1919: Volume Two of the U.S.A.
Trilogy by John Dos Passos
Highly Engaging And Entertaining Art
With 1919, the second volume of his U.S.A. trilogy, John Dos Passos
continues his vigorous and sweeping panorama of twentieth-century
America (Forum), lauded on publication of the first volume not only for its
scope, but also for its groundbreaking style. Again, employing a host of
experimental devices that would inspire a whole new generation of writers
to follow, Dos Passos captures the many textures, flavors, and background
noises of modern life with a cinematic touch and unparalleled nerve.
1919 opens to find America and the world at war, and Dos Passoss
characters, many of whom we met in the first volume, are thrown into the
snarl. We follow the daughter of a Chicago minister, a wide-eyed Texas
girl, a young poet, a radical Jew, and we glimpse Woodrow Wilson,
Theodore Roosevelt, and the Unknown Soldier.

Personal Review: 1919: Volume Two of the U.S.A. Trilogy by
John Dos Passos
Those words, written by John Dos Passos while serving as a Red Cross
Ambulance Driver during the First World War, provide the underlying
theme for "1919", Volume II of Dos Passos' "USA Trilogy".
Dos Passos is one of the (now) lesser known literary giants of the first half
of the 20th-century. At the height of his fame in the 1930s he found
himself on the same pedestal as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. By
the time Volume III (The Big Money) was released in 1936, Jean-Paul
Sartre hailed him as "the greatest writer of our time". Edmund Wilson's
review went so far as to claim that Dos Passos was "the first of our writers,
with the possible exception of Mark Twain, who has successfully used
colloquial American for a novel of the highest artistic seriousness." Dos
Passos' literary reputation began to change during the Spanish Civil War.
Dos Passos, along with Hemingway and many other literary figures
including George Orwell, made his way to Spain to assist in the
Republican cause. Like Orwell, Dos Passos was deeply affected by the
brutal infighting amongst Republican supporters. In the case of Dos
Passos he was deeply distressed by murder of a friend (anarchist and
Johns Hopkins Professor Jose Robles) apparently executed by Stalinist
cadres for his nonconforming radicalism. Hemingway mocked Dos Passos
for his unmanly concern for his friend. Dos Passos reports that he told
Hemingway that "the question I keep putting to myself is what's the use of
fighting a war for civil liberties, if you destroy civil liberties in the process?"
Hemingway replied "civil liberties, [__ _ _ ]. Are you with us or against us?"
It is no surprise that Dos Passos' next book was criticized severely. The
New Masses magazine referred to it as a "crude piece of Trotskyist agit-
prop". Dos Passos never reclaimed the popularity he had achieved with
the USA Trilogy.
1919 takes up where "42nd Parallel" left off. President Wilson, despite his
1916 campaign slogan "He kept us out of War" had taken the United
States to war against Germany in 1917. Many of the characters found in
42nd Parallel, including Eleanor Stoddard, J. Ward Moorehouse, Eveline
Hutchins, and Joe Williams find their to France. Along with a few new
characters, their lives intersect and divert throughout the war and the
subsequent peace talks at Versailles. With the exception of J. War
Moorehouse these are all relatively `little people' who have no real
influence on the course of events but who simply must endure them.
In addition to the stories of these fictional characters, 1919 is interspersed
with mini-biographies of real people, newsreel clippings that place the story
in a social a political context, and a series of autobiographical sketches in
which Dos Passos steps out from the story and provides his own personal
context to the times. The writing is terse and enjoyable. The highlights of
the book for me were his biographical sketches. His mini-biography of
Woodrow Wilson ("Meester Vilson"), J.P. Morgan, Theodore Roosevelt
and Joe Hill say more about those men than many full length biographies.

His closing biography, of the Unknown Soldier ("The Body of an
American") picked from among the unidentified American casualties of the
war,is a beautiful, politically charged piece of writing."
The use of the Camera Eye, biographies, and newsreels create a literary
mosaic that leaves the reader feeling he is in the middle of a multi-media
experience within the confines of a book. Later generations of writers have
adopted this technique to great success. E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime is a
case in point. (Doctorow wrote an appreciative foreword to this edition.)
1919 is a worthy successor to 42nd Parallel that leaves this 21st-century
reader with a feeling that he had stepped back almost 100 years to a
different time and place in American history. I would only note that his
book will not be appreciated unless one has read "42nd Parallel". It is an
investment in time that no reader with an interest in political (or politicized)
fiction will regret making.
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