Thursday, 24 September 2015

Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos



I read this book – my first one by Dos Passos – right before my last trip to the USA. In all honesty, I can’t really say that I’ve loved it (however, I did try, really quite hard).

Manhattan Transfer oozes love for New York City, but that’s not always sufficient to make a great work, even for someone as fond of the place as I am (just ask Woody Allen – his adoration for NYC is as apparent in Hannah and Her Sisters just like it is in Anything Else, yet the two movies aren’t quite of the same calibre...).

Individually taken, the stories of all the characters in Manhattan Transfer are intriguing and typically New Yorkesque. Yet, to me, the book – with its constant changes of perspective and its stream of consciousness – was just too hard to follow, and what I was left with was a series of interesting anecdotes and a plot I really didn’t understand. I’m sure I was the problem here, which is just a big shame...

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