A Biographical Sketch of one of America’s greatest writers and novelists but perhaps somewhat neglected and not known as he should be: John Dos Passos
Today I will write and speak of the life and literary work of one of our greatest writers and novelists, John Dos Passos. In these pages I have spoken of with great pleasure some of my favorite English and American prose writers, novelists and poets whom I love and treasure. I have written of the life and works of such poets as T.S. Eliot, Shelley, Keats, and Byron and such novelists as E.M. Forster, Kipling, Dickens, Trollope, Thackeray, Jane Austen, Conrad, Sinclair Lewis, Steinbeck and many others. None of these greats of world literature and world thinking are far from my thoughts and my bedside and all are my daily companions and will never be far from me to the very end and conclusion of my life.
I now set about to speak and write on a very great American novelist and writer, but who has sadly been neglected by our present age and generation, wrongly and incorrectly, I think. He was born in Chicago in 1896. His father was an attorney and married his mother after the death of his first wife. As a child he travelled with his mother in Europe extensively. After he returned to the US he enrolled in the Choate school in 1907, located in Connecticut. He then travelled in a six-month tour of Europe and in 1912 enrolled at Harvard College. He next journeyed to Spain to study art and in 1917 volunteered to serve in the ambulance corps. In the late summer he completed the draft of his first novel, One Man’s Initiation, and published it in 1920. It was followed by his novel Three Soldiers, which brought him widespread recognition, and his 1925 novel, Manhattan Transfer, was a commercial success. The first book of the USA Trilogy appeared in 1930.
He was a social revolutionary and sought to overturn the death sentences of Sacco and Vannzetti. He had communist leanings and spent several months in Russia studying socialism. He wrote the screenplay for the film “The Devil Is a Woman.” In 1937 during the Spanish Civil War he returned to Spain with the writer Ernest Hemingway. He attended the 1932 Democratic convention and criticized the nomination of Franklin Roosevelt. In his novel Big Money there is a character who is a communist who is worn down by the party. Between 1942 and 1945 he worked as a journalist and war correspondent and covered the operations in the Pacific and the post –World War II situation in much of Germany. In 1947 his wife was killed in an auto accident and he remarried in 1949. His politics turned to the right and he contributed to the history magazine American Heritage and to the conservative National Review. He published a study on Thomas Jefferson in 1954. In 1967 he was invited to Rome to accept a prize for international distinction in literature. He campaigned for Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon and continued to write until his death in Baltimore, Maryland in 1970.
In his life and career he wrote 42 novels and numerous poems, essays and plays. His major work is the USA Trilogy, including The 42nd Parallel in 1930 and Big Money in 1936. He used experimental techniques in these novels. The novels constitute social and political reflections about the political and economic direction of the United States. In addition to being a leading novelist, he did a great deal of painting. John Dos Passos’ literary works were major influences for other writers such a Sarte and Doblin. He also influenced science fiction writers such as John Brunner.
I have to say to my friends and literary comrades that I find John Dos Passos’ work interesting and timely. I enjoy his work because I enjoy someone who is willing to think and evolve. He lived in a different age in that respect, an age where thought and opinion still carried weight and were taken seriously. One may hope that thought and reflection and the free interchange of views and opinions may return to a system which solely respects money and little else.
The material in this issue is taken in part from the essay in Wikipedia.