"Three Soldiers" is one of the earliest novels to come out of the First World War to express the disgust and disillusionment felt by many Americans who had participated in it.

Dos Passos (who had served as an ambulance driver in Italy during the war) introduces the reader to 3 distinctive characters who are representative of America's diversity. First, there's Chrisfield, an Indiana farmboy who's a bit rough round the edges and always spoiling for a fight. Second, there is Dan Fuselli, a first generation Italian-American from San Francisco who looks upon the Army as a gateway to a better life after the war. He goes out of his way to make himself useful to his superior officers in base camp (and later in France) in hopes of gaining advancement. Making sergeant is his ultimate dream, for an NCO (non-commissioned officer) is in a position to assert authority over the men in his charge. Third, comes John Andrews, a New Yorker by way of Virginia (where he spent his early life with his mother) and a Harvard graduate, too, who enters the Army as an idealist. He's excited about being part of a great crusade, as he sees it, to "make the world safe for democracy" and give Kaiser Bill a real butt-kickin'. The 3 men meet during basic training, which proves to be a dispiriting experience for all of them. The regimentation and discipline -- as well as contending with the Army bureaucracy and the general Army ethos --- weigh them down.

Fuselli is the first to be shipped to France. Dos Passos gives the reader a bird's eye view of Fuselli's departure from base camp to embarkation point on the East Coast, and the subsequent voyage to France. Reading these passages almost made me feel that I was on deck an overcrowded troopship, huddled in an Army trenchcoat for warmth, looking out over the ocean and wondering how many U-boats are lying in wait.

Once situated in France, Fuselli is chagrined to learn that, instead of being posted to a unit bound for the Front, he is, instead, posted to a rear-echelon medical unit. This doesn't sit well for him. But he bides his time currying favor with his superior officers. Eventually, his unit is called up in the wake of the German offensives of the spring and summer of 1918. But Fuselli allows himself to be talked into applying for reassigment to another unit (in staff headquarters) on the eve of departure for combat in hopes of receiving a permanent promotion to corporal. (By now, he had risen to the rank of private first class.)


Chrisfield and John Andrews are also sent to France, where each of them experience some combat in the late stages of the war. But what contrasts this book with Erich Maria Remarque's "ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT", is that the reader gets no real sense of combat, of being on the frontlines. Dos Passos is much more interested in looking at the interior lives of the 3 men more than having them displayed as chess pieces on the battlefield. The novel is a polemic on what Dos Passos sees as the futility and absurdity of the First World War. What's more, in France, he focuses more on telling Andrews' story, so much so that most of the book is taken up with him. I won't say much more, for fear of giving away the gist of the story.

But I will say that "THREE SOLDIERS" made for much better reading than "A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR", which I came to thoroughly hate for its verbosity and its main character's arrogance and pomposity.

کتاب سه سرباز جان دوس پاسوس هیچ نشانه ای از یک اثر ضد جنگ ندارد ، اساسا هیولای جنگ حضور چندانی در کتاب نویسنده نداشته است ، آنچه که در کتاب شاهد هستیم بیشتر همانند ماجراجویی چند جوان آمریکایی در فرانسه و پاریس در شرایطی نه چندان عادی ایست .
این جوانان آرزوهای زیادی ندارند ، اینکه بتوانند زیبارویی فرانسوی پیدا کنند و اوقات خود را به خوشی بگذرانند برایشان کافی ایست ، خواننده نباید انتظار کلام فلسفی از آنان داشته باشد ، سرنوشت آنها هم زود برای خواننده روشن می شود .
کتاب آقای پاسوس ممکن است برای خوانندگان قرن گذشته اندکی اعتراض آمیز باشد ولی با گذشت سال ها و در حالی که جنبشهای اعتراضی قدرت و بُرد بسیاری پیدا کرده اند و عملا پایان برخی از جنگها را اعتراضات مردم رقم زده ، کلام نویسنده بسیار کهنه و قدیمی و البته شعاری به نظر می رسد .

