Manhattan Transfer

The ferry-slip. A ferry, and a newborn baby. A young man comes to the metropolis and the story begins. It is a story of that metropolis: "The world's second metropolis." But it is really the latest in a line that extends backward in time to "Nineveh . . Athens . . . Rome . . . Constantinople . ." and others since.

John Dos Passos presents stories of some of the people who call this metropolis, Manhattan, home near the beginning of the twentieth century. The novel is about New Yorkers and their stories -- numerous characters whose commonality is only their status as New Yorkers brought them together, impersonally and randomly. He does so with an engaging style that encompasses the sights, sounds, feelings, and excitement encountered by show more those who peopled this island metropolis. Each chapter begins with passages comprising observations of city life, newspaper headlines, bits and pieces of dialogue, and phrases from advertisements. All these passages emphasize that "Manhattan Transfer" is a collective novel about the city of New York, about its shallowness, immorality, and grinds of the urban life. The characters' lives only depict some of them.

There are the dreams of new parents whose daughter, Ellen, is born at the opening of the novel. Her life and career will be one of two that span the course of the novel. But there are also young lovers, young men, down-and-outers, immigrants, swells, and others on the make with little but their dreams to keep them going. Some stories are about dreams shattered or those whose lives are stillborn,limited by poverty or lack of vision. The angry rebels are present as well -- those found on the street corner protesting for better treatment, better pay, or mimicking the ideas of radicals and anarchists of the day.

Among the many stories some stand out. One of the most successful inhabitants of Dos Passos's Manhattan is Congo Jake starts out as a peglegged sailor and ends up as a wealthy New Yorker with a new name, Armand Duval, an attractive wife and more money than he knows what to do with. On the other extreme, we encounter Joe Harland, the Wizard of Wall Street, who makes a killing in the stock market and loses it all, but attributes his change of luck to the loss of a crocheted blue silk necktie that his mother had given him when he was a youngster. Then there is James Merivale who is born to wealth and a prosperous future and the family man Ed Thatcher with his wife and newborn daughter Ellen (mentioned above). There is also the other character whose story will span the novel, Jimmy Herf, whose path will cross that of Ellen. Jimmy Herf works with the "Times" in a job that he finds unfulfilling eventually leaving this job. Jimmy's search for his dream will form another arc that provides a link for all the stories bringing the reader ultimately back to the ferry with which the book began. This arc is not unfamiliar in the sense it is similar to the arc of young Nicholas Rostov in War and Peace and many other young men since.

Dos Passos' style is mesmerizing and fits perfectly with the story he tells. The characters form a mosaic that blends with the sights and sounds of Manhattan to create a world that is alive with all the possibilities, both successes and defeats, that humanity may experience. Upon its publication, Sinclair Lewis seemed to anticipate this development, praising Manhattan Transfer as "a novel of the very first importance" and predicting that it could represent "the foundation of a whole new school of novel-writing." While British novelist D. H. Lawrence wrote Manhattan Transfer is "the best modern book about New York" because it "becomes what life is, a stream of different things and different faces rushing along in the consciousness, with no apparent direction save that of time".
The historical references include discussion of the "bonus marchers" of veterans requesting their military bonuses, references to Sarajevo, and other events; all of which provide a background that provides context for these peoples' lives. I found this book an exciting read that gripped my attention and did not let it go. I would highly recommend this modern classic. show less

Ho desiderato tanto leggere questo libro. Una voce nuova e diversa dalla generazione perduta. Una voce dall'America della generazione perduta. E in parte ne ho ricavato soddisfazione, perché Dos Passos è un mirabile cantore di una metropolitanità folle, fatta di un sottobosco di piccoli imbroglioni, ubriachi, attricette più o meno troie, gente che tira a campare e affaristi che vanno dalle stalle alle stelle e viceversa in un battito di ciglia. Solo in parte, perché, nonostante quella in mio possesso sia una traduzione celebratissima, non riesce a convincermi. Non riesco a capire se il linguaggio immaginifico sia quello dell'autore o una somma di svarioni; come il vestito di Helene, che è descritto come color fiammingo e invece show more molto probabilmente è color fenicottero.
Pazienza, un altro libro da mettere in elenco per quando avrò tempo di leggere in lingua originale. show less

Manhattan Transfer is a portrait of New York City made of words. We are introduced to a dozen or so characters whose lives become more and more intertwined as time goes on. The action takes place immediately before, during, and after World War I.

