This was really an interesting book. I really enjoyed how the author use several different techniques to give the reader the full experience of life in the early 20th century United States. In addition to the narratives of a variety of people living in different parts of the United States and from different socioeconomic levels, the author includes brief biographical sketches of notable people of the time, and he includes his own childhood reminiscences, and he includes newspaper headlines from the times as well. It all comes together to give one a very robust and full bodied idea of what living in the early 20th century in the United States was like..

The 42nd Parallel is a lavish slice of the American life at the beginning of the twentieth century…
John Dos Passos has a sharp mind and a sharp eye so he is capable to penetrate into the innermost depths of human psyche. And he knows the ways of life inside out.

The only man that gets anything out of capitalism is a crook, and he gets to be a millionaire in short order…

The world of contrasts: success and failure, the poor and the rich, the unlucky many against the lucky few, or is history a battle of the honest and the unscrupulous?

Andrew Carnegie gave millions for peace
and libraries and scientific institutes and endowments and thrift
whenever he made a billion dollars he endowed an institution to promote universal peace
always
except in time of war.

Men make money. Money makes a man.

http://kristinsbookblog.blogspot.com/...

First, as an introduction to Dos Passos, who – if you are anything like I was until recently (and only because of my book list obsession) – you have never heard of, some quotes:

“[He’s:] the greatest living writer of our time.” -Jean Paul Sartre, 1938

“Dos Passos came nearer than any of us to writing the Great American Novel, and it’s entirely possible he succeeded. I can only say, from my own point of view, that no novel I read while in college stimulated me more, astounded me more and showed me what a thrilling inner life was there for anyone gifted enough to be a major American novelist.” – Norman Mailer on Dos Passos’s U.S.A. Trilogy

Dos Passos created a “whole new school of writing.” - Sinclair Lewis, on Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer

One of the greatest pleasures of being a reader is not only discovering a hidden gem in a book, but finding a hidden gem in a new author…especially one that made you leery at first. I was not overly excited about John Dos Passos or his U.S.A. Trilogy. Even though basic research would/should have made me anticipate it with joy. A forgotten member of the Lost Generation? Contemporary and friend (sort of ) of Fitzgerald and Hemingway? This should have tipped me off. but instead, I was apprehensive about my ability to like Dos Passos. Somewhere along the line, he had become lumped in with Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser. Not that I don’t sometimes enjoy Lewis and Dreiser (Main Street was one of my favorite books I read this year). They can just be a little daunting sometimes.

And then, lo and behold, I very quickly learned that I was oh so wrong in my apprehension. 42nd Parallel, the first volume of the trilogy, turned out to be FABULOUS!

42nd Parallel, published in 1930, tells the story of five characters: Mac, Janey, Eleanor, Ward, and Charley, following them from all childhood until the beginning of America’s direct involvement in WWI. They’re all from different backgrounds, different places. Eventually they converge and begin to play parts in each others lives. They’re all trying to figure out where they fit in – where they fit in society, in the country, the new century, the political world - what their role could or should be. But it’s not a character study – Dos Passos isn’t trying to be Henry James and describe every minute detail…every motivation. It just goes – it moves…somewhere I saw Dos Passos’s writing described as “rapid-transit pace,” and that is an apt description.

Dos Passos calls his style "contemporary chronicle." The novel isn’t just these characters, and it’s not traditional narrative. The story of each is told intermittently from that characters point-of-view (but in the third person). This is interspersed with news headlines, song lyrics, biographies of famous or important people of the time, and what Dos Passos calls the “camera eye,” which I will post about later. And when I say biographies, I don’t mean, “so-and-so was born at this place, on this date, and here’s what he did.” Here’s two examples:


(From "The Electrical Wizard")

Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, in eighteen fortyseven;
Milan was a little town on the Huron River that for a while was the wheatshipping port for the whole Western Reserve; the railroads took away the carrying trade, the Edison family went up to Port Huron in Michigan to grow up with the country;
his father was a shinglemaker who puttered round with various small speculations; he dealt in grain and feed and lumber and built a wooden tower a hundred feet high; tourists and excursionists paid a quarter each to go up the tower and look at the view over Lake Huron and the St. Clair River and Sam Edison became a solid and respected citizen of Port Huron.

Thomas Edison only went to school for three months because the teacher thought he wasn't right bright. His mother taught him what she knew at home and read eighteenth century writers with him, Gibbon and Hume and Newton, and let him rig up a laboratory in the cellar.

Whenever he read about anything he went down cellar and tried it out.
When he was twelve he needed money to buy books and chemicals; he got a concession as a newsbutcher on the daily train from Detroit to Port Huron. In Detroit there as a public library and he read it...

He worked all day and all night tinkering with cogwheels and bits of copperwire and chemicals in bottles, whenever he thought of a device he tried it out. He made things work. He wasn't a mathematician. I can hire mathematicians but mathematicians can't hire me, he said.
In eighteen seventysix he moved to Menlo Park where he invented the carbon transmitter and made the telephone a commercial proposition, that made the microphone possible
he worked all day and all night and produced
the phonograph
the incandescent electric lamp

and systems of generation, distribution, regulation and measurement of electric current, sockets, switches, insulators, manholes. Edison worked out the first systems of electric light using a direct current and small unit lamps and the multiple arc that were installed in London Paris New York and Sunbury Pa., [YEAH SUNBURY!:]
the threewire system
the magnetic ore separator,
an electric railway.