I wanted to read a World War I novel. Instead, I read a novel about some men who hated the army. dos Passos would have served his audience better had he provided some detail that leads to these men hating the army. There is some complaint that all they do is go on marches, although we're never there when they actually *do* go on marches. Yep, the army needs its men kept busy, to work as a unit, and to gain physical strength - they still do this and it still works. And, somehow, dos Passos seemed to be of the opinion that everyone should be in charge of whatever work they wanted to do - even in the Army! - and that the officers telling them what to do are making the soldiers "slaves." I understand that dos Passos eventually became disabused of the utopia of communism, but he had not been so enlightened when he penned this.

He seemed to want to make sure his readers could envision his scenes in color.

They passed the leafless gardens of the Tuileries on one side, and the great inner courts of the Louvre, with their purple mansard roofs and their high chimneys on the other, and saw for a second the river, dull jade green, and the plane trees splotched with brown and cream color along the quais, before they were lost in the narrow brownish-grey streets of the old quarters.

I did not especially like his characters, although likability isn't a requirement for me, but the characterizations might have been better. The prose wasn't great, but I've read worse and I expect he got better. If you're looking for action, look elsewhere, because dos Passos' enemy in this one are the non-coms and officers. This is my first by the author, and I'll probably try at least one more, as this is one of his earliest works. Three stars, but nearer two than four.

პირველი მსოფლიო ომი, სამი ჯარისკაცი და სამი ბედისწერა... ფიუზელი, კრისფილდი და ენდრიუსი ერთმანეთს შეახვედრა აბსურდმა სახელად "ომი", თუმცა შემდეგ სამივე მათგანის გზამ სხვადასხვა მომართულებით გადაუხვია. ერთადერთი, რაც არ შეცვლილა, ეს იყო ომი, რომელმაც ბრძოლის ველს მიღმაც მხოლოდ დამცირება, ტანჯვა და ბოროტება მოუტანა (და დღემდე მოაქვს) მილიონობით ჯარისკაცს და მთლიანად სამყაროს...

An early book and far less than I expected. I probably started at the wrong end of Dos Passos with Manhattan Transfer and USA.

Comes a long way down the list of War novels, like waaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy below All Quiet and The Good Soldier, The Things They Carried, and Goodbye to All That but then it deals with conscription and the Army in somewhat different terms focussing on the pettiness and ultimate boredom of those in arms, and how the conscripted army becomes the refuge of bores and bullies.

I wasn't prepared for the sheer romanticism of much of the book to the extent that the characters seem hackneyed and pushed to become mere ciphers, none more so than the Andrews educated muso who enlists through knowing not what to do in an environment of too much freedom. The naivety of the written characters is quite chilling in the face of destruction.

روزی را به یاد آورد که لخت وسط اتاق ایستاده بود و گروهبان سربازگیری اندازه اش میگرفت و معاینه‌اش میکرد، ناگهان دریافت زمانش را به یاد ندارد میتواند تنها یک سال پیش باشد؟ با این همه همین یک سال فاتحه ی تمام سالهای دیگر عمرش را خوانده بود. حالا اما زندگی را دوباره شروع می کند. دیگر از این فروتنی چاپلوسانه در برابر چیزهای بی ارزش رها میشود بی هیچ ملاحظه ای خودش خواهد بود.

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تنها دلیل انتخاب این کتاب، تنها و تنها تجربه کردن دوباره حال و هوای جنگ جهانی دوم بود. اما چون داستان و روال تاثیرگذاری آن آنچنان نبود که می پنداشتم ، فلذا آن را از خودم دور کردم.


تاریخ پایان خوانش: پاییز ۱۴۰۱

Probably 3.5. What is it about being a WWI ambulance driver/medical corps that made you a good writer?

hhhhh i'll probably come back and give this four stars later but three feels right for now!

the first third of this book is absolutely splendid. the opening scene? fabulous. the voyage across the atlantic, which so hauntingly mirrors cather's in one of ours? wow! i got jitters of excitement. unfortunately the book then proceeds to go completely off the rails after they arrive in france, which is truly, truly ironic :-)

i had a hunch we were going to be stuck with andrews for the larger portion of the book (since he's very clearly the dos passos stand-in) and i was a bit disappointed to find out i was right! crazy that we're glued to andy's despairing rhapsodizing hip when fuselli and chrisfield are right there, so flawed and ire-inducing but so wonderfully complex....!! we basically lose fuselli altogether after the first act which is such a shame because his story was substantial enough to have supported the entire book.... i would have loved to have seen a novel entirely dedicated to him, with chrisfield and andrews (or maybe just chris. andrews was a truly unnecessary addition to be honest LMAO) hovering around nearby as supporting cast. hm. anyway, dos passos wrote this when he was in his early twenties and still fairly fresh out of the war so i'll give him a pass.... also BOY it sure is hard to measure up to hemingway!

