A.B.D. 42. Enlem by John Dos Passos

A.B.D. 42. Enlem Reviews

• 
  Vit Babenco

  The 42nd Parallel is a lavish slice of the American life at the beginning of the twentieth century…
  John Dos Passos has a sharp mind and a sharp eye so he is capable to penetrate into the innermost depths of human psyche. And he knows the ways of life inside out.
  

  The only man that gets anything out of capitalism is a crook, and he gets to be a millionaire in short order…

  
  The world of contrasts: success and failure, the poor and the rich, the unlucky many against the lucky few, or is history a battle of the honest and the unscrupulous?
  

  Andrew Carnegie gave millions for peace
  and libraries and scientific institutes and endowments and thrift
  whenever he made a billion dollars he endowed an institution to promote universal peace
  always
  except in time of war.

  
  Men make money. Money makes a man.
• 
  Jeffrey Keeten

  "Andrew Carnegie started out buying Adams Express and Pullman stock when they were in a slump;
  he had confidence in railroads,
  he had confidence in communications,
  he had confidence in transportation,
  he believed in iron.
  Andrew Carnegie believed in iron, built bridges Bessemer plants blast furnaces rolling mills;
  Andrew Carnegie believed in oil;
  Andrew Carnegie believed in steel;
  always saved his money
  whenever he had a million dollars he invested it.
  Andrew Carnegie became the richest man in the world
  and died."
  
  
  
  Andrew Carnegie
  
  John Dos Passos had issues with his father. His father also had issues with him given that he had the audacity to swell the belly of HIS mistress. The elder Dos Passos was a distinguished lawyer friendly with the industrial capitalists. He made out their trusts, advised them, and made a heap of cabbage doing so. When his wife died he married John’s mother, but did not acknowledge John until he was 16. Needless to say this put a burr under the young Dos Passos’s saddle.
  
  The 42nd Parallel is the first of three novels that make up the U.S.A. Trilogy. Dos Passos used his first few novels to rail against capitalism and showed sympathy for communism which did not have the stigma associated with it that came into play in the 1940s. I’m sure people would classify this as an anti-capitalist novel, but to me I thought it was balanced in showing what good people can do in a capitalist system, and also showing why communism was of such interest to American workers.
  
  This novel had twelve characters that each get a chance to tell their story. I’m going to cheat and copy the explanation of the devices utilized by Dos Passos to construct this novel from Wikipedia.
  
  The four narrative modes
  
  
  In the fictional narrative sections, the U.S.A. trilogy relates the lives of twelve characters as they struggle to find a place in American society during the early part of the twentieth century. Each character is presented to the reader from their childhood on and in free indirect speech. While their lives are separate, characters occasionally meet. Some minor characters whose point of view is never given crop up in the background, forming a kind of bridge between the characters.
  
  "The Camera Eye" sections are written in 'stream of consciousness' and are an autobiographical Künstlerroman of Dos Passos, tracing the author's development from a child to a politically committed writer. Camera Eye 50 arguably contains the most famous line of the trilogy, when Dos Passos states upon the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti: "all right we are two nations."
  
  The "Newsreels" consist of front page headlines and article fragments from the Chicago Tribune for The 42nd Parallel, the New York World for Nineteen Nineteen and The Big Money, as well as lyrics from popular songs. Newsreel 66, preceding Camera Eye 50, announcing the Sacco and Vanzetti verdict, contains the lyrics of "The Internationale."
  
  The biographies are accounts of historical figures. The most often anthologized of these biographies is "The Body of an American", which tells the story of an unknown soldier who was killed in World War I which concludes Nineteen Nineteen.
  
  The blending of these modes is where Dos Passos brilliance really shines. I did not feel irritated at the switches between narratives, but read each new section with equal fascination. It was really a precursor to TV with, in this case, informative commercial breaks between sections of storyline.
  
  ”SIX UNCLAD BATHING GIRLS BLACK EYES OF HORRID MAN.”
  
  This book is really about twelve people trying to make it in America. Some of them are capitalist and some are self proclaimed communists, but at the end of the day all the characters are concerned, primarily, about keeping a roof over their head and food in their mouth. To me a blending of communist and capitalist ideas comes as close to a perfect society as we can get. When I first discovered in Star Trek, as a young pup, that they didn’t use money anymore it was an intriguing concept to think about; an evolutionary thought. Contrary to what I had been taught, in an anti-communist environment, the will of the individual would be tempered under such a concept, and yet; on Star Trek these people I admired were individualistic and motivated to be successful. I also liked a world that would allow me to succeed even though I didn’t have any money because...well...I didn’t have any.
  
  ”GIRL STEPS ON MATCH; DRESS IGNITED; DIES.”
  
  ”Thomas Edison only went to school for three months because the teacher thought he wasn’t RIGHT bright. His mother taught him what she knew at home and read eighteenth century writers with him, Gibbon and Hume and Newton, and let him rig up a laboratory in the cellar.
  
  Whenever he read about anything he went down in the cellar and tried it out.”
  
  
  
  Thomas Edison
  
  During the time period of this novel the labor unions were gaining strength helped of course by the horrible working conditions and low pay that the industrial tycoons of the day imposed upon the people. The concept of a happy worker is a productive worker was not even a sparkle in the eye of Carnegie or Rockefeller. They were more concerned about who could pile up the most money and labor, though necessary for them to become rich, was only notated on the deficit side of the ledger. There is such an anti-union sentiment in the country today, forgetting what wonderful advancements unions gave us, and also completely ignoring that the tycoons of today are the same as the tycoons of the 19th century. If unions are destroyed and laws are struck from the books intended to modify what seems to be the natural tendency of corporations (we learned they are people TOO) to exploit workers for the unmitigated ability to shower more money on the top 1%, the middle class as we know it is frankly doomed. For the sake of huge profits NOW corporations forget that people have to have money to buy the products they are producing. Paying people a wage that insures that they have money beyond just what they need to pay rent, food, and utilities means they can buy clothes they don’t necessarily need, impulsively buy Twenty Shades of Grey at the checkout stand, go to the movies, and buy that latest thingamagig. The money goes down and then it comes back up. Everybody needs skin in the game. If workers are merely subsisting it doesn’t take long for them to become disgruntled workers. Viva la Revolucion!
  
