'My literary hero is John Dos Passos' - Adam Curtis (filmmaker) 'A modernist masterpiece, capturing ... the fragmented lives it sketches, in a dazzling kaleidoscope of New York City in the 1920s' Christopher Hudson, Evening Standard 'Dos Passos has invented only one thing, an art of story-telling. But that is enough to create a universe' Jean-Paul Sartre 'The best modern book about New York' D.H. Lawrence A modernist masterwork that has more in common with films than traditional novels, John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer ...
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'My literary hero is John Dos Passos' - Adam Curtis (filmmaker) 'A modernist masterpiece, capturing ... the fragmented lives it sketches, in a dazzling kaleidoscope of New York City in the 1920s' Christopher Hudson, Evening Standard 'Dos Passos has invented only one thing, an art of story-telling. But that is enough to create a universe' Jean-Paul Sartre 'The best modern book about New York' D.H. Lawrence A modernist masterwork that has more in common with films than traditional novels, John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer includes an introduction by Jay McInerney in Penguin Modern Classics. A colourful, multi-faceted chronicle of New York in the early 1920s, Manhattan Transfer ranks with James Joyce's Ulysses as a powerful and often lyrical meditation on the modern city. Using experimental montage techniques borrowed from the cinema, vivid descriptions and bursts of overheard conversation, and the jumbled case histories of a picaresque cast of characters from dockside crapshooters to high-society flappers, Dos Passos constructs a brilliant impressionistic portrait of New York City as a great futuristic machine filled with motion, drama and human tragedy. John Dos Passos (1896-1970) was born in Chicago, the son of an eminent lawyer. After graduating from Harvard he served in the US Army Medical Corps during the First World War, and dabbled in journalism before embarking on life as a writer. In 1925 he published Manhattan Transfer, his first experimental novel in what was to become his peculiar style - a mixture of fact and fiction. His began a series of panoramic epics of American life with the USA trilogy, using the same technique and tracing, through interwoven biographies, the story of America from the early twentieth century to the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.
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"Manhattan Transfer" (1925) is a difficult, ambitious, modernistic novel set in New York City from the late nineteenth century through the Jazz Age of the early 1920s. The novel lacks a conventional plot. Instead, the stories of its many characters drift in and out through its pages. The lives of some characters figure through the course of the book; many others make only appearances. The chapters in this book consist of brief vignettes with describe an incident in the life of some of the novel's characters. The vignettes often are not immediately related to one another, giving the book a disjointed feel. It is difficult to follow the stories of many of the individuals.
This book is made by its style. It is a mix and melange of people and places. Much of the story is told through dialogue, with Dos Passos capturing the various speech patterns of the diverse residents of New York. The dialogues are combined with lengthy lyrical passages in which the narrator's voice describes people, places, and moods. Each chapter is introduced by a short prose-poem that sets the mood. The tone of the book is more that of a lyric poem than of a novel.
The primary character of "Manhattan Transfer" is New York City itself which Dos Passos captures in its size, brashness, and busyness. New York City is a force and presence which overrides and dominates the lives of its individuals. The book is full of cluttered streets, offices, businesses, shows, ads, people of all economic and social classes who are all on the make. I often was reminded of film noir with its shadows, modernistic city settings, and portrayals of gritty city life.
The novel is of at least two minds about New York City. On the one hand, it is highly critical of capitalism and materialism and of the pursuit of wealth which drives the lives of its people. The author frequently has an angry, alienated voice as he describes the shallowness of the actions of his characters. There is also a sense of fatalism and determinism as economics and the city itself control the decisions of the many characters. There is a sense of rejection at the end of the book as one of the main characters still left standing leaves the city, not sure of where he will go but wanting a different life.
On the other hand, the book shows a sense of fascination and love for New York in its continued activity, size, and kaleidoscopic variety. With all its impersonality, the city offers the opportunity for hope, growth, and beauty. Most of the time in this novel, the sheer lyricism, presence, and possibility of New York City overshadows the greed and the economics. Almost in spite of itself, the overall tone of the book is one of poetry and possibility in a large ever-changing metropolis.
"Manhattan Transfer" is a sprawling complex book which left me with mixed feelings. I had difficulty following the characters and the individual vignettes although some of the stories eventually became clearer. I loved the portrait of the city and the song -like character of the book which reminded me of people pursuing their dreams and of my own long fascination with New York City even though I have never lived there. I don't think the sharpness of the social critique in this novel is fully integrated with the lyrical expressivist character of the writing and with the portrait of the city.
This is a classic novel but difficult and often frustrating. I am glad I read it. The book reminded me of the place the city has had over many years in my own life and imagination.
Robin Friedman
ira b
May 24, 2012
satisfied
I received the book way before it was scheduled to arrive, and it was in excellent condition.
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