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A review by smcleish
U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money by Townsend Ludington, Daniel Aaron, John Dos Passos
3.0
Originally published on my blog here in May and June 2000.
The 42nd Parallel
The first novel of the famous USA trilogy presents a picture of that country from the beginning of the century until 1917, when the US declared war on Germany. (The trilogy as a whole continues until the early 1930s.) In these novels, dos Passos created a new literary style, frequently admired if rarely imitated, in which documentary style clips are used to create background, to relate the characters to political and economic events and to make the novel seem to be a panoramic picture of the state of the nation.
Each section of the novel is divided into recurring pieces. The longest piece of each section forms the main story, and is basically a narrative about one of the main characters. Then there are newsreel sections, which contain headlines and clips from newspapers, often fragments of sentences as though what you read is an impression gained from flicking through a paper very quickly. There are also pieces summarising the lives of men and women who had a formative influence on their times, such as Thomas Edison. The most interesting pieces, though most difficult to take in, are the 'Camera Eye' narratives, which are also fragmented, and are basically stream of consciousness style snippets of description grouped together more or less randomly.
The end product of reading this novel is a feeling of atmosphere. The plot is not important (and, indeed, practically non-existent); characters may be well drawn, but their purpose is to illustrate the times in which they live. The way that the novel is put together is so clever that it can achieve this without using reams of description. The major problem is in the newsreel sections, because the material selected there presupposes a fair amount of knowledge of American politics in the first few years of the century. Headlines are not helpful in creating an atmosphere if you have never heard of any of the people mentioned.
Of the imitators of this trilogy, both the most successful and the one who has followed dos Passos most slavishly is [a:John Brunner|23113|John Brunner|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1336955014p2/23113.jpg], in his series of dystopias. He has actually used what he has taken from the USA trilogy in a more fundamental way. Because he was writing science fiction, the whole background had to be invented, and Brunner used the documentary portions to establish parts of that background (such as slang expressions, bits and pieces of future mass media) picked up on in the later narrative portions.
The 42nd Parallel is more an extremely extended description than a novel in any traditional sense; its sections do not lead anywhere in particular, and the lack of plot means that the various characters are not integrated for any purpose (some of them meet, but that is all).
Nineteen Nineteen
The second part of the USA trilogy is about the involvement of that country in the First World War, from the declaration of war with Germany in 1917 to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It is a continuation of The 42nd Parallel, in the same semi-documentary style with two differences. The characters from whose points of view the fictional sections are told are now, though several are already known to the reader of the earlier book (the brother of one character, the best friend of another); and these sections are far longer in relation to the others.
This second change is the main reason why Nineteen Nineteen is less successful than its predecessor. The longer sections reveal dos Passos' weaknesses as a writer, particularly in the portrayal of character, and the reader loses interest. His concentration on the relationship between labour and capital becomes almost an obsession. (It is an important theme in the period of American history covered by the trilogy, which effectively saw the destruction of the far left as a political force.)
Much of the action takes place in France, and the main idea communicated is something of the effect that being soldiers in Europe - both on the front line itself, though this is skated over, and in the different culture behind it - had on the Americans who returned.
The Big Money
The final volume of dos Passos' USA trilogy deals with the book of the mid twenties, ending with the stock market crash. The theme is making money, big money, through industries that took off in that decade (aircraft manufacture, film), set against the usual background of labour relations.
The stricture of The Big Money is like that of The 42nd Parallel and Nineteen Nineteen, with the alternation of contrasting documentary and narrative sections. The weaknesses are also alike, particularly in plot and characterisation, and since dos Passos has further expanded the fictional sections, these weaknesses are yet more apparent.
All in all, I expected far more from this trilogy than it actually delivered, because I really liked novels which imitate it, like [b:Stand on Zanzibar|41069|Stand on Zanzibar|John Brunner|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1169578945s/41069.jpg|2184253]. It rather bored me, and towards the end I kept going mainly by thinking "just 150 pages to go". The idea is good, but the execution deeply flawed.
