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Three Soldiers John Dos Passos 9781406934854 Books

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Three Soldiers John Dos Passos 9781406934854 Books

In his novel Three Soldiers, originally published in 1921, John Dos Passos attempts to present a realistic, unglamourized look at the lives of American soldiers during World War I. Upon its release it was praised by H. L. Mencken for its authentic portrayal of the wartime military experience. In the era of its publication, the book’s anti-war stance may have shocked the patriotic populace, but today’s reader, after having digested countless war stories through books and film, is likely to find this novel tame and dull.

It takes a while to even figure out to which Three Soldiers the title refers. The book starts out by focusing on a Private Fuselli as he moves through training camp and eventually ships out for France. About a third of the way through, however, Fuselli’s story is abandoned, and Dos Passos cuts to Private John Andrews, who takes center stage for the rest of the narrative. A third soldier, Private Chrisfield, shows up periodically as a sort of sidekick to Andrews. The result of this odd arrangement of the three men’s storylines is that the reader ends up feeling like Fuselli’s story was just a waste of time. There seems to be no apparent reason for structuring the book this way other than the modernist’s pretention to scorn convention and confound expectations.

This is the least of the book’s problems, however. Though this is an anti-war novel, don’t expect a story about the horrors of combat. There’s very little of that in this book. Only one scene of physical violence has the potential to truly shock, but the deadpan matter-of-fact manner in which the author relates the event renders it forgettable. Mostly, Dos Passos concentrates on the dehumanization of men forced to submit to military bureaucracy. He portrays the three soldiers as prisoners or slaves, and each handles the yoke of servitude in a different manner. Fuselli is the average joe, eager to make something of himself, who approaches the army as an opportunity. Andrews is the sensitive artist who doesn’t belong anywhere near military life. Chrisfield is the coarse redneck who actually seems to enjoy the brutality of war. Andrews’s plight, which occupies the bulk of the book, is hardly representative of the experience of a typical military man, and the more atypical his story becomes, the more Dos Passos’s arguments become moot.

I sympathize with Dos Passos’s leftist, pacifistic views; I just wish he would express them a little more stridently. The novel is just too darn sensitive. The reader wonders how much more interesting it might have been in the hands of a more blatantly didactic writer like Upton Sinclair. In the last few chapters, Dos Passos finally gets to his point, but prior to that the reader has to wade through chapter after chapter of doughboys wandering the streets of France; pursuing French women; sipping coffee, wine, or beer in French cafes; and engaging in long, pointless conversations. Every step they take, every move they make, Dos Passos writes it down. Dos Passos heavy-handedly sprinkles repetitive snippets of song lyrics throughout the prose and purposefully uses the phrase “putty-colored puddles” seven or eight times. Descriptions of trees and leaves are ubiquitous. Such gratuitous poesy merely inspires tedium and annoyance.

Dos Passos went on to a long, prolific career which included his magnum opus, the U.S.A. trilogy, hailed by many as a masterpiece of American literature. I’m sure there are some good novels among his body of work, but Three Soldiers is not one of them.


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Three Soldiers John Dos Passos 9781406934854 Books Reviews

I read this story twice. In many ways Army life has not changed in spite of almost 90 years since this book was written. The first time I read it, I thought most of the book really droned on, but when I reached the final, moving conclusion, I realized that I had not approached it with an appropriate frame of mind. The book may seem disjointed in places, but that is how Army life can seem at times, especially in a foreign country. Not everything in the Army is reckoning with the enemy; Army life is reckoning with ones's self with the cards that have been dealt for you.

