This book was kind of disappointing and a few of the reviews for the book from other GoodReaders are correct. The book wants to be a sprawling epic of New York life, but so many people are dog-piled one after another it's maddening. I can handle characters intersecting but to introduce even newer characters within the last thirty pages is plain bad writing.
I also didn't think many of the characters were fleshed-out enough so their outcomes left me cold. It's hard to sympathize with people who are only half-written. No wonder Dos Passos is such an obscure writer; he's just not very good.

"There are lives to be lived if only you didn't care."

I have to stop comparing books and authors (or at least stop doing it as superficially as I do) but I can't help it with this 1925 expressionist montage of many lives clinging to Manhattan, sinking or swimming, giving up, going on, changing their names, caring for all the wrong things (apparently), battered by luck and buffeted by economics, war and desire. The bottom line is (I think) the randomness of our lives, and how little New York cares for you, and how if you would just stop caring for it, and all it may promise, you'd be a damn sight better off. The two characters who seem to survive best in the awful new world are the two who care the least -  Ellen/Elaine/Helena and Congo/Armand  - and if you've read it, I wonder if you agree?

Stylistically it's like the literary equivalent of this:



So how can you not compare it to Gatsby (also 1925, in case you'd forgotten)? This seems much more modern, certainly more candid, brutal and frank, full of lies, adultery, abortion, violence, unhappy hotel rooms, psychoanalytic cures for homosexuality, corruption, bootlegging and fires, and many unromanticised internal lives. It's disconcertingly but effectively fragmented and there is none of the 'gorgeousness' of Gatsby, though there is rich, rich description. Instead of building up a dream and puncturing it, Dos Passos shows from the beginning the hollowness, and persistent seductiveness, of the dreams - of money, power, Broadway success, love, all of it. Despite its rather untidy and at times confusing structure, it seems to me to be more sophisticated (in its philosophy but also its structure) than the somewhat overworked and bloodless Gatsby.

I'm a bit chippy about Gatsby at the moment, no doubt a reaction to So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures. I would prefer to teach Gatsby than Manhattan Transfer, because it's much more straightforward and digestible, but I think this is the better (and truer) book by quite a long stretch.

Manhattan Transfer is the first I've read from Dos Passos and after this, I'd really like to read more. This reminded me a lot of Virginia Woolf, in that there are extremely vivid snippets of modern urban life from a cross-section of individuals. Yet, Dos Passos is able to translate the experiences of individuals from all walks of life, whereas Woolf seems relegated to upper class Londoners. Even more impressive is that he's able to make the lives and internal thoughts of all of these people very realistic. Seriously, there are episodes early in the book that revolve around the thoughts of a young boy which reminded me of how I used to view the world at the same age. This book is certainly fiction, but everything in it, from the people to early-20th century New York itself, are so strongly portrayed that it becomes easy to imagine every detail.

I have no idea what happened here. I LOVED The 42nd Parallel, I love modernist literature, and I love reading about New York City! This book just didn't do it for me - I think it was the characters? They were very tiresome.

Τελευταία δεν γράφω κάτι για τα βιβλία που διαβάζω πέρα από μερικές φράσεις για να θυμάμαι στο μέλλον τι μου άρεσε ή δε μου άρεσε και να μπορώ να συγκρατήσω τη γενική εικόνα. Λίγο η κούραση, λίγο η βαρεμάρα, βασίζομαι στις κριτικές ανθρώπων που διαβάζω εδώ και που μου κάνουν τη χάρη να τα γράψουν πολύ καλύτερα από όσο θα μπορούσα ποτέ να τα διατυπώσω εγώ. Να, για αυτό το βιβλίο ας πούμε τα έχει πει όλα ο Φώτης, τι να γράψω εγώ παραπάνω.

