Rating: 
Summary: The real history of America
Review: I read this book first in 1967 while in high school, given to me by a teacher who wanted me to understand the real American History. When he told me an American general marched on World War One veterans in Washington, DC after WW I and killed many who were looking for veterans benefits I knew this book would be special. It delivers history in a most compelling and unique way, unlike any other book I've read. Americans don't know the whole truth of US History. These three books pick a period and educate, entertain, horrify and overwhelm you with our culture, our past, our politics. It is a must read for anyone remotely interested in US history. One of my favorite books of all time.
Rating:
Summary: The real history of America
Review: I read this book first in 1967 while in high school, given to me by a teacher who wanted me to understand the real American History. When he told me an American general marched on World War One veterans in Washington, DC after WW I and killed many who were looking for veterans benefits I knew this book would be special. It delivers history in a most compelling and unique way, unlike any other book I've read. Americans don't know the whole truth of US History. These three books pick a period and educate, entertain, horrify and overwhelm you with our culture, our past, our politics. It is a must read for anyone remotely interested in US history. One of my favorite books of all time.
Rating:
Summary: one of the greatest
Review: If ever there has been a truly great epic, this is it.USA is a work about the people. Every character that Dos Passos introduces has his or her own ideas and philosophies as well as short fallings and errant natures. So broad is his scope of writing that I feel he covers nearly everything in this somewhat immense trilogy. USA is also an enjoyable history lesson. As Dos Passos weaves the lives of his characters together and apart again, he adds short snippets about influential Americans such as Ford and Edison. You don't have to agree with the extreme left wing and anti-war ideas to enjoy this book. Nor should you turn it away because of its size. An excellent novel, more than deserving of five stars.
Rating:
Summary: Words like old newsreels, 1920's here we come!!!
Review: John Dos Passos wrote three novels that are encapsulated by the title: "USA."
These novels are beautiful and sublime in their composition. While reading of some sad stories as well as some humorous ones, the readers is taken on a journey through the 1920's in America. We get a sense of what it was like then. His chapters begin and often end in a "NEWSREEL" imitation. In an age where we as readers have so much "bit" information flashed before our eyes, this mode works well at getting the snapshot ideas he is alluding to in the novels.
Dos Passos is a genius of words-- I recommend taking this one to the beach, especially if you are an American city history buff.
Rating:
Summary: Words like old newsreels, 1920's here we come!!!
Review: John Dos Passos wrote three novels that are encapsulated by the title: "USA."
These novels are beautiful and sublime in their composition. While reading of some sad stories as well as some humorous ones, the readers is taken on a journey through the 1920's in America. We get a sense of what it was like then. His chapters begin and often end in a "NEWSREEL" imitation. In an age where we as readers have so much "bit" information flashed before our eyes, this mode works well at getting the snapshot ideas he is alluding to in the novels.
Dos Passos is a genius of words-- I recommend taking this one to the beach, especially if you are an American city history buff.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent social inquiry, mediocre work of literature
Review: Long heralded as a monumental portrait of American society in the early decades of the 20th century, John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy is, if nothing else, an amazing display of intellectual endurance. Few novels that I have come across are more ambitious or broader in scope. In 1240 pages, Dos Passos attempts to characterize a vast, growing nation in one of its most dynamic periods in history. While he gloriously succeeds as a sociological study, it is unfortunately at the expense of producing a mediocre work of literature. It is important to point out that while the three installments of this trilogy were written several years apart from each other, this is most definitely one book, not three. The first and second books, The 42nd Parallel and 1919, have no proper conclusion, and The Big Money, the trilogy's final installment, is a logical progression in terms of style and chronology, if not plot. So reading any of these books on their own, or reading them all out of sequence, would be a thoroughly unsatisfying experience. It is clear from early on that Dos Passos has bitten off more than he can chew, at least from a literary perspective. His goal is to capture the essence of an America caught in the throws of industrialization and fervent capitalism, and the inevitable wealth gap and social class struggle that result from this economic expansion. He also tackles the difficult task of explaining this country's painful ambivolence towards the war in Europe and the sense of euphoria in the years following it's conclusion. But these themes are vast and unwieldy, far bigger than any one character in the novel, and as a result, the characters themselves become forgettable and quickly get lost. In a sense, there is only one main character in this novel, and it is America herself. But America is not a person, it is a country and society, and as such the U.S.A. trilogy at times takes on the feel of a social inquiry more than a work of fiction. The other characters, through whose experiences we study the social landscape and fabric of early 20th century America, lack depth and dimension. They are mere stereotypes chosen by Dos Passos to represent various segments of society. There is the down-and-out vagabond, wandering the country and living hand-to-mouth, bitterly condemning the economic wealth all around him from which he is excluded. You have the quintessential rags-to-riches success story, the boy who started with little more than a dollar in his pocket and a whole lot of ambition, and amassed an economic fortune, but at the expense of his humanity and health. We also find the New York socialites, the Communist activists, the labor union organizers, the proud and rowdy GI soldier. But there are no real people, as such characters would not serve the greater purpose of defining American society in the way that Dos Passos sees it. And as a result, the experiences and interactions among these characters are also stereotypical. Despite its shortcomings, the U.S.A. trilogy is worth reading, as it constitutes an important contribution to the understanding of our nation and its history. And in many ways, the great ambition of this novel encouraged other writers to strive to create works of fiction that were not just of literary merit, but also of important social significance. However, for a far more satisfying literary experience, Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy accomplishes on a micro-level what Dos Passos attempted to achieve on a broader scale. But unlike the U.S.A. trilogy, Dreiser's work is a true pleasure to read.