  ”COLLEGE HEAD DENIES KISSES.”
  
  ”The young man walks by himself, fast but not fast enough, far but not far enough (faces slide out of sight, talk trails into tattered scraps, footsteps tap fainter in alleys); he must catch the last subway, the streetcar, the bus, run up the gangplanks of all the steamboats, register at all the hotels, work in the cities, answer the wantads, learn the trades, take up the jobs, live in all the boardinghouses, sleep in all the beds. One bed is not enough, one job is not enough, one life is not enough. At night, head swimming with wants, he walks by himself alone.”
  
  I remember when I felt that way. I was naive enough to feel that I could do everything. I didn’t have to choose. The world was my oyster to paraphrase some hack writer from England. To be successful of course, something I was also eventually concerned about which also jettisoned me out of the halycyon days of the book business, it did become necessary to choose, make concessions, and pick of path that would allow me to achieve some semblance of security. I got married and had kids and suddenly any reckless thought was carefully weighed and generally rejected in favor of the decision with less risk.
  
  
  
  The Wobblies are coming!
  
  One of the characters Mac finds himself caught on the treadmill trying to make more and more money to please his wife and kids. He enjoys his life despite the stress. His wife is pretty and the way she smells and feels when she is in his arms provides a comfort. His kids put a smile on his face. Money drives a wedge in his marriage and after one particularly bad fight he chooses to chuck it all and heed the call of the communist movement. He finds the cause exhilarating for a while, but ultimately discovers that trading his family for a larger cause is not as fulfilling as he hoped.
  
  Dos Passos does play with the concept of “free love”, relationships between women, and the consuming passions of lust.
  
  ”After he’d given her a last rough kiss, feeling her tongue in his mouth and his nostrils full of her hair and the taste of her mouth in his mouth he’d walk home with his ears ringing, feeling sick and weak; when he got to bed he couldn’t sleep but would toss around all night thinking he was going MAD.”
  
  ”JURORS AT GATES OF BEEF BARONS.”
  
  Watching these characters succeed and fail was actually inspiring to me. They are all hard working people trying to find their place in this world. The stream of conscious writing is not difficult to follow. The influence Dos Passos must have had on a whole host of writers before he was duck walked off stage in the growing anti-communist sentiment of the 1940s and 1950s, would make an interesting PHD paper for some earnest young person. I will continue with the rest of the trilogy in the early months of 2013 with great anticipation.
  
  
  
  John Dos Passos
  
  ”While there is a lower class I am of it, while there is a criminal class I am of it, while there is a soul in prison I am not free.” Gene Debs
  
  If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit
  http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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• 
  Ahmad Sharabiani

  606. U.S.A. : The 42nd Parallel (The U.S.A. Trilogy #1), John Dos Passos
  
  The U.S.A. Trilogy is a series of three novels by American writer John Dos Passos, comprising the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932) and The Big Money (1936).
  
  The books were first published together in a volume titled U.S.A. by Harcourt Brace in January 1938. The trilogy employs an experimental technique, incorporating four narrative modes, fictional narratives telling the life stories of twelve characters, collages of newspaper clippings and song lyrics labeled "Newsreel", individually labeled short biographies of public figures of the time such as Woodrow Wilson and Henry Ford and fragments of autobiographical stream of consciousness writing labeled "Camera Eye".
  
  The trilogy covers the historical development of American society during the first three decades of the 20th century. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked U.S.A. 23rd on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
  
  تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دوم ماه ژانویه سال 2007میلادی
  
  ینگه دنیا - جان دس‌ پاسوس (هاشمی) ادبیات جلد یک از سه
  
  عنوان: ینگه دنیا کتاب نخست - مدار 42؛ نویسنده: جان دس‌ پاسوس؛ مترجم: سعید باستانی؛ تهران، هاشمی، 1385؛ در 517ص؛ شابک 9647199104؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - سده 20م
  
  مدار 42 نخستن جلد از سه گانه یو.اس.آ با اخباری آغاز میشود، که شامل ترانه‌ های عامیانه، سرعنوان روزنامه‌ ها و هيجان و تب و تاب کشور در آغاز سده بیستم است
  
  تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 29/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
• 
  Luís

  Three masterful novels describe the history of industrial America, capitalism on the move, the progressive dispossession of ordinary people, workers, and homeless people, of what founded the American ideal and was called freedom. The characters intersect; some become powerful and rich, and others die, run out, and get damaged. The echo of voices that will remain vague and anonymous has added to these multiple stories. And epic and musical pages that paint the portraits of the greats of this century, researchers, politicians, and industrialists who have left their mark on history and the political and social life of the United States in the twentieth century. It had written all in an epic and energetic style, that of a modern and relentless tragedy, reflecting the impossibility of resisting the starting of the ruthless machine called modernity.
• 
  Fabian

  I've been a rotten literature delinquent. Oh yes, a true testament of the almighty Law of Murphy, moving to a new city was bound to place things in my path toward the completion of volume number one of Dos Passo's ever-revered U.S.A. For a long stretch of time I was like, why have I not finished this? Its accessible and striking with a less than imagined pretentiousness-level, the book has a buzzing heart beat; a complete immersion in its diverse pool of topics is achieved. It never bores or underwhelms. Also, the ingenious effort to transform the lexicon Americana with puttogetherwords (such as, downattheheels, thunderstormy, furniturevarnish...!) is a bittersweet nod to the confusion of the times, a possible fluidity in the birth of an American language, its newness & genuine novelty, & the awesome everexpanding spirit of revolution.
  
