Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by scottcurtis10
The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos
4.0
"The 42nd Parallel" is the first book of John Dos Passos's USA Trilogy, which also includes "1919" and "The Big Money." Collectively, the books span the first three decades of the Twentieth Century in the United States. "The 42nd Parallel" covers roughly the late 1890's through the US entrance into the First World War as seen through snippets from headlines, newsreels, a stream-of-conscious narrator in a repeated section headed "The Camera Eye," and the lives of five characters from humble beginnings.
The book has no tight plotline, although many of the characters' lives intersect at one point or another. The story is the historic times and the places the characters inhabit, and the effect of those circumstances on their prospects. As a reader I didn't find much insight into the thought processes of the characters, beyond the idea that they were all working to get ahead in one way or another, and depending upon the detail of their inner vision, that might help them get to the board room or to the next town down the railroad line. Dos Passos's language is colorful and reflective of early 20th Century speech in both rural and urban dialects, including the prejudices, and the atmospheric details often put the story squarely in its times. All of the characters, in one way or another, have an involvement or awareness of the labor movement and of socialist organizations, although the book ultimately has an ambiguous statement about its success, as the last vignette ends with the character Charley escaping from a labor riot in order to head for the war as part of an ambulance brigade.
Dos Passos's style represents a break from strictly narrative writing, and his use of stream-of-conscious and the fragments (not even complete thoughts) from news stories helps the reader to experience the cacophony of new ideas and the swirling emotions of revolution and the confusion of these characters as they struggle to find their way in a world that's in the process of changing and becoming faster, more mobile, more foreign, and strangely isolating.
The book has no tight plotline, although many of the characters' lives intersect at one point or another. The story is the historic times and the places the characters inhabit, and the effect of those circumstances on their prospects. As a reader I didn't find much insight into the thought processes of the characters, beyond the idea that they were all working to get ahead in one way or another, and depending upon the detail of their inner vision, that might help them get to the board room or to the next town down the railroad line. Dos Passos's language is colorful and reflective of early 20th Century speech in both rural and urban dialects, including the prejudices, and the atmospheric details often put the story squarely in its times. All of the characters, in one way or another, have an involvement or awareness of the labor movement and of socialist organizations, although the book ultimately has an ambiguous statement about its success, as the last vignette ends with the character Charley escaping from a labor riot in order to head for the war as part of an ambulance brigade.
Dos Passos's style represents a break from strictly narrative writing, and his use of stream-of-conscious and the fragments (not even complete thoughts) from news stories helps the reader to experience the cacophony of new ideas and the swirling emotions of revolution and the confusion of these characters as they struggle to find their way in a world that's in the process of changing and becoming faster, more mobile, more foreign, and strangely isolating.