Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, Joe Hill, and Woodrow Wilson combine with his stunning fictional, almost Dickensian, characters like a sailor named, Joe Williams, a rich, Harvard kid, named Richard Ellsworth Savage, or an idealistic woman, Eveline Hutchins, who finds the inexorable forces of war and economic power inescapable and ruinous. These accounts are told with a tone of satiric irony and bittersweet fatalism. The novel remains, despite its neglected status, one of the great achievements of American literature despite its flawed politics. Dos Passos began a devoted socialist, convinced that capitalism had both caused and profited from the war. Later in his career, particularly in a 1950's trilogy entitled, "Mid-Century," Dos Passos repudiated his left-wing sympathies for a turn to the political right. In spite of these ideological trappings, he remains, along with William Faulkner, one of the most significant exponents of experimental fiction in America over the past millenium.

5.0 out of 5 stars Dos Passos: The Forgotten Giant, December 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Nineteen Nineteen (Hardcover)

It seems almost impossible that John Dos Passos has slid into anonymity--his considerable literary reputation once rivaled that of his close friend and drinking buddy, Ernest Hemingway--but few readers today recognize him at all. Part of a trilogy that he published in 1932, entitled, "USA," ("The 42nd Parallel," and "The Big Money") "Nineteen Nineteen" is a novel of extraordinary historical sweep and stylistic craft. Dos Passos was influenced by the great experimental genius of James Joyce's "Ulysses," a novel that revolutionized fictional narration. Using several experimental techniques, fictional and non-fictional biographies, a poetic, stream of conscious voice entitled, "The Camera Eye," and a cinematic-montage technique that Dos Passos called, "Newsreels," this novel sweeps a decade's events from 1910 to 1919. The middle novel of the trilogy, "Nineteen Nineteen" traces historical events, particularly the devastating results of World War I, and individuals caught-up in the gigantic forces that reshaped the 20th Century. His historical portraits, or biographies, of Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, Joe Hill, and Woodrow Wilson combine with his stunning fictional, almost Dickensian, characters like a sailor named, Joe Williams, a rich, Harvard kid, named Richard Ellsworth Savage, or an idealistic woman, Eveline Hutchins, who finds the inexorable forces of war and economic power inescapable and ruinous. These accounts are told with a tone of satiric irony and bittersweet fatalism. The novel remains, despite its neglected status, one of the great achievements of American literature despite its flawed politics. Dos Passos began a devoted socialist, convinced that capitalism had both caused and profited from the war. Later in his career, particularly in a 1950's trilogy entitled, "Mid-Century," Dos Passos repudiated his left-wing sympathies for a turn to the political right. In spite of these ideological trappings, he remains, along with William Faulkner, one of the most significant exponents of experimental fiction in America over the past millenium.