Now that I've finished "The Big Money," I certainly have to applaud Dos Passos for putting together this sort of novel -- a collective novel of sorts, with no main heroes, but following a group of people over about 30 years, with appropriate news headlines and brief bios of the famous interspersed. The author even inserts himself in the novel through a series of inserts called "The Camera Eye," which present in a rather stream-of-consciousness sort of way, what Dos Passos himself was experiencing, or imagines he was experiencing during the time period discussed in each of the novels.
The overall tone of the work, despite some moments of hope and relative happiness, takes a pessimistic view of human existence. Humans are caught in historical circumstances and conditions such as class affect the possibilities open to anyone. And the forces themselves, and the people apparently putting them into effect, do not live up to the ideals presented on either side of the political spectrum. The more traditional people (the Dems and the Republicans) present their actions as serving some higher ideal -- the US fighting in WWI as the "war to end all wars" -- or a "return to normalcy." Those on the left preach a gospel that tells of a workers' paradise, some day. But the real people spouting such slogans are all flawed individuals and they get themselves caught up in the rhetoric, either blind-sided by (or intentionally blind to) forces bey0nd them.
Though Dos Passos had, at the time of his writing this epic trilogy, a leftist leaning, he himself is blind to injustice outside his own class -- he may speak for Sacco and Vanzetti and others who are done in by an unjust system, but always with the lens of a young man who went to Harvard, who probably enjoyed going to the University Club or the Harvard Club during his downtime. The plight of African-Americans, for instance, is not really addressed in the work, and the plight of Hispanic Americans gets some treatment in the first volume, but always from the perspective of the Irish Americans who are helping them. Which is just a way of saying that Dos Passos himself, in painting this great tapestry of America in the first third of the 20th c., did not realize he was himself limited by a lens he could not see.

Volume 3 of the book that changed my life.

I read USA 50 years ago this summer and it changed my life. I just re-read it. and it's changed it more, Superb! And oh-so-timely.

Yesterday I finished The Big Money, by John dos Passos, and therefore The Usa Trilogy.
The Big Money closes up the story beautifully. We encounter characters that were left behind and they themselves meet each other, which is always interesting. This book in particular tells how the United States developed after WWI while tensions between the very rich and the very poor, helped by the Communist Party, emerged.
I really enjoyed reading it, it was the cherry on top of the cake.

An interesting but not very enjoyable read. I didn’t really feel like there was any one main character in the book, and while the plot follows characters like Charley and Margo the most, the collage of newspaper headings, brief introductions to numerous famous Americans of the era, song snippets, etc., left me with the impression that it is meant to be AMERICA’s story, more than that of any particular American. Or more specifically, the post-WWI to pre-stock market crash America.

The 20’s are an interesting time in American history, and Dos Passos really delves into the glamour and excess, the confidence of America after the war contrasted with the materialistic, doomed future. His characters are for the most part unhappy and not very likable (just my opinion of course) and are largely self-serving and slaves to their own weaknesses/vices. They also provide an interesting contrast between the idea of the American dream and the reality. (Charley, a war hero who makes his way into business, “the self made man,” is also a drunk who uses and abuses women, and Margo, the pretty blond who heads west to become a movie star, was a victim of sexual abuse as a child and uses people relentlessly on her way to the top.)

I did like how Dos Passos alludes to American “mythic” figures, like the Wright Brothers, Isadora Duncan, and Henry Ford. One of the most interesting is the description of the life and death of Rudolph Valentino, and the riots of crazed fans who immortalized him immediately after death. The description of his diseased body in contrast with his image of legendary, silver screen beauty is an interesting metaphor for myth versus the reality that lurks beneath. The newsreels included between sections were very interesting too, and could be viewed as a symbol of the media’s role in that distortion between myth and reality. Many of the headlines that Dos Passos includes are sensational and ugly, but they also show how the press controls/filters what people see and remember of their era. In contrast, the stories of the individuals in The Big Money can be viewed as the realities behind the headlines. (Which is pretty bad considering it ends BEFORE the stock market crash and Great Depression. Yikes.) No wonder Ada says “Oh Mary […] I wish everybody wasn’t so unhappy.”