  The novel tells you the following: why have men and women done what they have done? Because of their circumstances, the economy, their precise position, their inherent place and point in time. Because of family, because of institutions. Because of the availability/lack of resources and opportunities. Oh so true. It's fast paced, like historical fiction NEEDS to be. It is epic & exhibits fully, faithfully its thirst to document the early twentieth century American experience.
• 
  Michael

  A fast-paced montage of American life from the turn of the century until the outbreak of WWI, most interesting for its radical politics and experimental form, rapidly cycling between stream-of-consciousness autobiography, short biographies of famous figures, collages of news fragments and song lyrics, and a nearly plotless series of linked short stories charting the ups and downs of individual lives in flat, plain prose.
• 
  A.J. Howard

  I need to qualify my upcoming bold statement with two disclaimers. First off, I'm already on record as being underwhelmed by the hallowed novel I'm about to mention in my forthcoming bold statement. Second, The 42nd Parallel is only the first part of a three volume trilogy that should probably be considered as a whole, and I have only read this volume. But what's the point of writing these reviews if your not going to bring strong opinions. So despite the aforesaid reservations, here it goes: whatever Jack Keroauc was trying to do with On the Road was done twenty years earlier in a more elegant, interesting, engaging and just over-all better fashion by John Dos Passos with his U.S.A. Trilogy.

  
  

  The U.S.A. Trilogy is a work of historical fiction that takes place from the beginning of the 20th century to around 1930. I know what your thinking, how can I compare Keroauc's "great American road novel" with a piece of historical fiction. Well, Dos Passos didn't write a typical example of historical fiction. He isn't interested in fictionalizing historical figures and/or events. You might feel tempted to draw comparisons with Doctorow's Ragtime. Dos Passos must have been a large influence on Doctorow, the two books share a similar time frame and themes. However, U.S.A., written over fifty years before Ragtime, is more unique and, strangely enough, more modern.

  
  

  Like Doctorow, Dos Passos isn't concerned with telling the stories of specific individuals, but in using individual examples to give a sense of an overall whole. Doctorow does this by refusing to personalize his characters, they remain "Mother," "The Boy," "Mother's Brother," etc. While Dos Passos gives his characters Christian names, The 42nd Parallel is even less significantly "about" its characters than Ragtime.None of Dos Passos characters meet Emma Goldman or Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There are no moments where a character exclaims something like, "We've booked passage back on the White Star Line. They say their new vessel is unsinkable." While the stuff of history plays a prominent part in The 42nd Parallel it is encountered in a way most of us encounter the historic events of our own time, as something that has already happened to others. The characters don't really affect the course of events, and the course of event's don't really have a great effect on the characters. Dos Passos isn't trying to give the reader an idea of how the times were experienced on an individual level, he is more interested in the collective experience. As cheesy as this may sound, U.S.A. is mainly concerned about its title character.

  
  

  To fully convey this argument, I need to talk a little about the trilogy's overall structure. Dos Passos uses four different "devices" to tell his story. The most conventional of these, are chapters telling the story of one of four characters. Overall, we follow twelve characters, six men and six women, through the trilogy. These characters provide a compelling and reasonably diverse sampling of early 20th century Americans.*I should note, while these chapters take up the great majority of the novel they are really no more than character sketches. It's compelling, but not necessarily ground breaking or momentous material considered by itself. However, the strength of the novel lies in how Dos Passos supplements these narratives using other techniques. The conventional chapters are followed by what Dos Passos calls "Newsreels." Here, actual news headlines and portions of articles, as well as popular songs contemporary to the narrative are kind of spliced together to create avant-garde(ish) prose passages. Let me just give a randomly picked example:
  

  lights go out as Home Sweet Home is played to patrons low wages cause unrest, woman says
  
  

  There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
  With a heart that belongs to me

  
  
  WANT BIG WAR OR NONE
  
  the mannequin who is such a feature of the Paris racecourse surpasses herself in the launching of novelties. She will put on the most amazing costume and carry it with perfect sangfroid. Inconsistency is her watchword
  Three German staff officers who passed nearby were nearly mobbed by enthusiastic people who insisted on shaking their hands
  
  Girl Steps on Match; Dress Ignited; Dies
  
  And Mary-land
  Was fairy-land
  When she said that mine she'd be

  
  This might not be the best example, but it provides you with a good idea of what these passages are. Some other reviewers have complained about this, saying that when they were interested in a headline Dos Passos would jump away and it wouldn't be mentioned again. I can sympathize with this feeling, but it's asking for something fundamentally different from what the authors trying to do. You don't have recognize any of the news items to appreciate the novel. They are there, as Dos Passos himself said, "to give an inkling of the common mind of the epoch.
  

  Dos Passos inserts himself in the novel through "The Camera Eye," 27 short, autobiographical, stream of conscience, passages. This device, heavily influenced by Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man can also be a little disorienting because no context is provided.** Again though, complete comprehension of how it all fits isn't necessary or even what the author is expecting. Finally, interlaced in the text are several somewhat poetic, somewhat gonzo, biographical sketches of prominent figures in the era. Dos Passos includes these because "their lives seem to embody so well the quality of the soil in which Americans of these generations grew."

