Manhattan Transfer: John Dos Passos (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Inevitably, he then ended up writing himself in a corner where only an unbelievable coincidence or a supernaturally capable scientist could get the story back on track.

I know myself well enough, that I would probably be one of the first to die, because I have no self-preservation. This is sci-fi not romance, although there are attractions between Matt and Abby, the two protagonists in this book. While I haven’t read any of Stith’s other works, and this won’t make me rush out and by them, Manhattan Transfer is a likeable enough story and earns three-and-a-half out of five stars. But he is also writing about the world of survivors, the world where human beings are dwarfed by the cities they life in, by the scale of their urban masses and their lower depths.The narrative is thus full of red herrings that appear to contradict Chekov’s gun principle – until the reader realizes that this is the point, really, to show the unity in diversity, the tragic condition of humankind, be them rich or poor (Stan and Bud), successful or failures (James and Joe), educated or ignorant (Jimmy and Jake). Whilst reading this 'historical novel', which starts at the turn of 19th/20th century and continues into the 1920s, I could not get over that fact that it was, in fact, published 85 years ago.

The heroes are men of mind but also men of passions, and in their contradiction they suffer the fate of absurdity to which all are condemned. It talks a lot about classism, and brushes over but touches on The Great Depression and first world war. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Matt, Abby, and a team of secondary characters work together to find out what happened to Manhattan, and will save humanity. Manhattan Transfer" (1925) is a difficult, ambitious, modernistic novel set in New York City from the late nineteenth century through the Jazz Age of the early 1920s.Oglethorpe finally snaps, and stands outside Stan's apartment building one night screaming in a drunken fury. However, I just soldiered on and decided that the chaotic nature of the book was meant to reflect life in NYC in the 1920s. She resents George, but in keeping with her tendency to plan ahead, she marries him because she is getting older and is running out of options if she wants to stay relevant in a materialistic New York. Some characters are followed from childhood to adulthood, the two most promnient are Jimmy Herf and Ellen. Dos Passos indictment of the materialism and soulessness of turn of the century New York is told with neither sentiment nor heartlessness, but falls in a middle ground-dispassionate.