One Man's Initiation: 1917

John Dos Passos first novel, a barely disguised autobiography of his withering experiences in France in 1917, was written from diaries he kept when a volunteer in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps, the Red Cross and finally the American Army. A series of sharp, vivid, disconnected impressions written with beautiful, powerful simplicity, conveying the urgency and immediacy of a flowing stream of events. Powerful descriptions of suffering, broken bodies squalor and disintegration are juxtaposed with extraordinarily acute descriptions of beauty.