What does a "John Dos Passos-like list" look like?

December 29, 2013 12:15 PM

I was reading a review of Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 and a reviewer said the following: The author inserts John Dos Passos-like lists here and there in the text. Not quite sure that works, however (These lists are distorted and truncated in the Kindle edition). What do these lists look like?

I'm not familiar with Dos Passos' work and I can't reach the reviewer.

posted by hjo3 to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

Best answer: I think the reviewer is referring to the "newsreel" sections in Dos Passos's U.S.A. Trilogy. If you are an SF reader, you may recognize the same technique from being used in Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:37 PM on December 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Here's the archive.org copy of 42nd Parallel. The reviewer is likely talking about the Newsreel sections, assemblages of documentary text.
posted by zamboni at 12:37 PM on December 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Awesome, that explains it. Thanks!
posted by hjo3 at 1:05 PM on December 29, 2013