  
  

  So remember how way back in the first paragraph I mentioned Keroauc. Well here's where the comparison comes in. I believe Dos Passos and Keroauc shared a identical idea, and U.S.A. and On the Road are both fundamentally expressions of this common idea. In the revised prologue to The 42nd Parallel written after the publication of the final volume of the trilogy, Dos Passos describes a nameless man who is completely solitary but not alone. Allow me to quote a long passage, because it's pretty fucking amazing:
  

  Only the ears busy to catch the speech are not alone; the ears are caught tight, linked tight by the tendrils of phrased words, the turn of a joke, the singsong fade of a story, the gruff fall of a sentence; liking tendrils of speech twine through the city blocks, spread over pavements, grow out along parked avenues, speed with the trucks leaving on their long night runs over roaring highways, whisper down sandy byroads past wornout farms, joining up cities and fillingstations, roundhouses, steamboats, planes groping along airways; words call out on mountain pastures, drift slow down rivers widening to the sa and the hushed beaches.
  It was not in the long walks through jostling crowds at night that he was less alone, or in the training camp at Allentown, or in the day on the docks at Seattle, or in the empty reek of Washington City hot boyhood summer nights, or in the meal on Market Street, or in the swim off the red rocks at San Diego, or in the bed full of fleas in New Orleans, or in the cold razor wind off the lake, or in the gray faces trembling in the grind of the gears in the street under Michigan Avenue, or in the smokers of limited expresstrains, or walking across country, or riding up the dry mountain canyons, or the night without a sleeping bag among frozen beartracks in the Yellowstone, or canoeing Sundays int the Quinnipiac;
  but in his mother words about longago, in his father's telling about when I was a boy, in the kidding stories of uncles, in the lies the kids told at school, the hired man's yarns, the tall tales of the doughboys told after taps;
  it was speech that clung to the ears, the link that tingled in the blood; U.S.A.
  U.S.A. is the slice of a continent. U.S.A. is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving pictures theatres, a column of stockquotations rubbed out written in by a Western Union Union boy on a blackboard, a public library full of old newspapers and dogeared historybooks with protests scrawled on the margins in pencil. U.S.A. is the world's greatest rivervalley fringed with mountains and hills, U.S.A. is a set of bigmmouthed officials with too many bankaccounts. U.S.A. is a lot of men buried in their uniform in Arlington Cemetery. U.S.A. is the letters at the end of an address when you are away from home. But mostly U.S.A. is the speech of the people.

  
  Whew, sorry about the extended block quote, but isn't that friggin' amazing? Am I wrong or do we learn the same thing from Sal Paradise?I think Keroauc and Dos Passos had similar ideas and goals. Let me be clear that I'm not completely dismissing On the Road If you were to make a Venn Diagram of the two novels there would be similarities but each would have its own well-defined circle. However, one of the reasons On the Road is considered by some to be the great American novel is because it so ably distills one particular pie slice of U.S.A. Personally, I think Dos Passos, in addition to being a better writer, gives you a bigger more satisfying piece. Dos Passos' U.S.A. is a better illustration of "the link that tingled in the the blood."
  
  *The glaring exception to my diversity claim is that all of the characters are white. At least in the first volume of the trilogy, Dos Passos does not seem particularly concerned with race issues. Class relations is the great contentious issue in this volume.
  
  **Just wanted to note here that the chronology of Dos Passos' life provided in my Library of America Edition helped here. Moreover, it was worth reading on its own. JDP lived a hell of an interesting life. I'm not sure what his wikipedia page is like but it might be worth checking out.
  
• 
  amin akbari

  به نام او
  
  «منظور از وارد شدن در این‌گونه «معقولات» روشن کردن این نکته است که اگر پاره‌ای از ذهنی‌ترین و تاریک‌ترین جریان‌های ادبی قرن بیستم نسب خود را به جویس می‌رسانند، در عین حال پاره ای از زنده‌ترین و روشن‌ترین جریان‌ها نیز –به ویژه در امریکا- باز از جویس سرچشمه می‌گیرند. فاکنر و همینگوی و دوس‌پاسوس و تورنتون وایلدر همه شاگرد جویس محسوب می‌شوند؛ و پیروان انها نیز به سنت جویس تعلق دارند. اما از این میان دوس‌پاسوس از لحاظ گرفتن و منتقل کردن شیوه‌های جویس، و به ویژه از لحاظ دنبال کردن روحیه‌یِ آزمایشگری او، بیش از دیگران شایان توجه است.
  دوس‌پاسوس در دوران مترقی خود، یعنی پیش از جنگ داخلی اسپانیا (زیرا پس از این جنگ مرتجع شد)، آزمایشگرترین نویسنده امریکا بود. در رمان‌های بزرگ او، «یو اس ای» و «منطقه کلمبیا» و «منهتن ترانسفر»، قهرمان داستان فرد معینی نیست، بلکه خود جامعه امریکاست. نویسنده در توصیف و زنده ساختن صحنه‌��ای اجتماعی همان قدر تلاش می‌کند که رمان نویسان دیگر به پروراندن سیرت قهرمانی خود می‌پردازند. آدمها، در برابر جامعه، در مرتبه دوم قرار می‌گیرند. نویسنده می‌خواهد تاثیر محیط اجتماعی، و به ویژه محیط اقتصادی، را بر افراد نشان دهد. بنابراین باید محیط را زنده و در حال حرکت ترسیم کند. تکه ای از ترانه‌های روز، نطق‌های سیاسی، تیترهای روزنامه‌ها، بیوگرافی اشخاص واقعی و «تاریخی» - که زندگی‌شان با زندگی ادمهای داستان در آمیخته است – لای داستان بُر می‌خورد. دید «دوربینی» و «امپرسیونیستی»، و حتی «فیلم خبری»، همه مواد کار دوس‌پاسوس را تشکیل می‌دهند. این وارستگی از قید و بندهای متداول رمان‌نویسی، این خط�� کردن، این آمادگی – یا دست کم این داوطلب شدن- برای طبع آزمایی در انواع شیوه‌ها، در یک کلام این «مدرنیسم»، درسی است که دوس‌پاسوس از جویس آموخته است. و جوهر این درس عبارت است از پاسخ دادن به مقتضیات موضوع کار.
  چنان که خواهیم دید نویسنده‌ی «رگتایم» همه صناعت‌های دوس‌پاسوس را گیرم به شکلی بسیار فشرده‌تر و پالوده‌تر، در رمان خود به کار برده است. بنابراین باید گفت که دکتروف به واسطه دوس‌پاسوس از جویس متاثر است.»
  
