Product Description

Considered by many to be John Dos Passos's greatest work, Manhattan Transfer is an "expressionistic picture of New York" (New York Times) in the 1920s that reveals the lives of wealthy power brokers and struggling immigrants alike. From Fourteenth Street to the Bowery, Delmonico's to the underbelly of the city waterfront, Dos Passos chronicles the lives of characters struggling to become a part of modernity before they are destroyed by it. More than seventy-five years after its first publication, Manhattan Transfer still stands as "a novel of the very first importance" (Sinclair Lewis). It is a masterpeice of modern fiction and a lasting tribute to the dual-edged nature of the American dream.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #136139 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780618381869
• Condition: USED - LIKE NEW
• Notes:
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Review
nclair Lewis --New York Times

Review
"A novel of the very first importance." - Sinclair Lewis

From the Publisher
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Customer Reviews

An under read classic.
Within the first few pages, it becomes apparent quickly that Manhattan Transfer is not a traditional novel. Dos Passos presents a collage of New York City in the 1920's that even 75 years later describes well the modern city. His technique of jumping from character to character as they interact with each other within the city as some succeed and others fail provides a bleak, yet at the same time oddly wonderful reading. His injection of newspaper ads, songs, and advertisements captures so well the bustle of large cities. I can only wonder why he is often left out of the "canon" of American Modernists. It does take adjustment to read Manhattan Transfer, but you will be more than rewarded for your efforts.

One of the best American books
This book is really one of the best American novels. Its style is unique. You will not "read" this book, but you are going to
smell New York, hear New York, see New York, walk around Manhattan on your own sore feet. It is also a fascinating work because different stories run in parallel in it. It may take you a while to find your way through the book, but then, it will give you a panoramic impression about NY at Dos Passos' time. This book is also a somewhat sceptical, even resigned or pessimistic book. Certainly, it reflects some of Dos Passos' own experiences, and life is not always happy-ended. Don't blame that on the book. This book is inimitable. Even Dos Passos himself did not succeed to create another work which is as uniform in style, compelling, impressive and impressionistic as this one. The USA trilogy is far more diconnected, harder to read, and the unique stlye of Manhattan Transfer turns into mere mannerism in the later trilogy. However, in "Manhattan Transfer", everything is perfectly at balance, the style fits the objective perfectly, and there is no arbitrariness. Be patient when reading this book. It does not "tell a story" in straightforward way, so the fun of reading this book is not following a well-knit plot, but the fun lies rather in the process of reading itself, enjoying the style, cherishing every single line. A must read.

Literary Subway Ride
Manhattan Transfer is a subway ride through New York - both across its geographic landscape - a burgeoning metropolis, the heart of the American economy; but also, slums, dark alleys and industrial wasteland. Likewise it is a ride across the ethnic and social landscape - self-made men, fatcats, bored bourgeois bohemians and anarchists, destitute immigrants, ambitious chorus girls, and washed up stock brokers.

Dos Passsos's book is like a running paragraph that only briefly stops to take us from one sub-scape to another - his voyeuristic way of relating the social current of WWI and 1920's New York to the everyday lives of people, many of whom are caught up in that current. Dos Passos does not quite uncover any new ground or dig deep into any one point - he covers a lot of ground - there is a sense of equilibrium one gets from reading his prose. Just a few just-below the surface issues he tackles are the budding concerns of untested feminism, the moral puritanism of the Prohibition; less oblique are the issues of unfettered capitalism.

Indisputably, Dos Passos's ability to weave in and out of lives while weaving the tapestry of an exciting period in NY and America is admirable. Still, there is an aloofness in a book whose characters are less important to the story than the social forces that encompass them. With no one to anchor the story (despite some possible tenable arguments for the recurring characters), the story just keeps floating along. It doesn't have to end after 400 pages, it can run on ad infinitum.