If it helps, I was shocked by the ending of GRAPES OF WRATH
(I was a teenager then). I didn't read that Dos Passos, but I
did read, IIRC, THE USA TRILOGY long ago. Lots of
desperation, urban unemployment, ordinary working stiffs in
suits (like my husband said guys used to wear at the pool
room).
Would Horatio Algers be
anti-proletarian novels?
BTW, let me pass on a compliment I
heard about Navy civilians and their writing. My father was
complaining about some IRS instructions--the senior citizen
deduction guidelines are tossed together in the same
paragraphs with a slew of arcane trivia--and he said nobody
working for the Navy could get away with such sloppy
work.
Joy
Miker wrote:
>. . . . I'd really like to read THE
> GRAPES OF WRATH, but it's killing me to read Dos
Passos's
> 42ND PARALLEL. The characters are interesting but
nothing
> much is happening. The child in me demands action.
The only
> thing that allowed me to continue was that he
slacked off on
> the Marxist rhetoric after a while. I don't like
that, and
> it has nothing to do with political preferences. I
don't
> like Horatio Algers either.
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