  
  
  اول بار که با نام جان دوسپاسوس مواجه شدم در مقدمه کتاب «رگتایم» ای. ال. دکتروف به قلم نجف دریابندری بزرگ بود. بعد از اینکه جلد اول «ینگه دنیا» یا همان یو اس ای را خواندم خواستم چیزکی در مورد کتاب بنویسم، دوباره مقدمه رگتایم را خواندم و دیدم که بخشی از مقدمه کاملا برای معرفی سبک دوس پاسوس کفایت میکند، ضمن اینکه باید بگویم متاسفانه به دلایل عدیده ای که بخشیش به انزوای دوس پاسوس در ادبیات انگلیسی زبان بر میگردد و بخش دیگرش به ترجمه و نشر نامنظم آثارش در ایران باز میگردد دوس پاسوس چندان برای مخاطب فارسی زبان شناخته شده نیست. البته خوشبختانه پس از سالها جلد سوم این کتاب با عنوان پول کلان با ترجمه سعید باستانی در حال انتشار است و متاسفانه چاپ جلد اول آن با عنوان مدار 42 به اتمام رسیده است. حال اگر در کتابفروشیهای حاشیه ای مدار 42 درجه را پیدا کردید مفت چنگتان! از رمان بی نظیر این امریکایی لذت ببرید
  در آخر اینکه من ترجمه های سعید باستانی را بسیار دوست میدارم و به نظرم مترجم مهمی است که سهم زیادی در معرفی ادبیات آمریکا داشته است که متاسفانه او هم به دلایلی چندان دیده نشده است معروفترین کارش «پرواز بر فراز آشیانه فاخته» کِن کِیسی است که ـآن هم توسط انتشارات هاشمی به زیورطبع آراسته شده
  
  :)
• 
  Lark Benobi

  This novel is such a distinct achievement that I haven't written a review before now, and even though this is my third time through the novel, this isn't really a review either. What I can say is that this novel in spite of its setting in the early 20th century is nevertheless written in such a contemporary and innovative way that it makes me realize there is no such thing as progress in the arts, or even evolution, but rather that we have extraordinary masterful artists that come along now and then who write in completely new and exhilarating ways...and we will always have that to look forward to in the future, as long as their are storytellers and people who want to hear their stories.
• 
  Mahdi Lotfi

  مدار 42، رمان نخست از مجموعه‌ی بزرگ ینگه دنیا در میان بیم‌ها و امیدهای سپیده‌دم قرن بیستم آغاز می‌گردد. موضوع رمان، کشور امریکاست که در قالب شخصیت‌های برجسته‌ی زمان، فرهنگ کوچه و بازار، برداشت‌های ذهنی نویسنده‌ای ناپیدا و کشش و کوشش جانانه‌ی شخصیت‌های داستان، سیر تحول منحصربه‌فردی را طی می‌کند. صناعت شگرفی که دوس پاسوس در نوشتن این رمان به‌خرج داده است، سبب شد که ژان پل سارتر، فیلسوف شهیر فرانسوی، در خصوص او بگوید: «من دوس پاسوس را بزرگ‌ترین نویسنده‌ی عصر حاضر می‌دانم.»
• 
  Makis Dionis

  Στις αρχές του 20ου αιώνα ο κόσμος ήταν έτοιμος για την επανάσταση είτε μέσω πολέμου, είτε μέσω διαφορετικών πολιτικών προσεγγίσεων, είτε μέσω σπασίματος κοινωνικών κ οικονομικών αγκυλώσεων, κ η πρόζα του Ντος Πάσος, χωρίς συναισθηματισμούς, το αποδίδει γλαφυρά κ απίστευτα ζωντανά
• 
  Michael Finocchiaro

  The first installment of Dos Passos' classic USA Trilogy takes us through a polyphonic journey through the early 20th century across many of the areas of the US. It was rather cutting edge with various Joycean innovations such as the stream of consciousness (and apparently autobiographical) interjections called The Camera's Eye and the news snippets called Newsreels as well as some short biographical sketches. The characters are both male and female (although mostly white with some degree of expressed racism) and one of the pervading themes revolve around the IWW, or Wobblies, movements during these turbulent times. We see Manhattan (so recently drawn by Dos Passos in Manhattan Transfer), Chicago, and various other places before the first world war. I enjoyed the text and found it moved relatively quickly. The characters were rather well-drawn, even if all do not have a happy ending.
  42nd Parallel is an interesting addition to the US literary canon and I can't wait to read 1919 now.
• 
  Stratos

  Μια τοιχογραφία των ΗΠΑ πριν την είσοδο της χώρας στον Α΄ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο. Γλαφυρό και συναρπαστικό κείμενο που βρίθει σημαντικών πληροφοριών και γνώσεων για την εποχή αυτή.
• 
  George

  4.5 stars. An interesting, engaging, original historical fiction novel set in the USA during the 1910s. The book has four threads, three being non fiction. The fourth thread includes the narratives of five men and women. Joe Williams, a seaman; Mac, a typesetter, socialist and wayfarer; J. Ward Moorehouse, a public relations businessman; Eleanor Stoddard, an independent woman working as a designer of stage sets, offices and houses; Janey Williams, private secretary to J. Ward Morehouse and Joe Williams sister; and Charley Anderson, a mechanic and wayfarer.
  