Θα πω μόνο ότι ξαφνιάστηκα πολύ ευχάριστα. Περίμενα ένα πολύ δύσκολο βιβλίο, με αναδρομές και περίπλοκη δομή, που θέλει μεγάλη συγκέντρωση για να το διαβάσει κανείς (συγκέντρωση που σε αυτή τη φάση της ζωής μου δεν έχω ούτε λίγο). Και ενώ όλα αυτά είναι ακριβώς έτσι, το Manhattan Transfer κύλησε τόσο φυσικά και εύκολα που δεν το κατάλαβα πότε τελείωσε, παρότι μου πήρε αρκετό καιρό να το ολοκληρώσω λόγω έλλειψης χρόνου. Κάθε φορά που το έπιανα δεν μπορούσα να το αφήσω γιατί με βύθιζε αμέσως στον κόσμο του, στη Νέα Υόρκη των αρχών του 20ού αιώνα. Απίστευτο βιβλίο, πολύ μου άρεσε.

3.5*

090215: things this book made me think of: difficulty of representation of dialect (the book is easy to read but endlessly dialogue), of character sketches (there are so many, so varied), of plot represented by vignettes (like watching dancing routines in tenement windows from a passing elevated train), of trying to integrate, emulate, all the noise, confusion, of the chaotic modern city (in a determinedly modernist way), of how in our urban multiplicity it is not surprising some readers like immersive, involving, other worlds that have no claim of time or place in our lived world (think of your average multi-volume epic fantasy)...

and of how this translates (sartre really liked a scene in usa, said it was genuinely existential), of other more recent work that endeavours to show new york of the times and may not age well (The Bonfire of the Vanities for the 80s), of how this multitrack modernist style of story is easily international, intergenerational and even inter-genre applicable (i read an sf book called Stand on Zanzibar, which is a similar mosaic, years before trying usa trilogy), so this experimental way of writing has been much used by now, though new at the time... edition read was four hundred pages and felt like it...

then i think, this is ninety years-old, could do with endless annotations, and happens to be of the same vintage as my favourite hemingway story A Clean Well-Lighted Place which is a lot shorter, means more to me, and i like a lot... this one? admirable, sometimes affecting, but requiring patience and time and not likely to be read again...

I had avoided Dos Passos novels for fear that they would be deadeningly political. Was I ever wrong? This book is wonderfully enjoyable. Told in impressionistic vignettes the book moves quickly as stars on the Manhattan stage rise and fall. Dos Passos indictment of the materialism and soulessness of turn of the century New York is told with neither sentiment nor heartlessness, but falls in a middle ground-dispassionate.

The time frames can be confusing. For instance, in the beginning the book,the child Ellen is born, and the novel carries her to a school- age. However,in the same section, the time lapse for Max, a wanderer hoping to find a job in the city, is only a few days.

Some characters are followed from childhood to adulthood, the two most promnient are Jimmy Herf and Ellen. Others appear briefly and then are never heard from again leaving a tantalizing void.

On a peculiar note, I have never read a book where color is used in such an effective way. At times it seems as if colors shine dimly on the story, rather like gels have been but in can lights. And the color green is forever popping up. I have no idea if it was intentional. Very odd and intriguing.

Really a fantastic book, and I am now going to search out more of dos Passos's books.

"Wasn't Dos Passos' book astonishingly good." - F. Scott Fitzgerald to his editor Maxwell Perkins regarding Manhattan Transfer

Dos Passos' Novel Of New York City

"Manhattan Transfer" (1925) is a difficult, ambitious, modernistic novel set in New York City from the late nineteenth century through the Jazz Age of the early 1920s. The novel lacks a conventional plot. Instead, the stories of its many characters drift in and out through its pages. The lives of some characters figure through the course of the book; many others make only appearances. The chapters in this book consist of brief vignettes with describe an incident in the life of some of the novel's characters. The vignettes often are not immediately related to one another, giving the book a disjointed feel. It is difficult to follow the stories of many of the individuals.