Rating:
Summary: A Magnificent Tapestry
Review: Lots of people try to find America. Dos Passos found the America of 1910-1930 and gave it to us, in almost 1300 pages spread across three novels - all collected in this one volume. He presents it to us as a tapestry, woven from four types of thread: stories focused on any of the 12 principle characters, actual news items from the period, biographical sketches of key figures from that time, and stream-of-consciousness narratives. It's dark and smoky, gritty and real. It's America. As the focus moves from character to character, we fall in love with all twelve of them, despite their flaws. They take us all over North America, and even to Europe for World War I. Rich and poor, male and female, worker, labor organizer, aviation millionaire or government official, all have their own stories to tell, and each represents a bit of America. Such a grand fabric contains many themes: drink destroys the great and the small alike, illicit sex seduces people into giving up their money, their families, and their health, and everyone takes advantage of the working man - even his so-called friends. Nevertheless, the book never seems to be making a moral point, and the characters don't come across as good or evil, heroes or villains; they're just people. One does become uncomfortably aware much the America of 100 years ago resembles the Third World countries of today. Read Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance" to compare and contrast. This edition of USA (Library of America, Hardcover) combines all three novels into a single handy volume with decent explanatory notes, a built-in silk bookmark, and - best of all - a sewn binding that lies flat, despite the nearly 1300 pages.
Rating:
Summary: A Magnificent Tapestry
Review: Lots of people try to find America. Dos Passos found the America of 1910-1930 and gave it to us, in almost 1300 pages spread across three novels - all collected in this one volume. He presents it to us as a tapestry, woven from four types of thread: stories focused on any of the 12 principle characters, actual news items from the period, biographical sketches of key figures from that time, and stream-of-consciousness narratives. It's dark and smoky, gritty and real. It's America. As the focus moves from character to character, we fall in love with all twelve of them, despite their flaws. They take us all over North America, and even to Europe for World War I. Rich and poor, male and female, worker, labor organizer, aviation millionaire or government official, all have their own stories to tell, and each represents a bit of America. Such a grand fabric contains many themes: drink destroys the great and the small alike, illicit sex seduces people into giving up their money, their families, and their health, and everyone takes advantage of the working man - even his so-called friends. Nevertheless, the book never seems to be making a moral point, and the characters don't come across as good or evil, heroes or villains; they're just people. One does become uncomfortably aware much the America of 100 years ago resembles the Third World countries of today. Read Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance" to compare and contrast. This edition of USA (Library of America, Hardcover) combines all three novels into a single handy volume with decent explanatory notes, a built-in silk bookmark, and - best of all - a sewn binding that lies flat, despite the nearly 1300 pages.
Rating:
Summary: History and Literature become intwined in these three books
Review: No doubt about it, the best part of these novels are the biographies that pop up every so often. Never before have the lives of Americans held so much power and majesty in my eyes
Rating:
Summary: Literally The Great American Novel
Review: Now this is not to say that USA is relatively 'the best American Novel' (alas, it is only among them within the unique tapestry of Great American Writers), but when defining the concept as 'American Novel', what more could anyone aspire toward? These three novels are brilliant seperately (in my college days I was asigned 1919 by itself in a course on 'the radical novel'; nevertheless I recall being immensely impressed), and yet seem even more overwhelming taken as a whole. The structure provides a random consecutiveness--as in one long story chronicling the stages of life of numerous fully developed characters, the random swirl of existence buzzing in the text never content to stop introducing another. At nearly 1300 pages (shortened immensely by a short-story detail sped up by experimental prose poetry and detailed biographical editorials on life and the times of the American world spinning around both character and reader from the turn of the 19th century until the economic collapse of 1929, as well as frequent, crudely effective illustrations that serve more as a break, as a magazine article complete with pictures) the quick pacing and exciting narrative will blaze you through to the end of each section, hungry to scrape in just a few more pages before the inevitability of unconsciousness. The politics of the book are varied: clearly opinionated yet with a rational outlook that includes the validity of opposing belief. As a result it comes across as remarkably open to human experience and the ways different people take the same things happening to them. I found it endlessly fascinating and have annoyed several people (no doubt by this time including several of you)with endless, endless raves . . . Okay--I don't take it quite as seriously as that, but more as a document of a time from as many possible angles as a human mind could presume about others.
|
