Great Novel; Reading skilled but Cartoonish

The novel itself is a 5-star, remarkable panoply of action across classes during the boom of the 1920s. It has main characters who recur, a few whose paths cross, but no central heroes.
The characters include an airplane engineer who becomes submerged in speculative ambition and hedonistic distractions; a labor activist journalist who was the daughter of a bitchy, greedy matriarch and a self-sacrificing doctor; and an orphan who ends up in Hollywood. Each is rooted in their own familial and regional histories and, by implication, in the culture and moved by the tidal forces of their moments. The pathos and promise of these characters is handled with unusual mix of sensitivity and detachment that puts Dos Passos in a rare artistic territory. The absence of a hero or even Hemingway-esque anti-hero actually increases the drama and educational power of the whole, as it gives us more history and fewer magnetic-to-sympathies archetypes than most novels do, while retaining the sense of a unique moral and creative vision, yet without blunt sermons.
The reader here, David Drummond, is enormously talented at creating different voices, and the technical consistency of the production is better than most Audible books. However, he may use his skills at cartoonish or outright absurd characters too often: many characters who should be more subtly rendered are transmogrified by Drummond into Hanna-Barbera cartoon animals. His late-middle aged men especially sound like primary colored cartoon bears intoning these lines, and several women sound like Bugs Bunny or some other cartoon knave trying to fool an antagonist by wearing a mop-head for a disguise--this strategy of reading *women* in breathy or squeaky falsetto "little girl" (yeesh) voices is not what Dos Passos' naturalist fiction needs. (The Blackstone audio reading of The Great Gatsby gets around this problem, by--who would've considered it--getting a woman to read the female parts of the novel). Drummond is skilled, but maybe too arch or cutesy for many scenes here. Drummond also sings all of the songs that are "sampled" in the collage-of-the-now "Newsreel" scenes, apparently in their original tunes. He has a gift for singing stable-on-key, which excuses most any other oddity, but his timbre is like a bass in a Peoria Methodist choir most times, and this too becomes odd in the singing of many 1920s snappy blues or flapper ditties. Since the newsreels are prose-poems, these may be better off being read than sung.
However, I wouldn't want to do without the Drummond version, but I am interested in what a) the Camera Eye collages would sound like if read like poems, straight, without so many quirky changes of voice; b) a straighter reading, with fewer Foghorn Leghorn intonations for men overall [his southern accents are plainly an outsider's guesses] and c) a real woman reading the female roles, or at least dropping the bass-voice-in-falsetto modes that the audio reader Drummond engages. Note he is enormously skilled and this is entertaining--I just have reservations about his chameleonic, sometimes cartoonish enthusiasms.

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a forgotten history of America roots.

classic, well worth revisiting . experiment al in its day. unforgiving. compassionate, insight into the lost causes that shaped us as clearly as our successes

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Dos Passos was a poet

This delicious to hear the narration at production a perfect I read this book in1070 as I began life in NYC. To hear these intertwined story’s with the narrator sing parts I did know wee music on first glance. Amazing tale of New York and the USA frozen in the poet’s amber.

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The culmination of an amazing journey

When I set out on this journey three novels ago, I wasn't sure how engaged I would be. Not that I don't appreciate the subject matter. As a labor activist, I fully appreciate the importance of the period in question as these years surrounding World War I were critical to the growth of the labor movement. Rather, I was concerned how the zealous observations of a committed leftist would color their perspective of an era where America wrestled with the demands of the contradictions of an expanding global corporate footprint and a struggling working class.

What I came away with was how concerted and sanctioned the effort to keep workers from organizing and how tone deaf was capital and the courts to the legitimate suffering of workers in mining and steel country.

Sadly, while many of these conditions have improved, the cooperation between commerce, government and the courts continues to make it difficult to organize. Though the labels have changed, the demonization of those who strive to organize continues.

The U.S.A. Trilogy and Big Money demonstrate that so many of the arguments for and against the capitalist system haven't improved over the last 80+ years since Dos Passos took up the subject. The characters are as relevant now as when the author conceived them. the 1,300+ pages may seem daunting, but the story moves and the characters interweave to show the complicated tapestry of this nation and the people who have always made it great, even if only minor characters.

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The start of something big

Would you listen to The Big Money again? Why?

Probably not as I have read the trilogy already before hearing it.

What did you like best about this story?

Mac's youthful adventures on the road start the tale strongly, reminiscent of Twain. A great satire of door-to-door salesmen, and lighter in touch than much of Dos Passos before or after.

What does David Drummond bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The grainy, gritty American voices he dramatizes and the Camera Eye and Newsreels sections, difficult to energize, come alive in his command of American vernaculars and period 1920s slang.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No, I liked it. Dos Passos brought a detached presence to much of his prose, and it shows.

Any additional comments?

Probably more valuable, like Sinclair Lewis, for the life of Americans after WWI as recorded, than for the actual stories. Almost a century after the events, it still speaks for the hopes of the little men and women and how they are crushed or warped or abandoned in the rush for survival and wealth.

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Excellent Historical (Experimental) Novel

I read and listened to this book because I was taking a class about Depression-era film & literature. What Dos Passos did was integrate a colloquial, real, personal, and fictional history in the U.S.A. trilogy ("The Big Money" is the third part of the trilogy). He used real headlines from newspapers of the time period along with advertising slogans and pop songs in the "Newsreel" portions of the novel. These are really fun to hear through the audio performance, and one of the reasons it is worth listening to.

The "Camera Eye" portion of the novel was harder to listen to, and in truth, it is difficult to read without some contextual information. These are largely stream-of-consciousness portions which Dos Passos used to describe his own memories. They are poetic at times--and like most poetry--benefit from being seen on the page.

The biography sections of the novel are fantastic, and worth the price of the book. His depictions of T. Veblen, I. Duncan, W. Hearst, The Wright Bros. (and more!) are fascinating studies of the larger-than-life historical figures whom we might have only heard about in positive ways in history books. A definite strength of the book.

His fictional portions, the characters he strings through these other portions of the book are engaging and interesting. A satisfying read, worth your time and money.

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5 people found this helpful

Love it

I really enjoy this and think the audible narration pairs well with the style I wish the USA trilogy was
better known

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Finally!

Read the first two parts of the three-book novel in paperback..The first part was getting used to the style and disjointed nature...Following the characters is tough, but eventually you let the whole thing wash over you..The biographies, newsreels and Camera's Eye were welcome distractions..Powerful, tragic, infuriating and apropos..Update the references and you could write a similar book today..Not much has changed...

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1 person found this helpful

The Great American Novel by

One mid century young writer remarked, “I set out to write the Great American Novel, but it had already been written.” He was talking about “USA.”

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Conclusion of a great story.

In the last book of USA trilogy everyone is dealing with the aftermath of WWI.

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