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A review by jessferg
Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
1.0
I like a challenging read, I even like an esoteric read. But I did not like this.
Halfway through I decided I was wasting my time, then I decided I was being shallow - I mean, was I an English major or not?! So I persevered when I should have ditched.
Various notes I wrote to myself include "Faulkner's run-ons still had grammatical structure," "Steinbeck wannabe," "Missing Kerouac's cadence," "Garcia-Marquez is the only author allowed to introduce new characters this late in the book," and "for the love of God, WHAT IS THIS GUY'S POINT?!?"
As if that's not enough, the story also, unfortunately, does not hold up as a timepiece. The slang is outdated and difficult to contextualize. There are dozens of characters who we don't care anything about. Some of them manage to make it all the way to the end of the book. The only thing to take away from the novel is "everyone suffers" and that seems like the take away from any and every novel ever.
I thought at first that perhaps the edition I had also did a disservice to the story since it has no proper breaks to the in-chapter sections that change from character to character. But then I looked at another copy and it's the same. Does Dos Passos hate readers? Why would he make it MORE difficult to read?
Whatever. I've certainly read "classics" I didn't like before but I've always kind of been glad I read them anyway but I can't even offer that distinction to this mess of a book.
Halfway through I decided I was wasting my time, then I decided I was being shallow - I mean, was I an English major or not?! So I persevered when I should have ditched.
Various notes I wrote to myself include "Faulkner's run-ons still had grammatical structure," "Steinbeck wannabe," "Missing Kerouac's cadence," "Garcia-Marquez is the only author allowed to introduce new characters this late in the book," and "for the love of God, WHAT IS THIS GUY'S POINT?!?"
As if that's not enough, the story also, unfortunately, does not hold up as a timepiece. The slang is outdated and difficult to contextualize. There are dozens of characters who we don't care anything about. Some of them manage to make it all the way to the end of the book. The only thing to take away from the novel is "everyone suffers" and that seems like the take away from any and every novel ever.
I thought at first that perhaps the edition I had also did a disservice to the story since it has no proper breaks to the in-chapter sections that change from character to character. But then I looked at another copy and it's the same. Does Dos Passos hate readers? Why would he make it MORE difficult to read?
Whatever. I've certainly read "classics" I didn't like before but I've always kind of been glad I read them anyway but I can't even offer that distinction to this mess of a book.