I do not accept the opinion that this is an anti-war novel - there is hardly any mention of the horrors of war. Rather, it is a story of how three men tried to cope within a highly structured, tightly controlled society. Fuselli tries to accept the Army and advance to corporal but, ironically, he loses his promotion as well as his girl friend through no fault of his own. Christfield is a misfit and holds grudges that leads to violence and his own downfall; even today, there seems to be a Chistfield in every Army unit. Fuselli and Christfield exit the story in their own way after making up a major part of the development of the story of Andrews, whose ideological sense of personal freedom leads him down a self-destructive path that makes no sense to those around him. It is with Andrews that the reader can feel the futileness of Army life, the hopeless that comes with a deserter when abandoned by friends, and Andrews' lonesome acceptance of his fate which is so skillfuly written, so well expressed, that it made me read this book again right away.
John Dos Passos is a great novelist, one of the great American novelists of the early 20th century. But this is not a great novel. It lacks a dramatic structure that can keep the reader going and the dialogue is weak. Though it is about "Three Soldiers" it almost reads like three short stores and there is very little about battle. Still, it is an authentic novel of the post World War 1 generation and the issues that he addresses -- loneliness, emptiness, conflicted patriotism, despair -- are deeply felt. Dos Passos wants the world to know what a dehumanizing institution that military was and how it killed more than those lost in combat. But this is such a focus of the book that the story loses nuance.
What I love about the book are the physical descriptions of Paris and the French countryside. You can see the talent emerging in this early work and the passions at work in the "lost generation." That emotion, that honestly, is what makes it an interesting read.
And may take you where you might not have been.
Published in 1920 Dos Passos tale may come to you slowly as you adjust to the cadence of the unfamiliar vernacular as well as the time breaks of his paragraphs. But in time it will very likely start to play with your subconscious in the most exciting way. There is an underling story that carries its own weigh about a period when the world had gone to play at the mindless drama of war, wasting away the lives of millions and with apparently no lessons learned. But it is not a war novel; although some have termed it an anti-war novel.

The beauty of his writing is found in simple descriptive sentences that well may set you day dreaming about very different occurrences in your own life and times. He is so observant of the human condition in its many forms that he is never far from someone's experiences and memories.

The man himself is worthy of study and Wikipedia's capsule on him is worth viewing. You very likely will enjoy The Three Soldiers, you may love it. Dos Passos was always searching for something better and often only finding disappointment, but my God he could write and his later trilogy is a recognize classic; its flow of consciousness style copied again and again. Most recently by George Packer's Unwinding An Inner History of the New America.
In his novel Three Soldiers, originally published in 1921, John Dos Passos attempts to present a realistic, unglamourized look at the lives of American soldiers during World War I. Upon its release it was praised by H. L. Mencken for its authentic portrayal of the wartime military experience. In the era of its publication, the book’s anti-war stance may have shocked the patriotic populace, but today’s reader, after having digested countless war stories through books and film, is likely to find this novel tame and dull.

It takes a while to even figure out to which Three Soldiers the title refers. The book starts out by focusing on a Private Fuselli as he moves through training camp and eventually ships out for France. About a third of the way through, however, Fuselli’s story is abandoned, and Dos Passos cuts to Private John Andrews, who takes center stage for the rest of the narrative. A third soldier, Private Chrisfield, shows up periodically as a sort of sidekick to Andrews. The result of this odd arrangement of the three men’s storylines is that the reader ends up feeling like Fuselli’s story was just a waste of time. There seems to be no apparent reason for structuring the book this way other than the modernist’s pretention to scorn convention and confound expectations.

This is the least of the book’s problems, however. Though this is an anti-war novel, don’t expect a story about the horrors of combat. There’s very little of that in this book. Only one scene of physical violence has the potential to truly shock, but the deadpan matter-of-fact manner in which the author relates the event renders it forgettable. Mostly, Dos Passos concentrates on the dehumanization of men forced to submit to military bureaucracy. He portrays the three soldiers as prisoners or slaves, and each handles the yoke of servitude in a different manner. Fuselli is the average joe, eager to make something of himself, who approaches the army as an opportunity. Andrews is the sensitive artist who doesn’t belong anywhere near military life. Chrisfield is the coarse redneck who actually seems to enjoy the brutality of war. Andrews’s plight, which occupies the bulk of the book, is hardly representative of the experience of a typical military man, and the more atypical his story becomes, the more Dos Passos’s arguments become moot.

I sympathize with Dos Passos’s leftist, pacifistic views; I just wish he would express them a little more stridently. The novel is just too darn sensitive. The reader wonders how much more interesting it might have been in the hands of a more blatantly didactic writer like Upton Sinclair. In the last few chapters, Dos Passos finally gets to his point, but prior to that the reader has to wade through chapter after chapter of doughboys wandering the streets of France; pursuing French women; sipping coffee, wine, or beer in French cafes; and engaging in long, pointless conversations. Every step they take, every move they make, Dos Passos writes it down. Dos Passos heavy-handedly sprinkles repetitive snippets of song lyrics throughout the prose and purposefully uses the phrase “putty-colored puddles” seven or eight times. Descriptions of trees and leaves are ubiquitous. Such gratuitous poesy merely inspires tedium and annoyance.

Dos Passos went on to a long, prolific career which included his magnum opus, the U.S.A. trilogy, hailed by many as a masterpiece of American literature. I’m sure there are some good novels among his body of work, but Three Soldiers is not one of them.