The second part of the U.S.A. trilogy, focuses primarily, as the title suggests, on the last year of World War I. Dos Passos does use many of the same characters from The 42nd Parallel, but they're viewed through the perspectives of other characters, most of whom were introduced in the previous book as well. For example, several chapters in this book are written from the viewpoint of Eveline Hutchins, friend and business partner of Eleanor Stoddard, who was a major part of The 42nd Parallel.
Kind of an interesting approach, although there were times I didn't remember who they were. It took me most of Joe Williams' first section to realize he was Janey's brother Joe, who was popping up sporadically from some merchant ship. But as a different perspective on the characters from the first book, it's clever.
As with the first book, none of the characters seem to know what they want, or where they want to be. Eveline keeps finding things 'tiresome', and seems to have no less than four guys interested in her, each of which she alternates between being interested in, bored with, or trying to talk herself into being in a relationship with them. Richard Ellsworth Savage can't seem to decide what he wants to do, other than he doesn't seem ready to settle. He had a pretty easy stint in the Army, thanks to connections through his family name, but seems dissatisfied with that and the cushy job he parachutes into after getting out of the service. He wrote poetry when he was younger, but that seems to have been left behind.
The crackdown on pro-labor forces during the war doesn't necessarily take center stage, but it's a constant presence. People who are excited about events in Russia, people hopeful that the average soldiers will figure out there's no point to them getting shot in ridiculous numbers all because a bunch of inbred European royal families signed a bunch of confusing and entangling alliances with each other.
Savage gets in trouble during his time in the volunteer ambulance corps for things he wrote in letters back home (same as Dos Passos himself). One of the last chapters is devoted to a Ben Compton, who becomes a public speaker for labor causes. He gets badly beaten by cops at one point, and eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison. Dos Passos writes those parts with a cynical resignation of someone who knows how it's going to turn out. Not in the sense he knows what the Soviet Union is going to become, but he knows that the workers did not rise up around the world and unite.
He continues the Newsreel and Camera's Eye sections (one of the latter quoted from below). They don't work for me much better than they did in the previous book, so they're just kind of there, taking up space. I especially don't understand why, in the Newsreel parts, he will seemingly quote a newspaper article and then seamlessly switch to a different article mid-sentence. Not sure the significance of that decision at all.
'(Mestre's a railhead and its moonlight over the Brenta and the basehospital and the ammunition dump
carbolic blue moonlight)
all the time he kept trying to get up outta bed Kiddo you better lay there quiet his voice was in Minnesota but dontjaunerstandafellersgottogetup I got a date animportantengagementtoseeabout and those lots ought nevertohavestayedinbedsolate I'll lose my deposit For chrissake dont you think I'm broke enough as it is?'
No comments:
Post a Comment