Jun. 25, 2021—The 42nd Parallel (The U.S.A. trilogy) by John Dos Passos

The next meeting of Great Books KC Will be June 25, 2021. We will discuss The 42nd Parallel (The U.S.A. trilogy) by John Dos Passos

Meeting Location & Time:

Date: June 25, 2021

Time: 7:00 pm

 Zoom On-Line Meeting:

 —an email with link to join will be sent prior to meeting.

 —the link is sent to a limited mailing list of those who have either attended a meeting in the past year or have requested that their name be included on the mailing list. Requests to be added to the mailing list may be sent to GreatBooksKC@gmail.com 

Description of Book:

The U.S.A. trilogy is a series of three novels by American writer John Dos Passos, comprising the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919(1932) and The Big Money (1936). The books were first published together in a volume titled U.S.A. by Modern Library in 1937.

The trilogy employs an experimental technique, incorporating four narrative modes: fictional narratives telling the life stories of twelve characters, collages of newspaper clippings and song lyrics labeled "Newsreel", individually labeled short biographies of public figures of the time such as Woodrow Wilson and Henry Ford and fragments of autobiographical stream of consciousness writing labeled "Camera Eye". The trilogy covers the historical development of American society during the first three decades of the 20th century. In 1998, the US publisher Modern Library ranked U.S.A. 23rd on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.