(I just had to make sure I included the part about Sunbury! It's friggin' awesome when you come from a small town without any nationally known import and then you come across it in a book of such importance.)

and from "Proteus"


In eighteen ninetytwo when Eichemeyer sold out the corporation that was to form General Electric, Steinmetz was entered in the contract along with other valuable apparatus. All his life Steinmetz was a piece of apparatus belonging to General Electric...
General Electric humored him, let him be a socialist, let him keep a greenhouseul of cactuses lit up by mercury lights, let him have alligators, talking crows and a gila monster for pets and the publicity department talked up the wizard, the medicine man who knew the symbols that opened all the doors of Ali Baba's cave...
Steinmetz was a famous magician and he talked to Edison tapping with the Morse code on Edison's knee
because Edison was so very deaf
and he went out West
to make speeches that nobody understood
and he talked to Bryan about God on a railroad train
and all the reporters stood round while he and Einstein
met face to face;
and but they couldn't catch what they said.

And Steinmetz was the most valuable piece of apparatus General Electric had
Until he wore out and died.

His narrative has a similar pace and rhythm as the biographies.

42nd Parallel is experimental and modern. You can see the coming generation of writers, and I was struck by the similartiy of cadence in Dos Passos as in Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. I don't know if Ginsberg read or was influenced by Dos Passos, but I can't imagine he wasn't. I know Kerouac was. He quotes U.S.A. Trilogy in his letters, and was reading Dos Passos (aloong with Dreiser, Wolfe and Sinclair Lewis) during the time he was outlining Dr. Sax. What I don’t understand is why, apart from my book lists, have I not heard of Dos Passos? Why isn’t he mentioned in school, in literary resources, along with Stein, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Hemingway? Where did his reputation sour such that, while he was just as popular and important in the early 20th century as those others were, somehow he is now pretty much forgotten?

On average, I finish almost one book per week. Over the last 10 years, that means almost 500 books. Probably more than half of those are just ok. So far this year, I’ve read 53 books and looking at my list, less than 15 really stand out. So, to find a new author that really excites me…that’s what reading is all about. Jeanette Winterson, in one of her essays, says, “knowing that there are favorite books still to come is a continuing happiness.” That’s why I bother with book lists…for an increased chance to find those great authors. The chance that I would have picked up Dos Passos without his appearance on The Lists is probably relatively small. But I loved 42nd Parallel…I’m so glad I found it. I cannot wait to read the next two books in the trilogy, and his other work. A+ for this leading contender for the Great American Novel.

Kitap İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları Modern Klasikler serisinin problemler yaşayan birkaç üyesinden biri. Son derece geri plana atılmış, çeviri ve editörlüğü dahi sanki biraz baştan savma yapılmış (çevirmeni Oya Dalgıç'a Allah'tan rahmet diliyorum.) en dramatik tarafıysa, telifi kaybedilmiş, yalnız ilk iki kitabı basılabilmiş bir üçlemenin birinci kitabı.

İçinde James Joyce tarzı bölümler olan, okuması nispeten zor bir eser. Çok fazla ana karakter var. Bunların yolu çoğunlukla kesişse de hikâyeler birbiriyle çok karışıyor. Kitap hem sıra dışı, hem de maalesef çok dağınık. Okura yardımcı olabilecek (editör-çevirmen) dokunuşlar yok denecek kadar az.

Yazar bize tarih vermiyor ama hikayelerden yakaladığımız ufak tarih kırıntılarına göre, Birinci Dünya Savaşı'nın öncesi 5-10 yıl ve esasen savaş yılları öykülerin geçtiği zaman aralığı diyebiliriz. Bu dönemin Birleşik Amerika'sına konuk oluyoruz.

Bulması da şu anlık zor olduğundan ve 3. kitabın baskısı başka yayınevinde olduğundan üzülerek tavsiye edemiyorum. Kim bilir, belki daha iyi bir metinle tam seri olarak yeniden basılır. O zaman hak ettiği okur ilgisini de mutlaka görecektir. Sonuçta çok okuduğumuz bir dönemi, pek okumadığımız bir taraftan aktarmış yazar. Potansiyeli yüksek bir seri bu yüzden. Ben şimdi 2 ve 3. kitapları da okuyup serinin gidişatını biraz daha net analiz edebilmeyi umuyorum.

Bu arada John Dos Passos Birinci Dünya Savaşı'na kendisi de katılmıştır. Eserinde kendi hayatına benzer olay kesitlerini farklı karakterlerin başına gelirken görebilirsiniz.

