Synopses & Reviews
John Dos Passos witnessed the modern era's defining events and distilled their literary essence into an innovative, trademark pastiche style: "something like a multimedia event" in book form, wrote
The New Yorker. As an ambulance driver during World War I, as an eyewitness to the Spanish Civil War, Italian Fascism, Mexican social upheaval, and post-revolutionary shifts in Russia and Central Asia, and as a participant in protests in the United States, Dos Passos charted cataclysms and his evolving response to them before the ink had dried in the history books. Now The Library of America restores to print his vibrant travel books-
Rosinante to the Road Again (1922), Orient Express (1927), In All Countries (1934), and the Spanish Civil War material added to
Journeys Between Wars (1938)-American classics Dos Passos wrote concurrently with his fictional masterpieces
Three Soldiers, Manhattan Transfer (see opposite page), and U.S.A. Featured in this edition are full-color reproductions of Dos Passos' own remarkably vivid
Orient Express watercolors.
This volume also restores to print the rare travel poems cycle A Pushcart at the Curb (1922); political and literary essays that dramatize his complicated relationship with communism; and a selection of early letters and diaries from World War I.
Synopsis
During the years of his emergence as a major American novelist, John Dos Passos traveled widely in Europe, the Middle East, Mexico, and the United States, witnessing many of the tumultuous political, social, and cultural events of the early twentieth century and recording his changing response to them. This Library of America volume collects the vibrant and insightful travel books and essays he wrote at the same time he was publishing his fictional masterpieces
Three Soldiers,
Manhattan Transfer, and
U.S.A. Rosinante to the Road Again (1922) is a vivid collection of essays on Spanish life, literature, and art that demonstrates Dos Passos's enduring fascination with a country he would repeatedly visit and write about. Orient Express (1927) records his 1921-1922 journey through the Middle East, and contains provocative and haunting descriptions of the effects of the Greek-Turkish War; the Caucasus in the aftermath of Soviet conquest; Persia during the rise of Reza Khan; the creation of Iraq by the British; and a winter trip by camel caravan across the desert from Baghdad to Damascus. In All Countries (1934) collects pieces on Russia in the late 1920s, Mexico in the aftermath of Zapata, the troubled Spanish Republic, and strikes and protests in the United States, while articles that appeared in Journeys Between Wars (1938) examine France under the Popular Front and the Spanish Civil War.
Also included are A Pushcart at the Curb (1922), a cycle of poems inspired by his travels; nine political and literary essays written between 1916 and 1941, including his denunciation of the execution of his friend Jose Robles by Spanish Communists; and a selection of letters and diary entries from 1916 to 1920 that record his wartime service as an ambulance driver in France and Italy. Plus 8 full-color plates of watercolors by Dos Passos.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 827-849) and index.
About the Author
Townsend Ludington, editor, is Boshamer Professor of English and American Studies at the Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, author of John Dos Passos: A Twentieth Century Odyssey, and editor of The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of Dos Passos.
Table of Contents
Rosinante to the road again -- Orient Express -- In all countries -- From Journeys between wars -- A pushcart at the curb -- Uncollected essays 1916-1941 -- Letters and diaries 1916-1920.