The final book of the trilogy has finally won me over, I do believe. It's not my immediate preference - be warned, Dos Passos has a strength in illustrating idiocy and lifetimes of poor decisions with painful accuracy. Thoughtful, poignant, and painful. Altogether, a worthy set of books to push through.

I really liked this book. It was originally published in the 1930s yet the America that the book portrays is hauntingly similar to the capitalist America we live in today. The downfall of a consumerist society that eats itself from within.

Dos Passos is very experimental with his prose. There are four different sections throughout the novel: the characters’ storylines, autobiographical tidbits about famous historical figures, the Camera Eye displaying the reality of life during the Industrial Era and real newsreels from the era that show the propaganda-oriented media. With this experimental writing, Dos Passos blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction. Yes, the characters are fictional but they perfectly parallel the reality that was America during the Era.

The novel switches narrators several times and demonstrates the stories of several characters that succumb to the deteriorating effects of a selfish, consumerist society. There’s a lot of fluctuation in opportunity and wealth among the characters throughout the novel. But ultimately, the facade of the “American Dream” comes crumbling down to merely be an unattainable standard. And the only thing that remains to be permanent is class disparity.

Something I really liked was how family life and domesticity was displayed to be the antithesis of industrialization. The more people got detached from domesticity, the closer they got to their downfall.

I also really liked that the novel showed the facade of industrialization through the lens of business, media and art. It was a very multidimensional approach to analyzing the flaws of American society.

I'm not sure why I continued with the trilogy when I wasn't especially impressed with the first two books. I found them historically interesting mostly. I wasn't riveted by the writing.

Gritty portrait of American life a century ago. A must-read for its historical insights as well as pure artistic wordcraft. Emotional impact best described as a sock in the gut. A masterpiece.

Improved upon the predecessor, particularly with the complacence of Margo and the tragedy of Charley being put at the forefront. I do think the ending is one that I'll need to ponder a while (choosing that character's journey to be the final chapter of a 1000-page manuscript...what precisely is meant by it?), but I liked it. The literary prowess of writing three interconnected novels is gargantuan, even if so many since have stood on Dos Passos shoulders (and occasionally surpassed him).

John Dos Passos has a Dickensian passion for the downtrodden and out of luck. It is this passion which guides his narrative through the otherwise unexplored slices of early 20th century Americana. One of the great lessons I took from this book, as well as the other two volumes in the trilogy, is that America and its citizens are as they have always been. This series feels quite modern, even though it is nearly 90 years old. The USA Trilogy is universal in its themes and ageless in its quality.

My only gripe with the series is that it explored so many facets of American life (literally everything from abortion to labor movements), but it leaves issues of race completely alone. In fact, the somewhat casual use of the n-word in the book reinforces the existing power structures. Everything else in the series only serves to question and break down existing power structures. I can't help but think that Dos Passos would have amended this issue if he had written the books a couple decades later.

The Big Money is a very interesting and compelling novel that I'm glad to have read. It's actually the third book in the "USA Trilogy" following American culture through the first 3 decades of the 20th century (each novel covering one decade). The Big Money takes us through the 1920s.

The style is experimental and at times a little odd because of that. Had I not been reading this as part of a class or with some notes to help guide me, I'm certain I would have missed a lot of the nuances.

There are 4 different writing threads throughout the novel:
* Lives (actual story arcs of fictional characters)
* Biographies (mini-biographies of notable characters such as Ford, Hearst, and others)
* Newsreels (snippets from newspaper, radio, pop culture and other elements…pieced together poetically to convey a thought or thread)
* Camera Eye (commentary on what's going on…a sort of personal context outside of the story)

The way the novel is pieced together is very intriguing and made for fun reading. It provides some very interesting insights into what social, political and cultural life was like during this timeframe. The size and content can certainly be daunting, but the presentation is in bite-sized chunks which makes it more manageable. Still, I would recommend you pay close attention and perhaps have a quick link to wikipedia or other reference material in order to get the full perspective.

****
4 out of 5 stars

American ovetdrive

I'd forgotten how radical this book is. Did Passos doesn't pull any punches in these overlapping portraits of sanctimonious American hucksterism that went into the creation of the Imperial American Empire and the heart-breaking struggles against it. Like all true literature, it stays terrifyingly relevant.