  The other three non fiction modes of address are ‘The Camera Eye’ where the author writes about his own life experiences in a not easily understood writing style. ‘Newsreels’ which are actual headlines from newspapers of the time, fragments of news stories, advertising slogans and popular song lyrics. The third mode of address is brief lives of some of the important characters of the times including Gene Debs, Luther Burbank, William D. Haywood, Minor C. Keith, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Steinmetz and Bob La Follette.
  
  A very interesting portrayal of the USA in the 1910s. Whilst there is no plot, there is good reading momentum. Each character’s life is eventful.
  
  A satisfying, interesting reading experience.
  
  This book was first published in 1930 and is the first book in a trilogy titled ‘USA’.
• 
  Howard

  3rd reading.
• 
  Clif Hostetler

  This first installment of the
  USA Trilogy by John Dos Passos bounces between descriptions of the lives of several different fictional characters while abruptly inserting between these depictions nonfictional mini biographies of prominent Americans and short vignettes labeled as “Newsreel” (newspaper headlines, fragments of news stories, and song lyrics) and “The Camera Eye” (stream of consciousness thinking presumably by the author). The overall effect of reading through this hodgepodge of narrative styles is a reasonably thorough rendering of life in the United States during the beginning years of the 20th century prior to WWI.
  
  The fictional characters seem to include an abundance of revolutionaries, communists, anti-war rants,
  Wobblies, and women who need to marry due to inconvenient pregnancies. Historians have depicted these sorts of characters as inconsequential discontents, so some readers today may be surprised that the author chose them to represent that era. I think people today do not realize how prevalent political and social discontent was at the time. It was a time that led to the
  progressive movement of the early twentieth century.
  
  Another characteristic of these fictional characters which is probably less surprising—they all seem to have a hard time making ends meet and they all want to get more money. Another characteristic comes to mind—none of the marriages seem to be very happy. Also, single women are propositioned left and right (this is 100 years prior to #MeToo).
  
  Over this coming summer I plan to read the next two installments of this trilogy—1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936). This first book was published in 1930. In case you’re wanting to know why this book is titled “42nd Parallel” you will want to read this
  
  In my opinion the following isn’t a very good reason for the title, however I haven’t found anything better:
  
  "... Also notable is obviously the title, decoded in a prefatory note in the first edition of The 42nd Parallel when it was published as a stand-alone novel in 1930; the title comes from an 1865 book, American Climatology, which suggested that North American storms followed the 42nd Parallel. The novel seemed to follow its characters as if they were so many storms crossing the continent" (Michael Denning, The Cultural Front, 190).
• 
  Alireza Reisi

  برای شناختن آمریکا تاریخ نخوانید، دوس پاسوس بخوانید. دوس پاسوس با قلمش چنان در این کتاب به زیر پوست آمریکای پیش از جنگ اول رخنه کرده است که حیرت زده می شوید. او قلم را مانند
  یک دوربین عکاسی در گوشه کنار آن مقطع از تاریخ آمریکا می چرخاند تا از پس شخصیت ها و کنش های اجتماعی آن دوره، کلاژهایی جالب و جذاب از جامعه ی زیر پوستی آمریکا ثبت کند. روایتی که از این کلاژها به خواننده عرضه می شود در پس ظاهر فریبنده اش با انباشتی از فساد و تباهی توام است. و قابل پیش بینی است بنایی که بر چنین شالوده ای ساخته شده است همچنان همانی می تواند باشد که بوده است.
  پ.ن: حیف که کمی زبان مترجم در ترجمه این شاهکار فخیمانه است.
• 
  SoulSurvivor

  Did I just give this book 1 1/2 ? It looked like it and if so , that's what I want . with the exception of Hemingway and some Fitzgerald , I'm not found of writers of this period ( WW I and the Roaring 20s .
  
  The characters were neither memorable or likable , which is a poor way to begin a trilogy . So given that I am no longer tied to a required reading list , I'll accept #1 as emblematic of the whole .
• 
  Mike

  A better title for this chore would be “NOW! That’s What I Call America.” I'll get to that later.
  
  The 42nd Parallel is unique and groundbreaking in that, for its time, it found new and interesting ways to bore its reader to tears. First, it relentlessly bludgeons its reader with its annoyingly liberal usage of free indirect speech. Rather than giving its characters voice and motion, The 42nd Parallel prides itself on summary, exposition, and trading off engagement for its crappy style. Second, it kneecaps the little momentum it gains by liberally fragmenting and disjointing its narratives with unnecessary tripe. The first bag of tripe is “The Camera Eye,” a hokey cornucopia of stream-of-consciousness hogwash that can and should be readily discarded; the second bag of tripe is a collection of highly subjective, propagandistic biographies/obituaries that decide it is best to honor its subject by giving its language an E.E. Cummings-Stupid-Indents-For-Crappy-Slam-Poets treatment; the third is “Newsreel,” a similarly fragmented collection of actual headlines that, regardless of the reader’s knowledge of historical context, functions as the equivalent of the “spinning newspaper” gimmick, only takes itself way more seriously, is less subtle, and somehow feels dumber. All these sections crowd out the many stagnant narrative threads that make up the remainder of the book, but even the stories of its five main protagonists have the life sucked out of them by Dos Passos’ insufferable stylistic decisions. Dos Passos seems afraid of letting his characters speak, either because he just loves this ‘free indirect speech’ thing that he must’ve picked up in his college Austen seminar, or his dialogue sucks. Hint: both are true. Examples can be furnished upon request.
  
