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A review by cruelspirit
U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money by Townsend Ludington, Daniel Aaron, John Dos Passos
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
After working my way through it for the last six months, I've finally finished The USA Trilogy. While a rigorous task it was a highly enjoyable one. Last year I read Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz, my favorite novel of last year, and I wanted to read another novel with a similar style. The USA Trilogy was a perfect fit, hitting that same desire.
The USA Trilogy is a book of many things and it's hard to easily describe. Within the first couple of hundred pages I came up with the elevator pitch, "If a leftist Ernest Hemingway wrote On The Road". While I still like this description this book is far more than just that. The USA Trilogy is a war novel, a romance novel, a travel novel, a political novel. It's a work of realism as well as surrealism. It is factual while also being poetic. While this is a series of three books, I've never read another book that takes on as much as The USA Trilogy does. John Dos Passos takes on a lot and accomplishes so much with these works, I'd be hard pressed to not say this is my pick for The Great American Novel.
The themes of The USA Trilogy aren't anything too relavatory by today's standards. America is a place of two worlds; those who have and those who don't. There are highs and lows and often you don't stick in one category too long; especially if you are willing to take risks. Fortunes can be made and lost overnight. There are many stories of characters losing it all to their own ego or jealousy and likewise these characters can recover, although not entirely, due mainly to who they are and who they know.
Like I said, these themes aren't anything new to a modern reader but it's about how Dos Passos tells this story. The USA Trilogy has a cast of about a dozen protagonists who we follow. They all come from different walks of life and sometimes their paths cross. We explore the lives of lobor workers, entrepreneurs, people born into wealth, and those skating by. We are introduced to these characters, given insight into their childhood and upbringing and led through their lives, sometimes until their demise. This is what makes this book so vast. If you are someone who likes well fleshed out characters there's no better book out there.
With a cast of characters like this you'd think it would be hard to keep everything straight. I found it to be pretty easy to understand. Sometimes you will return to a character after not hearing about them for a few hundred pages but their backstory would quickly come back to me. As someone who took multiple breaks while reading this I found this to be a great benefit of the book.
Beyond just the narrative of this book, there are many other elements Dos Passos offers to create this world of early 20th Century America. Outside of these characters there are also Newsreel and The Camera Eye segments. Newsreel segments are a montage of headlines that give you a brief understanding of what is going on at the time of this section of the book. The Camera Eye is a more abstract segment that is far more poetic than anything else in the book. These are often more direct entries from Dos Passos and don't fit in as much with the timeline of narrative. These segments are often only a few pages long and work as a great palate cleanser between character segments.
There are also biographies of real life historical figures featured throughout. These figures can be be anyone from well known figures such as presidents Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson, as well as figures like Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ford, or the Wright Brothers to more obsure labor workers. These biographies are written with Dos Passos opinion of them in mind. While nowhere near impartial it is very entertaining, making for some of the more engaging sections of the book.
As a fan of history, especially 20th Century history. I found this book to be a great joy. While the character's we follow are works of fiction. They live in a very real world. We follow characters from the late 19th century into the 1920's. Every world and national event that happens during that time is discussed. WWI, The Spanish Flu Prohibition, the roaring 20s. It is great to see how everyday people lived through those times and how a lot of times it is similar to our world today. This book greatly benefits from being written in the 1930s by someone who lived through these times, reflecting back on them. If it was written in the moment it probably wouldn't have felt as timeless.
I was often surprised just how well Dos Passos captures these massive historical events through the lense of the everyday person. You can read history books about these events but it hits different to see them through the eyes of someone like yourself. Experiencing what it was like to be there the day America annouced it joined WWI or how people still went out for a night on the town during prohibition is something that a textbook will never be able to convey. One of these scenes I really found interesting to read was what the anti German and pro war sentament was like during the 1910s. There is a scene in which a character goes to a hofbrauhaus in New York. The house band is playing The Star Spangled Banner every other song and everyone, who is a "true patriot" is standing up and removing their hat. Our character doesn't do this leading to many dirty looks and a very hostile environment. This is something you can't capture outside of a novel like this.
While there are a lot of characters, from many different backgrounds, I will say the scope of The USA Trilogy doesn't go beyond a white perspective. This is not surprising for a book by a white author from the 1930s, I wasn't expecting anything different going into this but I should mention it. As much as I would praise the historical aspects of this book it isn't a full view of America, which is dissapointing for a book with such an all encompassing and socialist goal. If there are mentions of non white characters they are often very minor and in subservient roles. While not really going too far into the lives of those outside of a white perspecitve I do appreciate Dos Passos' choice to capture the discrimination that white ethnicities such as Jews, Italians, and Germans faced at this time.
Overall I really liked this book. There are definitely some lulls in the narrative and it can feel very mundaine. That being said, this just adds to the character building and realism. No actual person's life is all excitement. These slow points actually help emphasise the highs. There are a few times we actually get to see how a character dies, sometimes in a very strange or abrupt manner. This can be very jarring and impactful. We've followed these character's since their childhood and all of the sudden they're dead. It really goes to show that we are all just one freak accident away from leaving this world forever.