The 42nd Parallel
The first novel of the famous USA trilogy presents a picture of that country from the beginning of the century until 1917, when the US declared war on Germany. (The trilogy as a whole continues until the early 1930s.) In these novels, dos Passos created a new literary style, frequently admired if rarely imitated, in which documentary style clips are used to create background, to relate the characters to political and economic events and to make the novel seem to be a panoramic picture of the state of the nation.
Each section of the novel is divided into recurring pieces. The longest piece of each section forms the main story, and is basically a narrative about one of the main characters. Then there are newsreel sections, which contain headlines and clips from newspapers, often fragments of sentences as though what you read is an impression gained from flicking through a paper very quickly. There are also pieces summarising the lives of men and women who had a formative influence on their times, such as Thomas Edison. The most interesting pieces, though most difficult to take in, are the 'Camera Eye' narratives, which are also fragmented, and are basically stream of consciousness style snippets of description grouped together more or less randomly.
The end product of reading this novel is a feeling of atmosphere. The plot is not important (and, indeed, practically non-existent); characters may be well drawn, but their purpose is to illustrate the times in which they live. The way that the novel is put together is so clever that it can achieve this without using reams of description. The major problem is in the newsreel sections, because the material selected there presupposes a fair amount of knowledge of American politics in the first few years of the century. Headlines are not helpful in creating an atmosphere if you have never heard of any of the people mentioned.
Of the imitators of this trilogy, both the most successful and the one who has followed dos Passos most slavishly is [a:John Brunner|23113|John Brunner|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1336955014p2/23113.jpg], in his series of dystopias. He has actually used what he has taken from the USA trilogy in a more fundamental way. Because he was writing science fiction, the whole background had to be invented, and Brunner used the documentary portions to establish parts of that background (such as slang expressions, bits and pieces of future mass media) picked up on in the later narrative portions.
The 42nd Parallel is more an extremely extended description than a novel in any traditional sense; its sections do not lead anywhere in particular, and the lack of plot means that the various characters are not integrated for any purpose (some of them meet, but that is all).
Nineteen Nineteen
The second part of the USA trilogy is about the involvement of that country in the First World War, from the declaration of war with Germany in 1917 to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It is a continuation of The 42nd Parallel, in the same semi-documentary style with two differences. The characters from whose points of view the fictional sections are told are now, though several are already known to the reader of the earlier book (the brother of one character, the best friend of another); and these sections are far longer in relation to the others.
This second change is the main reason why Nineteen Nineteen is less successful than its predecessor. The longer sections reveal dos Passos' weaknesses as a writer, particularly in the portrayal of character, and the reader loses interest. His concentration on the relationship between labour and capital becomes almost an obsession. (It is an important theme in the period of American history covered by the trilogy, which effectively saw the destruction of the far left as a political force.)
Much of the action takes place in France, and the main idea communicated is something of the effect that being soldiers in Europe - both on the front line itself, though this is skated over, and in the different culture behind it - had on the Americans who returned.
The Big Money
The final volume of dos Passos' USA trilogy deals with the book of the mid twenties, ending with the stock market crash. The theme is making money, big money, through industries that took off in that decade (aircraft manufacture, film), set against the usual background of labour relations.
The stricture of The Big Money is like that of The 42nd Parallel and Nineteen Nineteen, with the alternation of contrasting documentary and narrative sections. The weaknesses are also alike, particularly in plot and characterisation, and since dos Passos has further expanded the fictional sections, these weaknesses are yet more apparent.
All in all, I expected far more from this trilogy than it actually delivered, because I really liked novels which imitate it, like [b:Stand on Zanzibar|41069|Stand on Zanzibar|John Brunner|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1169578945s/41069.jpg|2184253]. It rather bored me, and towards the end I kept going mainly by thinking "just 150 pages to go". The idea is good, but the execution deeply flawed.