Customer Reviews

U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money (Library of America)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lots of people try to find America. Dos Passos found the America of 1910-1930 and gave it to us, in almost 1300 pages spread across three novels - all collected in this one volume. He presents it to us as a tapestry, woven from four types of thread: stories focused on any of the 12 principle characters, actual news items from the period, biographical sketches of key figures from that time, and stream-of-consciousness narratives. It's dark and smoky, gritty and real. It's America.

As the focus moves from character to character, we fall in love with all twelve of them, despite their flaws. They take us all over North America, and even to Europe for World War I. Rich and poor, male and female, worker, labor organizer, aviation millionaire or government official, all have their own stories to tell, and each represents a bit of America.

Such a grand fabric contains many themes: drink destroys the great and the small alike, illicit sex seduces people into giving up their money, their families, and their health, and everyone takes advantage of the working man - even his so-called friends. Nevertheless, the book never seems to be making a moral point, and the characters don't come across as good or evil, heroes or villains; they're just people.

One does become uncomfortably aware much the America of 100 years ago resembles the Third World countries of today. Read Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance" to compare and contrast.

This edition of USA (Library of America, Hardcover) combines all three novels into a single handy volume with decent explanatory notes, a built-in silk bookmark, and - best of all - a sewn binding that lies flat, despite the nearly 1300 pages.

Dos Passos' trilogy is important reading for anyone intersted in American History. In particular, Dos Passos chronicles the history of the labor movement in the US and the revolt of working class worldwide.

It is intersting to note that at the time that this book was written, Dos Passos was a frevent socialist/communist. By the time of his death, he had renounced the communist idealogies for a more conservatine viewpoint.

Although, the fictional prose is simplistic and the dialogue somewhat cliched, a powerful story is told. The world is seen through the eyes of several ordinary citizens, all with different backgrounds and from different classes. The characters lives interwave through important world events such as labor unrest, Mexican revolution, World War 1, and the Russian Revolution.

Interwoven throughout the fiction are snippets that attempt to educate the reader. The 'Camera Eye' passages are newspaper headlines and attempt to capture the mood of the day. There are sections of Dos Passos's own thoughts of the day, some of them written as Dos Passos as a child might have seen them. My favorite sections were the short autobiographies of important citizens- among them Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Eugene Debs, Woodrow Wilsoon, and Emma Goldberg.

If you are lookiong for a passionate or suspenseful fictional story, this is not the book for you. But if you are intersted in history, especially American History, this book is excellent in capturing the mood of first third of the 20th century.

I read this book first in 1967 while in high school, given to me by a teacher who wanted me to understand the real American History. When he told me an American general marched on World War One veterans in Washington, DC after WW I and killed many who were looking for veterans benefits I knew this book would be special. It delivers history in a most compelling and unique way, unlike any other book I've read. Americans don't know the whole truth of US History. These three books pick a period and educate, entertain, horrify and overwhelm you with our culture, our past, our politics. It is a must read for anyone remotely interested in US history. One of my favorite books of all time.

Now this is not to say that USA is relatively 'the best American Novel' (alas, it is only among them within the unique tapestry of Great American Writers), but when defining the concept as 'American Novel', what more could anyone aspire toward?

These three novels are brilliant seperately (in my college days I was asigned 1919 by itself in a course on 'the radical novel'; nevertheless I recall being immensely impressed), and yet seem even more overwhelming taken as a whole. The structure provides a random consecutiveness--as in one long story chronicling the stages of life of numerous fully developed characters, the random swirl of existence buzzing in the text never content to stop introducing another. At nearly 1300 pages (shortened immensely by a short-story detail sped up by experimental prose poetry and detailed biographical editorials on life and the times of the American world spinning around both character and reader from the turn of the 19th century until the economic collapse of 1929, as well as frequent, crudely effective illustrations that serve more as a break, as a magazine article complete with pictures) the quick pacing and exciting narrative will blaze you through to the end of each section, hungry to scrape in just a few more pages before the inevitability of unconsciousness.

The politics of the book are varied: clearly opinionated yet with a rational outlook that includes the validity of opposing belief. As a result it comes across as remarkably open to human experience and the ways different people take the same things happening to them. I found it endlessly fascinating and have annoyed several people (no doubt by this time including several of you)with endless, endless raves . . .

Okay--I don't take it quite as seriously as that, but more as a document of a time from as many possible angles as a human mind could presume about others.

What does history mean to you? For every college student who has taken an American literature class that covers the early twentieth century, they will come across excerpts of THE USA TRILOGY: 42nd Parallel, 1919, and BIG MONEY. Through out the reading of John Dos Passos' THE USA TRILOGY, this question may penetrate through the mind of each reader that encounters these three books, which were quite innovative during the time in which they were published. This three-volume publication is rich with historical references that pertain to the Civil War, WWI, Industrial Age, and the Russian Revolution. This may be a travel log through Post Modern twentieth century history when writers spontaneously wrote about every bit of observation and engraved them in large volumes of text. Dos Passos was one of those novelists that evolved during the post-WWI age.