The first third of this book was stunning. Dos Passos's descriptions of the city are so rich and vivid that I wanted to savor each one before moving on to the next. The pictures he paints aren't pretty at all; in fact, they're extremely harsh, but that was what life was like in the squalid tenements of the city at the turn of the century. As the novel progressed, however, and more and more characters whose storylines had been separate started interacting with each other, I started having trouble show more remembering who was who. I like the technique of bringing everyone together, but there needed to be fewer characters for it to work for me. Also, the negativity and harshness of everyone's lives got harder to take because there was nothing good that happened to anybody. By the last third of the book, although the descriptions were still poetic, I was tired of the harshness and unable to keep the characters straight, and I was glad to be done with it. This is a book that really needs to be read slowly and patiently. show less

This is a dense read, but well worth the time. Dos Passos' language and metaphors are brilliant, and his characters as entertaining as they are realistic. It's a book that you need to spend time with because, fair warning, there are dozens of characters to keep track of, but the atmosphere of early twentieth century New York is flawlessly portrayed, and the book as a whole is a masterpiece of careful portrayal and interpretation. This is a book that bears up under reading and rereading, and it's worth the time to explore. It's not an easy read, but I highly recommend it when you have the time to fully escape into a piece of literature for a few days.

This book is almost as challenging to read as it is to review, because it innovatively eschews so many of what we would consider to be standard literary conventions and still manages, at times, to be a compelling read.

The novel opens on a ferry boat and quickly introduces two key elements: short segments featuring one or two major characters that comprise the chapters of the book, and a HUGE and diverse cast of characters that populate this slice of city life. With such an expansive project, much of the early going of the novel is merely keeping all the characters and their situations straight, with every few pages switching gears to explore a completely new scenario. It's disorienting, and probably intentionally so, in that it show more highlights through its style one of the problems of modernity.

Unfortunately, not all of these tales are particularly engrossing, and while some of them evolve throughout the novel, others appear in a blink and vanish. The evolution of Jimmy Herf, for instance, who grows up during the course of the novel, becomes more and more intriguing as he piles up successes and failures and comes to terms with his mother's death when he was a child. "Congo Jake," on the other hand, never really becomes more than a stereotype, and so we don't truly celebrate when his proverbial ship comes in late in the text.

But again, perhaps this is all part of the game: to mirror real life through the ways in which we keep up with and lose sight of people we perhaps wish we hadn't. To that end, the novel succeeds, but the lack of trajectory or clear resolution of many of these stories (or stories-in-progress) makes for a very unconventional work but also one that doesn't necessarily seem to be gesturing towards anything specific.

A good read for the patient and the attentive. show less

I alternated between being drawn in and bored by this glimpse into a part of New York in the twenties. Much of the writing is absolutely gorgeous--Dos Passos is a brilliant imagist and the book drips with shimmering sentences. The most interesting part for more was seeing an earlier version of his unique style that he put to such powerful use in the U.S.A. trilogy [b:U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money|261441|U.S.A. The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money|John Dos Passos|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309200622l/261441._SY75_.jpg|6503267]. I've recommended this work to so many people and would definitely start and maybe even end there.

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos is a book that perfectly encapsulates 1920s New York City. Rather than following one character, it jumps from one character to another. People of different backgrounds and social standings all trying to make it in the big city are lumped together in a melting pot of large proportions.