I've only started to scratch the surface of what this book has to offer. As far as a narrative goes I think I preferred Berlin Alexanderplatz mainly because it followed just one character and one city but the reach of The USA Trilogy is far from unwieldy. It is a lot more comprehensible and accessable than it would lead on. The page count really is the only reason I see as a legitimate deterrent for people getting into it.
The USA Trilogy is a book of many things and it's hard to easily describe. Within the first couple of hundred pages I came up with the elevator pitch, "If a leftist Ernest Hemingway wrote On The Road". While I still like this description this book is far more than just that. The USA Trilogy is a war novel, a romance novel, a travel novel, a political novel. It's a work of realism as well as surrealism. It is factual while also being poetic. While this is a series of three books, I've never read another book that takes on as much as The USA Trilogy does. John Dos Passos takes on a lot and accomplishes so much with these works, I'd be hard pressed to not say this is my pick for The Great American Novel.
The themes of The USA Trilogy aren't anything too relavatory by today's standards. America is a place of two worlds; those who have and those who don't. There are highs and lows and often you don't stick in one category too long; especially if you are willing to take risks. Fortunes can be made and lost overnight. There are many stories of characters losing it all to their own ego or jealousy and likewise these characters can recover, although not entirely, due mainly to who they are and who they know.
Like I said, these themes aren't anything new to a modern reader but it's about how Dos Passos tells this story. The USA Trilogy has a cast of about a dozen protagonists who we follow. They all come from different walks of life and sometimes their paths cross. We explore the lives of lobor workers, entrepreneurs, people born into wealth, and those skating by. We are introduced to these characters, given insight into their childhood and upbringing and led through their lives, sometimes until their demise. This is what makes this book so vast. If you are someone who likes well fleshed out characters there's no better book out there.
With a cast of characters like this you'd think it would be hard to keep everything straight. I found it to be pretty easy to understand. Sometimes you will return to a character after not hearing about them for a few hundred pages but their backstory would quickly come back to me. As someone who took multiple breaks while reading this I found this to be a great benefit of the book.
Beyond just the narrative of this book, there are many other elements Dos Passos offers to create this world of early 20th Century America. Outside of these characters there are also Newsreel and The Camera Eye segments. Newsreel segments are a montage of headlines that give you a brief understanding of what is going on at the time of this section of the book. The Camera Eye is a more abstract segment that is far more poetic than anything else in the book. These are often more direct entries from Dos Passos and don't fit in as much with the timeline of narrative. These segments are often only a few pages long and work as a great palate cleanser between character segments.
There are also biographies of real life historical figures featured throughout. These figures can be be anyone from well known figures such as presidents Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson, as well as figures like Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ford, or the Wright Brothers to more obsure labor workers. These biographies are written with Dos Passos opinion of them in mind. While nowhere near impartial it is very entertaining, making for some of the more engaging sections of the book.
As a fan of history, especially 20th Century history. I found this book to be a great joy. While the character's we follow are works of fiction. They live in a very real world. We follow characters from the late 19th century into the 1920's. Every world and national event that happens during that time is discussed. WWI, The Spanish Flu Prohibition, the roaring 20s. It is great to see how everyday people lived through those times and how a lot of times it is similar to our world today. This book greatly benefits from being written in the 1930s by someone who lived through these times, reflecting back on them. If it was written in the moment it probably wouldn't have felt as timeless.
I was often surprised just how well Dos Passos captures these massive historical events through the lense of the everyday person. You can read history books about these events but it hits different to see them through the eyes of someone like yourself. Experiencing what it was like to be there the day America annouced it joined WWI or how people still went out for a night on the town during prohibition is something that a textbook will never be able to convey. One of these scenes I really found interesting to read was what the anti German and pro war sentament was like during the 1910s. There is a scene in which a character goes to a hofbrauhaus in New York. The house band is playing The Star Spangled Banner every other song and everyone, who is a "true patriot" is standing up and removing their hat. Our character doesn't do this leading to many dirty looks and a very hostile environment. This is something you can't capture outside of a novel like this.
While there are a lot of characters, from many different backgrounds, I will say the scope of The USA Trilogy doesn't go beyond a white perspective. This is not surprising for a book by a white author from the 1930s, I wasn't expecting anything different going into this but I should mention it. As much as I would praise the historical aspects of this book it isn't a full view of America, which is dissapointing for a book with such an all encompassing and socialist goal. If there are mentions of non white characters they are often very minor and in subservient roles. While not really going too far into the lives of those outside of a white perspecitve I do appreciate Dos Passos' choice to capture the discrimination that white ethnicities such as Jews, Italians, and Germans faced at this time.
Overall I really liked this book. There are definitely some lulls in the narrative and it can feel very mundaine. That being said, this just adds to the character building and realism. No actual person's life is all excitement. These slow points actually help emphasise the highs. There are a few times we actually get to see how a character dies, sometimes in a very strange or abrupt manner. This can be very jarring and impactful. We've followed these character's since their childhood and all of the sudden they're dead. It really goes to show that we are all just one freak accident away from leaving this world forever.
I've only started to scratch the surface of what this book has to offer. As far as a narrative goes I think I preferred Berlin Alexanderplatz mainly because it followed just one character and one city but the reach of The USA Trilogy is far from unwieldy. It is a lot more comprehensible and accessable than it would lead on. The page count really is the only reason I see as a legitimate deterrent for people getting into it.