  Narratively these stories interweave in a Short Cuts way (tenuously, thematically, contrived), and the narratives are more or less interchangeable. People migrate to different cities so that Dos Passos can name-drop and capture the American experience by pinpointing various locales across the country. They all think similarly and use the word “and” so much that the reader never wants to see it again (examples can be furnished upon request, but it is easier to flip to any page and read it). Besides overuse of conjunctions, these radicals spend the rest of their time sitting on trains and getting divorced.
  
  Dos Passos robs his story of anything engaging by employing the stylistic techniques he uses. The extra sections leave the book fragmented, disjointed, dated, and a little embarrassing; the free indirect speech and casual splicing of margins and dialogue give a much-unneeded degree of separation between reader and events; and, well, the parts of the story that aren’t just accounted, delineated, or summarized (which is, sadly and tediously, most of the book) are still boring. It is one of the most tedious books I’ve read all year, and one that would wrench my stomach to pick it up.
  
  Again, a better title for The 42nd Parallel is “NOW! That’s What I Call America.” It’s meant to chronicle a specific time in American history and give a snapshot of the scenery through words, but in retrospect, its pieces seem disjointed, unrelated, and quite dated. Dos Passos was also popular in his time but (supposedly) faded into obscurity; I suppose the same is true for NOW!’s contenders. The analogy works also in this manner: I hated listening to NOW! 1, and by no means will I call the Time-Life number to order NOW! 2 and NOW! 3. And I never want to see the word “and” again.
  
  To any reader out there seeking an American chronicle that captures multiple perspectives, understands diversity of experience, and gives voice to its people, read Studs Terkel. Any Studs Terkel. Anything, anything but this.
  
• 
  carl theaker

  Must admit, don't think I ever heard of Dos Passos until I started reading this trilogy for the Modern Library top 100, but glad I did. Easy reading format, historical context, and I do like history, about the interesting early part of the century in of course, the USA.
  
  Each chapter is titled with a character's name and each evolves, through their own eyes, and when paths cross, through others. Most characters are carried onto the other books. Supposedly the books can be read on their own, but I think you would always wonder what you missed. For me the stories were compelling and I couldn't stop reading about them.
  
  Between chapters DP sometimes has a couple pages about a famous person of the era. Some stood the test of history & we know them today, Edison but some are more obscure and those to me were the more interesting ones.
  
  Another item between chapters are bits of text from newsreels of the day. They give the setting of the times
  and to me show how the news is totally unrelated to every day life.
  
  Yet another item is the Camera Eye, which shows some activity that is going on with a person, but to me is out of context so doesn't add much to the story.
• 
  Gamze İspir

  Bu kitapta yazar alışık olduğumuz tarzın tamamen dışında bir tarzla yazmış. Haber-film adında dönemin gazete haberlerini paylaştığı ve Sine-göz adında birilerinin iç sesi olduğunu varsaydığım bölümlere yer vermiş. Ben bu iki bölümü de açıkçası sevemedim, konudan bağımsız çağrışımları dağınık yazılar gibi geldi bana. Onun dışında romanda 7-8 karakterin hayat öyküsü anlatılıyor ve bunlardan bazıları kitabın sonuna doğru karşılaşıyorlar da ama bu karakterlerin anlatımını da sevemedim çünkü cümleler hep şu şekilde; yedi, içti, oturdu, kalktı, uyudu, uyandı vb. Ne yazık ki romanda herhangi bir derinlik bulamadım. Kitabın tanıtımında bahsedilen ağır savaş ve kapitalizm eleştirisini de göremedim ne yazık ki, bu konulardan hep yumuşak bir şekilde bahsedilmiş.
  İkinci yıldızı vermemin sebebi 1900lerin başındaki Amerika’yı gözlemleme fırsatı vermiş olması, yoksa gerçekten 1 yıldızlık bence bu kitap. Elimde bu triolojinin ikinci kitabı olan 1919 da var ve bu yüzden onu da okuyacağım ama serinin üçüncü kitabını alıp okumayı düşünmüyorum.
• 
  Mike

  Stop searching, THIS is the great American novel... but "novel" doesn't really do it justice. It's a panoramic portrait of America in the first decades of the 20th century. Dos Passos' characters chase, in myriad ways, their American Dreams, as the nation rapidly matures in its new identity as an urban, commercial, world power. There is no plot here- the book, like so much other art of the time, is, in form as well as substance, something entirely new- a novel novel. The characters surge forward in their lives, crossing paths with each other and with various American luminaries of the day, but not toward any clear destination. The book is imbued with a sense of history: Dos Passos and his characters know they are caught up in the fierce urgency of their times- America is going SOMEWHERE, and FAST... but where? I think USA is even better when the reader knows of certain historical outcomes that Dos Passos could only speculate about...
  
  I'm gonna go out on a limb: in considering the lives of Americans in the earliest decades of the 20th century, Hemingway and Fitzgerald were dilettantes. Dos Passos was the guru, the wizard, the sage, the virtuoso.
• 
  Matt

  
  Manic, vibrant, socially conscious, epic, crowded, busy, sweaty, angry, clear-eyed idealism, rowdy, tragic, subjective, objective, infinitely small, buzzing, slashing, eponymous, snide, pathos, scattershot, fecund, inspirational, landmark, surging, colorful, explosive, magnificent.
  
  I'm almost holding back on the next two installments since I don't want to be dissapointed. This one's a corker.
  
  The first two pages is some of the greatest prose I've ever laid eyes on. What I hope will be my life's philosophy and burns alive in my eyes every time I read it.
  
  I read it to most of my friends and there was little reaction. They are all very literate and extremely intelligent. Disheartening.
  
  But I am truly glad some have seen fit to mention it as being in the running for "Great American Novel".
  