This book is made by its style. It is a mix and melange of people and places. Much of the story is told through dialogue, with Dos Passos capturing the various speech patterns of the diverse residents of New York. The dialogues are combined with lengthy lyrical passages in which the narrator's voice describes people, places, and moods. Each chapter is introduced by a short prose-poem that sets the mood. The tone of the book is more that of a lyric poem than of a novel.

The primary character of "Manhattan Transfer" is New York City itself which Dos Passos captures in its size, brashness, and busyness. New York City is a force and presence which overrides and dominates the lives of its individuals. The book is full of cluttered streets, offices, businesses, shows, ads, fires and disasters, people of all economic and social classes who are all on the make financially and sexually. I often was reminded of film noir with its shadows, modernistic city settings, and portrayals of gritty city life.

The novel is of at least two minds about New York City. On the one hand, it is highly critical of capitalism and materialism and of the pursuit of wealth which drives the lives of its people. The author frequently has an angry, alienated voice as he describes the shallowness of the actions of his characters. There is also a sense of fatalism and determinism as economics and the city itself control the decisions of the many characters. There is a sense of rejection at the end of the book as one of the main characters still left standing leaves the city, not sure of where he will go but wanting a different life.

On the other hand, the book shows a sense of fascination and love for New York in its continued activity, size, and kaleidoscopic variety. With all its impersonality, the city offers the opportunity for hope, growth, and beauty. Most of the time in this novel, the sheer lyricism, presence, and possibility of New York City overshadows the greed and the economics. Almost in spite of itself, the overall tone of the book is one of poetry and possibility in a large ever-changing metropolis.

"Manhattan Transfer" is a sprawling complex book which left me with mixed feelings. I had difficulty following the characters and the individual vignettes although some of the stories eventually became clearer. I loved the portrait of the city and the song -like character of the book which reminded me of people pursuing their dreams and of my own long fascination with New York City even though I have never lived there. I don't think the sharpness of the social critique in this novel is fully integrated with the lyrical expressivist character of the writing and with the portrait of the city.

This is a classic novel but difficult and often frustrating. I am glad I read it. The book reminded me of the place the city has had over many years in my own life and imagination.

Robin Friedman

I was incredibly bored from beginning to end.

I found this to be far too fragmented for my liking. It didn’t have a consistent storyline to follow, and it bothered me. As I studied this for university I get why it was fragmented and what themes and form of story it was trying to convey. As a reader? It didn’t work for me.

It focuses a lot on the city and the American dream. How it works for some, how it is false. A bit on what it’s like to be poor in NYC, or what it is like to be an immigrant there. It talks a lot about classism, and brushes over but touches on The Great Depression and first world war.

I don’t really have much to say because nothing interested me…

Content Warnings: murder, house fire, body gore, car crash, suicidal thoughts, suicide, xenophobia, cheating, bullying, anti-Semitism, grief, death, racism, violence, poverty, homophobia, alcoholism, sexism, mentions of WW1, abortion

It's easy to see why this is considered a masterpiece. Dos Passos has painted a picture of New York City from the Gilded Age to the 20's. The actual plot wasn't that fascinating, but the writing style was exceptional. Using short prose-poems to begin each chapter, vignettes of people's lives, quotations from popular songs of the day, overheard conversations, newspaper headlines and more, we get a powerful portrait of the city.

It's a portrait that could be considered anti-establishment. I know that Dos Passos was a leftist at the time he wrote this, and there are certainly some anti-capitalist passages in the book, but it didn't seem like a political book to me. Rather than rhetoric, the author mostly showed his views through the lives of his characters. Baldwin runs for office as a reform candidate. We see plenty of poverty, unemployment, and the illusive appeal of Wall Street. World War I ("a great little war while it lasted") takes place offstage and is shown through its effects on the characters. Prohibition-era crime occurs and Reds are deported.

There's a lot of bleakness in Manahattan Transfer as relationships fail, people sink into poverty, and suicides take place. However, it ends on a hopeful note as Jimmy leaves the city and plans to go "pretty far." Written in 1925, it really captured the spirit of the post-war world.

I may have to read this again to really absorb it all.