I found this volume fatiguing. I had trouble connecting with and keeping track of the characters, and since this trilogy is a period of US history told through the lives of individual characters, not connecting with them makes it difficult to glean meaning. I did note the use of the word "privilege" and other sentiments in use today, which gives me a sense of history repeating itself. Knowing what happened after WWI, this isn't comforting. ( )

great great great ( )

The section about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was a very poignant way to end the book and to really get across the whole point. Worth reading for that effect alone. ( )

What a seriously strange book this was. Having received a copy of this book to listen to, I was somewhat dismayed to discover that it was the second book in a series. I absolutely abhor reading or listening to things out of order. However, I decided to start in on it without attempting book one, figuring that if I liked what I was hearing, I could run out and find book one and come back to 1919. The fact that I am reviewing this, having not reviewed the first book in the series should be rather telling.

1919 has zero plot. This is by design, but that does not endear it any more to me. The book is told in various sections: headlines/jingles, stories about regular depressing Americans, autobiographical segments (called Camera Eye) and biographies of famous Americans. Although that mixture of elements sounded really intriguing to me, it came of ass just a confusing jumble, something that I suspect may have been worse in audio format, especially with the headlines.

None of the segments interested me at all, except for some of the stories of regular folk, although those tended not to keep me enthralled either. The problem was that every one of them will destroy themselves with bad decisions, as you discover in the forward by E. L. Doctorow. So, basically, even if I did like someone, it was inevitable that I would come to hate them because they would act like an idiot. Argh!

I will give the narrator his props, because I think he did a pretty good job with this confusing mess of a book. He happily sang the songs in the headline bits and did a pretty good job differentiating the sections. I think he did mispronounce some of the Italian though.

This definitely was not a book for me. In theory, it sounded interesting, but the execution of the different sections and the pointlessness of the main people's stories just wore me down. Maybe it would have been better had I read the first book. ( )

I am generally not attracted to experimental literature; form tends to overpower characterisation and plot. Nor am I attracted to this period of literature as it is simultaneously historical and contemporary, and my powers of discrimination are inadequate to the task of a taking up a rational readers perspective. The USA trilogy is the exception. It is throws up a discordant stream of images of the (then) contemporary world, but offers neither judgement nor revelation. I don't hold with the common view that it is written from a leftist perspective, or from any political perspective at all. The subject matter is the stuff of the newspaper headlines of the day, and John Dos Passos has simply humanised these headlines.

The USA Trilogy has often been described as a "put-downable" book. And while I didn't find it so, it is better to be forewarned than disappointed. Sample it before you buy.

I consider it one of the Great books of the 20th Century. An almost forgotten masterpiece, and I wish it had been one of my countrymen who had written it. ( )