My final read for the #1930Club is perhaps a bit of a contrast to the others, but tends to reflects some of the trends in literature at the time. Author John Dos Passos is remembered as a modernist writer, and with the first part of his ‘USA’ trilogy, “42nd Parallel”, which was first published in 1930, he was certainly experimenting with style.

I’ve had this book for a looooong time, and why I’ve never read it before is unclear to me… It’s certainly a Big Book (the three works collected together here run to over 1000 pages) but the first part is 340 pages which you would think is manageable. I started it early for our club week, but have only just managed to finish in time – for reasons I’ll talk about later!

“42nd” is set in America in the early part of the 20th century and the structure is a little unusual. Parts of the narrative follow the life stories of the main characters, but these are interspersed with sections called “Newsreel” and “Camera Eye”. The main narrative is relatively straightforward; the other sections fragmented and impressionistic, building up a composite picture of the developing modern world of America at the time. “Newsreel” has fragments from newspapers and song lyrics, capturing specific historical events and grounds the narrative in a time period; “Camera Eye” is particularly stream of consciousness, capturing the thinking of contemporary characters; and interspersed with these varied narratives are potted biographies of notable and relevant people of the age.

The four main characters are themselves a varied and interesting bunch; initially we encounter ‘Mac’ McCreary, firstly as a young boy known as Fainy (from Fenian – his Irish heritage and his left-wing family have led to him being named after the Irish Republican movement) and thereafter as he grows up, makes his way in the world and becomes heavily involved in a variety of working class revolutionary movements. Then there is J. Ward Moorhouse, who again comes from a poor background but takes a different trajectory through life, following his ambitions to become rich and successful. Janey Williams is a young stenographer whose aspirations are independence and to earn her own living – a relatively new ambition for women of the time. And finally, Eleanor Stoddard is a social climber; a cold woman, again from a poor background, she’s determined to make her way into society.

He hated the newspaper office and the inclines and the overcast skies and the breakneck wooden stairs he was always scrambling up and down, and the smell of poverty and cabbage and children and washing in the rattletrap tenements where he was always seeking out Mrs Piretti whose husband had been killed in a rumpus in a saloon on Locust Street or Sam Burkovich who’d been elected president of the Ukrainian singing society, or some woman with sudsy hands whose child had been slashed by a degenerate.

In the sections bearing each character’s name, we watch their lives unfolding; the affairs, the marriages, the ups and down of business and finance, the struggle to make ends meet and the relentless mobility. The men, in particular, move from city to city; and in some cases, other countries. Mac, most notably, spends time in Mexico where he witnesses part of Zapata’s revolution; and other characters travel to Europe as well as all over the United States. They inhabit a world which is changing, where the certainties and stabilities of America’s 19th century are falling away. Each has their own aspirations and their own views of where the country should go, but the impact of the First World War begins to encroach. Towards the end of the book America enters that War and a new character makes his entrance, in the form of Charley Anderson. Charley is another character who starts out with nothing, from a poor and restricedly religious home. Although only the first part of his journey appears in “42nd”, with him enlisting to go and fight, I can see he’ll reappear in later sections of the book.

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

“42nd Parallel” turned out to be an absolutely fascinating book; and for all its modernist tropes, very readable! There can be something intimidating about approaching a large work with a reputation, but once I got embedded in the story, I couldn’t put it down. When I approached reading Dos Passos I anticipated something stylistically interesting and perhaps challenging; what I hadn’t expected was such a refreshingly socialist novel! The author certainly nails his colours to the mast and you might regard the book as the novel as social history. The story demonstrates what Dos Passos sees as the pernicious effect of the American Dream; the quest for modernity, possessions and money corrupts some characters and grinds others down.There is a stark contrast between Mac’s viewpoint and that of his wife and her family with their aspirational American dream, which is built on the bones and the work of others. Even the responses to the coming of war vary, from those who see it as a money-making opportunity to those who want to fight for their country. It’s a fascinating reflection of different types of humanity, and that divide between moral viewpoints seems very modern…

As you can see, it’s a chunky volume which I’ve only read part of….

The structure of the book itself is fascinating; the individual stories exist in isolation for a good part of the book until they begin to intersect, and it’s fascinating to see one particular character from another character’s viewpoint as the different strands begin to dovetail beautifully. Although some sections are grounded in fact, the separation seems a little nebulous in places, and in fact one biography has a section which is directly attributed elsewhere. The Newsreel and Camera Eye segments act as anchors and signposts, giving the narrative context and background; and the composite structure of the book weaves a rich tapestry, building up a vivid picture of the America of the time.

Initially, I was a little uncertain as to the attitudes displayed towards the female characters, particularly the harshness in the “Mac” sequences which make up the early parts of the book. However, as the narrative developed and Dos Passos introduced female stories, I found his writing of the women reflected the difficulties they faced, the struggle to make a living and the complex negotiations with the demands of the men around them. His women are not ciphers, each an individual coping with different situations in their own way, and I’m going to be interested to see how they move through the rest of the sequence of books.

Because, of course, this is only the first book in a set of three; the whole promises to be an immensely impressive undertaking and I finished “42nd Parallel” very keen to see how events play out over later volumes! This was perhaps an ambitious read for me to launch into during a busy time at work and with a deadline of the end of the #1930Club week looming; particularly as the type is quite small and the pages quite dense, so there’s a *lot* in the book’s 340 pages. Nevertheless, I’m really glad I *finally* picked up my first Dos Passos as it was an absorbing and rewarding read, and a fitting end to a wonderful week of reading books from a really rich year in publishing! 😀