  It won't make it, I think, compared to some of the other contenders. But, it guarentees literary importance and a niche that will never dissapear.
• 
  Joy D

  Published in 1930, this first book in the USA trilogy is set in various locations across the US during 1900-1917. It portrays “the American experience” during these years. It is quite creative for its time. The characters are fictional, but it also includes segments of non-fiction, such as headlines from the newsreels, biographies of notable people, song lyrics, and the author’s own memories. These merge into each other without separation or punctuation. There is a lot of discussion and involvement in the labor movement.
  
  I particularly enjoyed the newsreels. They provide dates for the storyline, evoke a feeling for the time period, and often provide an implied criticism of what was just occurred in the narrative, taking to task some of the characters’ actions. This is more implied than stated but it is relatively easy to read between the lines. The author seems to be providing social commentary on “yellow journalism,” propaganda, and advertising in contributing to materialism.
  
  It is a slice of the past, complete with viewpoints (by the characters, not the author) that will not sit well with a modern audience. For example, pretty much every ethnic slur is included in the dialogue. Most of the characters are rather unpleasant. This book is considered a classic so I’m glad I read it but also glad to be finished.
  
• 
  Schuyler

  If I had to use one word to describe my feelings overall towards this book it would be disappointing. I had high hopes for this 'classic' but they were quickly dashed. I was duped by all of the praise it has recieved from critics and writers. Sometimes it's hard to go back in experimental fiction, toward its infancy and simply not have the patience that it requires. One of the narrative devices Passos uses is Headlines from the time period and brief newspaper clippings, and about half way through the book I just started skipping them. I felt they added little to the narrative.
  
  Brief synopsis: Passos uses a fragmented narrative to tell the story of several characters trying to make their way in early 1900's America. That's pretty much the entire plot. There isn't a plot really. Each narrative thread wanders aimlessly.
  
  I did enjoy his device he called "Camera Eye" which were supposed to be autobiographical. They were basically paragraph long stream-of-consciousness-like descriptions about various events in the authors life. I also enjoyed the first introduction of a character named Janey, detailing her crush on an older boy and the time they spent one afternoon canoeing and relaxing by a riverside campfire. It was told in a simple tone, with a sincerity that reminded me of Raymond Carver.
  
  One line in the middle of book caught my attention which I feel adequately describes the overall mood of the book. "..reading Success Magazine, full of sick longing for the future...". Everyone in this book is bent towards the future, almost obessively so. Some zig zag like a drunk towards their future, others sprint, still others waltz. And this is part of the reason that I gave it three stars. Underneath the often stiff, Romantic tone, the narrative tricks, the empty plot, there is a picture of a hopeful America, a time in our country when seemingly anything was possible for everyone. The characters are plain, and their lives even more so, but the country in which they live out those lives was unique, and I think Passos was trying to reflect that, to the best of his abilities. I might read the rest of the trilogy. Unclear, ask later.
• 
  Răzvan Molea

  As Hemingway said to Dos Passos in a letter, after reading his USA trilogy:"Don’t let yourself slip and get any perfect characters in—no Stephen Daedeluses—remember it was Bloom and Mrs. Bloom saved Joyce . . . If you get a noble communist remember the bastard probably masturbates and is jallous as a cat. Keep them people, people, people, and don’t let them get to be symbols."(1932)
• 
  Howard Larsson

  This is far from being The Great American Novel. Very far. Dos Passos' 'stream of consciousness' style gets old very quickly. He provides a snapshot into American life without developing a story or any of his characters. I was disappointed but plodded through to the end. With so much other material to read, it is doubtful I will ever waste my time on the other two books in the trilogy.
• 
  Blaine DeSantis

  Highly enjoyable book once you figure out how to read all of Dos Passos new literary devices such as Camera Eye and Newsreels. Good picture of the common man in America in the time leading up to WW 1.
• 
  Rafael

  Neste primeiro volume da trilogia USA, onde oscilei até 2/3 do livro entre as 3 e as 4 estrelas, Dos Passos (com ascendência na Ilha da Madeira) aborda os últimos anos do séc. XIX e as primeiras décadas do séc.XX sendo, portanto, uma obra fundamental para a compreensão dos diversos movimentos sociais, políticos e artísticos da época nos EUA (mas também no México e na Europa),terminando-se já em vésperas da entrada dos EUA na IGM. É, inegavelmente, uma obra riquíssima do ponto de vista descritivo a ponto de ser um romance fundamental para a reconstrução daquela época, todavia essa preocupação em retratar a história, rectius, o espírito de uma Nação pode nos dias de hoje apresentar-se como o ponto menos atractivo do livro na medida em que o recurso constante à colagem de manchetes e excertos noticiosos, discursos e até canções (no chamado "Noticiário"), utilização do fluxo de consciência (no "Olho da Câmara") bem como os diversos interlúdios com pequenos apontamentos biográficos de personalidades marcantes desta época (ex. Thomas Edison) quebram repetitivamente o relato das histórias das personagens principais que povoam o livro (pese embora haver outras tantas secundárias extraordinariamente deliciosas, v.g. um editor/vendedor de livros muito pouco fiável que cita constantemente Shakespeare).
  
  Personagens essas (Mac, Janey, J. Ward, Eleanor e Charley) que, ressalve-se, embora marcantes e construídas de forma deveras inteligente não deixam de ser mais um instrumento para o relato da época e da sociedade. Têm nomes, uma história cativante, cruzam-se mas, na verdade, mais não são do que a representação simbólica de uma série de percursos/ escaladas sociais na senda do "sonho americano". E se à data da publicação estas narrativas mais convencionais eram provavelmente o menos inovador na obra, julgo que para o leitor hodierno (que não um historiador) representarão o mais interessante na leitura e foram o que me levou, de resto, a decidir pela 4ª estrela e pela passagem imediata para o II volume da trilogia.