Dos Passos wrote about the ever-changing American landscape after World War I that affected the politics as well as the social structure that occurred as a result of the inclusion and exclusion of immigrants that erupted with much nationalistic and xenophobic fervor as well as paranoia. Historians may consider this period in history as the first wave of the Cold War. However, his topics concentrate on the build up of urban development and union formation in the city versus break down of rural and small town constructs of the country. From New York to the coastline of Hampton Roads, Dos Passos covers a wide terrain.

With its experimental poetry and newsreel and newspaper headline layout, the book reads like countless interruptions or intermissions between the narratives. Dos Passos creates a tremendous amount of vivid images that may create a mental picture of the words conveyed in the book. There are splashes of imagery and symbolism that represent the atmosphere in which Dos Passos experienced, which resembles a biographical and bibliographical array of experiences that influenced what he wrote. Therefore, the reading of this fine text takes both an objective and subjective point of view because of its creative nonfiction slant.

Dos Passos' work may be critiqued by literary academics, but speaking from a historical perspective, this set of novels have the history of the early twentieth century in the form of snapshots of the period from narratives that resemble oral histories to commentaries of US history that span from regions divided by the war of the states to the upheaval of the Great Depression. This book is recommended for those who are enticed with US history in the form of a novel. It may take months or a summer to seriously read, but it will be worth the read.

This is the true American Epic.

Dos Passos wrote this trilogy almost as a documentary. It is a history lesson, with newspaper articles, biographical sketches, beautiful train of thought prose poems, and, in the midst of it all, fictional but brutally realistic characters who each experience the times through a unique set of eyes.

Since I have read this book it has become one of my favorites, and there are few titles with more meaning to me than _U.S.A_.

If ever there has been a truly great epic, this is it.

USA is a work about the people. Every character that Dos Passos introduces has his or her own ideas and philosophies as well as short fallings and errant natures. So broad is his scope of writing that I feel he covers nearly everything in this somewhat immense trilogy. USA is also an enjoyable history lesson. As Dos Passos weaves the lives of his characters together and apart again, he adds short snippets about influential Americans such as Ford and Edison.

You don't have to agree with the extreme left wing and anti-war ideas to enjoy this book. Nor should you turn it away because of its size.

An excellent novel, more than deserving of five stars.

Author John Dos Passos painted a masterpiece on the Lost Generation in his novels which comprised the USA Trilogy.

His use of snapshots to chronicle scenes and the introduction of material through headlines was revolutionary in American fiction; with the mechanics of presentation arguably overshadowing the oftentimes narrow and shrill angle of political thought.

Though the impact from Dos Passos continues to be overshadowed by contemporary icons like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the USA Trilogy - difficult to find in one volume like this Library of America release - is a voice from characters whose lives were too often ignored or quickly forgotten.

I believe that the USA trilogy presented here (thankfully, under one roof- when I first read it I had to scrounge around for the third book-The Big Money) was the first time that I had read a novel than used the literary devices that the author John Dos Passos used here. Vignettes, bits of poetry, snap biographies, headline banners all are employed here to great effect to both set up the drama of the narrative (such as it is) and interplay between the various characters. Today we are all very familiar with the device; as the modern reader has E.L. Doctorow to rely on to continue this tradition as he has done in his works such as Ragtime and The Book of Daniel. But back then it was rather an unusual and one that today's literary scholars have taken apart piece by piece in their efforts to discount this work as a worthy insight into a slice of Americana in the first third of the 20th century.

The stories here cross between the exploits of the rich (and their wannabes) and the exploitation of poor (and their gonnabes). As is natural in a novel, modern or otherwise, we also have the search for love, the trauma of lost love, the inevitable longings for love and the occasional betrayal of that emotion. We have hustlers (in high and low places), drifters, grifters and midnight shifters. In short, a regular cross-section of the white native and recetn immigrant population of that period. We see them in America and the other noted spots of the period, such as Mexico, Europe and Russia. We see them as political, anti-political, non-political and clueless, wise or broken. In some 1300 pages we get a companion as much as a novel. For those of a certain generation, including this writer's these characters- creative designers, high powered executives, labor organizers, scabs, revolutionaries were types we were at least familiar with from stories in childhood. Well, friends they are back here in this edition. So take your time and get re-introduced to a slice of America that is long gone and ain't coming back.

A short comment on the author- at this period in his life (the 1920's) he was an ardent leftist of some persuasion. (I have asked around but nobody believes that he was actually in the American Communist Party although in Spain in the 1936-37 he was, according to my sources, close to some of the Americans in the International Brigade and wrote some good articles on their exploits and their trials and tribulations.) All this is by way of saying that I think that youthful leftist political slant helped fuel the book and gave it a vitality lacking in some of his latter work when he got old and cranky about politics and became a 'spiritual godfather' for the right wing Young Americans for Freedom in the early 1960's.

John Dos Passos wrote three novels that are encapsulated by the title: "USA."

These novels are beautiful and sublime in their composition. While reading of some sad stories as well as some humorous ones, the readers is taken on a journey through the 1920's in America. We get a sense of what it was like then. His chapters begin and often end in a "NEWSREEL" imitation. In an age where we as readers have so much "bit" information flashed before our eyes, this mode works well at getting the snapshot ideas he is alluding to in the novels.

Dos Passos is a genius of words-- I recommend taking this one to the beach, especially if you are an American city history buff.