What I Am Reading: "Manhattan Transfer" by John Dos Passos

As promised (?), here is the other great book of the Jazz Age metropolis. Having read it right after and as a unit with Berlin Alexanderplatz, I can't help but compare the two. This one features an ensemble cast instead of a focus on a single character. This cast can be easy to get confused until the book has established enough of a foundation, especially since many characters have similar names or nicknames or don't appear for a stretch. The sections of the book are short, serving almost as vignettes of the characters' lives as they move about the city (especially toward the beginning when they are not familiar enough yet). The story spans a couple of decades, with the occasional chronological check-in such as the unification of New York City or the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand appearing in newspaper headlines. This slice-of-life narrative structure (sometimes skipping years at a time) contrasts with Berlin Alexanderplatz's through-line, but Manhattan Transfer at the same time mostly lacks the gonzo insertion of stream-of-consciousness recording or scrapbook of advertising copy. It lives through the eyes of the characters for the most part, and we are not guided along by a narrator. The characters, however, are a little more easy to understand and identity with; I wouldn't go so far as to say that they are archetypes, but the reader does develop an affinity for them. Anyway, it is fun to let one's self be lulled into the familiar routine of New York City life, only to be jarred awake by something that seems strange to our modern tastes, such as frequent imbibement of buttermilk. I liked the book well enough, and I know it was one of the Great American Novels; but there have been many subsequent stories of New York, and its people including those from/in this fondly-remembered era. Unlike Weimar Berlin, New York isn't gone forever, though admittedly the city of prohibition and tenements isn't always easy to recapture outside of a tourist simulacra. That makes a first-hand witness useful.