“TRES SOLDADOS” de John Dos Passos
Es un alegato antimilitarista con el que su autor quiere desmontar el optimismo que se generó en USA tanto cuando el presidente Woodrow Wilson decidió entrar el año 1917 en la Guerra Mundial, como cuando la misma finalizó con la victoria de los aliados. La maquinaria militar, en especial el Ejército y su jerárquica organización, aparecen en “Tres soldados” como laminadores de la individualidad y especificidad del ser humano. Las personas desaparecen bajo los uniformes anuladores de la personalidad, la repetitiva instrucción y la obediencia ciega a cualquier orden que proceda de un superior esté éste en sus cabales o no.
(more en http://elblogdejcgc.blogspot.com.es/2...)

I have heard that this is almost biographical as well as one of John Dos Passos' best novels and I can now say both thoughts are true. Although three soldiers are discussed this is mostly a story of John Andrews and his confusion of being sent to a War where his ethics and morals are tested along with his self worth. His cohorts constantly mis-advise him and are a continuous source for making wrong choices until he makes one horrible mistake on his own. This is not an easy read but it was written right after WWI by a true doughboy which lends such a refreshing air of authenticity.

In this scintilating modernist novel, John Dos Passos continually bludgeons the reader with the astounding knowledge that being a soldier in World War I was actually fairly shitty. Not totally without merit, I just think it's not my cup of tea.

Does not come even close to the power of all quiet on the western front or the USA trilogy. Unlike the trilogy there is no experimentation with voice. Unlike all quiet this is really not a novel about war. There's only two short and unclear scenes about the Argonne offensive. It really is an anti-army novel.

It has an odd structure. There are three characters who cross paths from time to time. Fusselli wants to be a corporal to impress people back home including his girl. Yet despite all of his efforts and gravelling he never gets the rank and finds a way to avoid combat. The girl ended up marrying a naval reservist. Chris becomes obsessed with killing a Sargeant which he does in combat then deserts when he fears he might be found out. Not sure what the point of his story was

Then we get the story of Andrew's who takes up more than 2/3's of the novel. I think his story is much like dos passes. He is educated but allows himself to be drafted as a private. He becomes obsessed by freedom. He can't stand taking orders and being turned into a machine. At first he gives in and does what needs to be done to improve his lot. But eventually he deserts and at the end of the novel allows himself to be captured when he is cornered. He will likely be shot because he discarded his uniform. Why? He seems to have reasoned that civilizations always seek to make organizations that are to improve upon the previous society only to create some new form of slavery. If one man does something to resist perhaps he has done something for freedom. This is why he was composing a musical number for John brown and why he picked this name as his alias.

The novel treads over the same ground too much which made it dull at times. In particular the descriptions of the meals and drinking in Paris reminded me of hemmingway. For pages and pages we dont seem to be getting anywhere. You get some good tension at the end when Andrew's is on the run. Also dos pass includes some memorable passages about freedom and how the army seeks to make men into a machine.

I also came to appreciate further the frustration of soldiers who were kept in France to await the results of the peace conference. More than half of the novel is about that period of time which would approximate the service of a us soldier. I have letters from a great uncle who served and he wrote often of how dull it was waiting to get back to the US. I also learned that the ymca sent men over who did not qualify for the draft to help with morale during the war.

The novel emphasizes the role that movies played in getting America to hate the Germans and there are plenty of references that betray the prejudice felt towards blacks jews Italians and people on the left.

Overall I give the author credit for screaming out against blind patriotism and conformity at a time when such thoughts could get a person into considerable trouble. But I would recommend tackling USA trilogy instead of this book if you want to see the brilliance if dos passos.
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