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richardrbecker 's review for:
The 42nd Parallel
by John Dos Passos
John Dos Passos paints the story of a young country in the early 20th century through the eyes of five characters whose lives cross as they follow across the United States and into Mexico. Their paths are very much American: a printer who becomes a wealthy advertising executive (by way of a revolutionary movement in Mexico), a woman typecast as a stenographer who becomes an artsy interior decorator in Chicago, and an opportunist whose mechanical inventiveness leads him to become an airplane manufacturer.
What makes the work stand out are the author's portraits of these characters within their place history. Along with the novel, the author adds to sections to set the period: cameos of Eugene Debs, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie and interjections of his memories into a sort of self-portrait.
Through it all, John Dos Passos demonstrates he is unafraid to write about the human condition, both its successes and blemishes. He tackles poverty, racism, gender gaps, and other hardships while tempering those conditions with characters who are unafraid to find their way out of the worst of it. Perhaps that is what makes The 42nd Parallel exceptionally readable. No matter how precarious things become, his characters work themselves out of their situations.
What makes the work stand out are the author's portraits of these characters within their place history. Along with the novel, the author adds to sections to set the period: cameos of Eugene Debs, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie and interjections of his memories into a sort of self-portrait.
Through it all, John Dos Passos demonstrates he is unafraid to write about the human condition, both its successes and blemishes. He tackles poverty, racism, gender gaps, and other hardships while tempering those conditions with characters who are unafraid to find their way out of the worst of it. Perhaps that is what makes The 42nd Parallel exceptionally readable. No matter how precarious things become, his characters work themselves out of their situations.