Εξαιρετική καταγραφή της Αμερικανικής ιστορίας των αρχών του 20ου αιώνα μέχρι και τον Μεγάλο Πόλεμο, μέσα από τις ιστορίες διαφόρων ηρώων, κυρίως χαμηλής τάξης, που πασχίζουν για ένα καλύτερο αύριο, αλλά συνήθως δεν καταφέρνουν να κάνουν μεγάλα βήματα, και ενίοτε οι ιστορίες τους διασταυρώνονται. Μέσα από τις πορείες της ζωής των ηρώων μαθαίνουμε για τους αγώνες της εργατικής τάξης και την πορεία της αμερικανικής κοινωνίας προς τον 20ο αιώνα. Πολύ απλή και κατανοητή γραφή από τον Τζον Ντος Πάσος, ο οποίος εμπλουτίζει το βιβλίο με εμβόλιμες πληροφορίες-ιστορίες που αποτυπώνουν με μεγαλύτερη ακρίβεια την εποχή.
Βαθμολογία: εύκολο 5/5
υγ. Πολύ κρίμα που η τριλογία είναι εκτός κυκλοφορίας εδώ και αρκετά χρόνια.

Xperimental Mash-up

This experimental novel set in the early 1900s before the Market Crash is a mash-up of random radio broadcasts of news headlines and lyrics, biographical blurbs on significant figures, and the aimless autobiographical gibberings of a literary sadist.

It reminded me how my admiration for an artist with the courage to spend years on daring innovations has no true relation to my appreciation (or not) for the end product.

I keep going back to the same question, which arises from my own fear I guess: Am I so unrefined and unenlightened that I still cannot see what others recognize in the works of, say, Jackson Pollock or Frank Zappa?

It’s uncanny how natural it feels that De Passos himself led all these lives. His many characters’ lives are summaries and bits of free indirect speech, but there’s a level of sensuous, often unmistakably personal detail, too. With two lines, De Passos makes a burgeoning romance or friendship seem like the most beautiful thing in the world.

This skill at inducing feeling fits the intense political themes of the moment (there’s a lot here about US Labor movements, xenophobia, jingoism, and free speech repression during WW1 - would make a great companion piece to the chapter in Zinn’s People’s History). Everyone seems to be living and believing so fervently - though, it’s interesting that De Passos often seems to position political beliefs as provisional for his characters. It’s especially interesting knowing he eventually became disillusioned with socialism.

The experimental bits between chapters worked for me, for the most part. Camera Eye and the Newspaper bits set mood well, though I retained little. The historical figure mini-biographies were all lovely. I’m curious to see how these, as well other aspects of this novel, and his ideas in general, evolved throughout the rest of the trilogy!

Want to get an idea of how much the United States changed in 100 years?

The best part about The 42nd Parallel is the time period of its stories. Set at the beginning of the twentieth century, these stories serve to define a near-perfect world for capitalism. They serve to reveal the truths about lives that are lived on only a fraction of their real value and continue to show how others amassed fortunes by claiming the balance. In relationship to the present, these stories also reveal the greatest opportunity that capitalism has ever had to step forward and to transform society; an opportunity that was missed, however, due to the impairments of greed.

Aside from the subject and timeframe that made The 42nd Parallel a fairly good book, there were stylistic aspects that did not work for me.

First, The 42nd Parallel is more of a social and physical inventory of the United States in the early years of the twentieth century. As such, it’s far better to describe this book as a docudrama rather than as a novel. So much so that I have the distinct impression that Dos Passos made a list of everything that he felt was important about the time period and then proceeded to connect every item on that list with shot fragments of overarching storylines. Since some items on the list were incompatible with others, a few different stories were needed to get all of the items into the same book. Then, in order to make some effort to transform this collection of stories into a novel, Dos Passos devotes about 70 of the book’s 400-plus pages to main character interactions.

Also, by the end of the book I was going crazy with the word “and.” Granted, if you start with a list of things and want to tie these things together, then the word “and” can seem magical with respect to your goals. The word also helps to keep the book moving without dwelling on any one thing too long. However, using it multiple times within multiple sentences of a single paragraph, time after time again throughout the book, is distracting [and perhaps annoying and possibly a bit irritating and that all leads to a poor reading experience and possibly lead to this last part of my review].

"U.S.A. is the slice of a continent. […] U.S.A. is the world’s greatest rivervalley fringed with mountains and hills, U.S.A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with too many bank accounts. U.S.A. is a lot of men in their uniforms buried in Arlington Cemetery. U.S.A. is the letters at the end of an address when you are away from home. But mostly U.S.A. is the speech of the people."

4 stars, a fascinating novel with a strong command of tone and voice. It doesn't have a traditional narrative structure which can leave it feeling a bit unmoored at times but I'm intrigued enough and pleased enough with its experimentation to continue on to the sequel. The book does a great job providing various snapshots of early 1900s American life specifically through the lens of political turmoil and working class angst at corporate greed.

This is the first part of a three part series called USA that I am reading for the 1,000 Books to read before you Die listing. Honestly, if I wasn't reading this with the group, I would have given up multiple times. In the end, I did like some of the stories and found them interesting to read. But the whole format was very distracting to read.

I will have to consider reading the other two books in the series. At least I have a little bit to decide.