Talk:John Dos Passos

Roderigo or Rodrigo?
There is no source now.Chvsanchez (talk) 05:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The only correct current Portuguese spelling is 'Rodrigo dos Passos'. 'Dos' is merely a connector, live German 'von', and not to be capitalised, except sentence-initially, where it shouldn't occur anyway because it is omitted when using the connected surname by itself (so 'Passos', not 'Dos/dos Passos'). There is no pronunciation difference between Rodrigo and *Roderigo, so the latter may have been a variant in the past. However, all this relates only to what is currently correct Portuguese (where moreover surnames may keep archaic spellings, but Rodrigo is (probably) not a surname here, and capitalisation is not exempt of the normal rules, nor is the connector considered a surname for that purpose anyway), but what matters here is the author's own usage and that of the community where he became notable.2.80.218.169 (talk) 15:29, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

List of paintings
I removed the list of paintings by Dos Passos as they were not linked to anything, and Dos Passos is primarily known as a writer. Paintings are not generally listed for minor painters, and to the extent that they are, they should be famous enough that someone would be searching the name independently.Ahpsp 16:02, 12 September 2005 (UTC)


 * That was an aspect of Dos Passos I did not know of and was glad to see ..... a pity to lose them

Influence of Doblin and Sartre
Have just added a little note about the influence of Dos Passos on Doblin and Sartre - this is generally acknowledged (at least about Sartre) - can't find any specific reference though.User:badtypist

Sartre wrote an essay in 1938 titled "John Dos Passos and '1919'" the last sentence of which is: "I regard Dos Passos as the greatest writer of our time." Don't know if that's any help.User:Bruckner7th

Category question
Should he be in Category:Chicago writers instead of Category:People from Illinois? The guidelines seem to say he should, but I've been wrong about categorization before. - Special-T 01:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Label Change
I've changed the opening to "John Dos Passos was an important American writer..." from "John Dos Passos was an important Portuguese-American writer..."

His subject matter has, mostly, nothing to do with Portugal, and his background is made note of a headed section down, so why the random alienation? --J.Dayton 13:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

McCarthyism and Dos Passos' Rightward Turn
The article needs to explore the role, or at least the historical context of, McCarthyism, HUAC, the Hollywood 10 etc. in Dos Passos ostensible evolution to the right. Tom Cod 07:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, admitting his sympathies for socialism and for the left in the Spanish Civil war, perhaps he wasn't personally as leftist in his younger days as many of his colleagues. Just my POV, but I find Three Soldiers on close reading to not be the conventional antiwar novel it is gernerally taken to be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.64.233 (talk) 01:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Dos Passos' politics were already shifting prior to McCarthyism; the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact seemed to be a tipping point. Blaming McCarthyism for his "ostensible evolution" also doesn't make sense given he continued to openly identify with conservative politics for the rest of his life. --Ismail (talk) 12:17, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The 'Forgotten American'?
One point noted by some European critics of John Dos Passos is how his name was all but forgotten in the United States. Given the enormous impact of U.S.A. on world literature. Dos Passos Chronicled the most violent and turbulent years of the American Nation and it's people, and yet it was Hemingway, Steinbeck, Scott Fitzgerald, etc who were remembered. The Article speaks of the 'Pessimism' of "U.S.A." and yet Dos Passos clearly show the indomitable spirit of the American People in the face of adversity. Perhaps another title for "U.S.A." could be "Indomitable America".Johnwrd (talk) 22:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Missing word
Something is missing from the first Early Life paragraph where is says "the extraordinary literary that" ...

Brightthings (talk) 08:33, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Who is his mother?
The first paragraph is confusing. Did his father marry his mother when he was 12 years old. Or, did he marry another woman? I am just a casual reader. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.216.166.157 (talk) 17:31, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Marriage?
In Paula McClain's book, The Paris Wife, it mentions that Hadley Richardson's friend Kate Smith was pursued "with force [by Dos Passos] until she agreed to marry him". Did the marriage take place? There is no mention of it in the article.Poshseagull (talk) 07:07, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Copyright problem
This article has been reverted by a bot to as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) This has been done to remove User:Accotink2's contributions as they have a history of extensive copyright violation and so it is assumed that all of their major contributions are copyright violations. Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. VWBot (talk) 05:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The article lead...
Does anyone else feel the lead of this article would benefit from a quick encapsulation of JDP's notability? Something along the lines of "His celebrated trio of novels from the 1930s, known collectively as the U.S.A. trilogy, introduced new stylistic approaches... etc."? Obviously, if I had had a good line to put in, I would have. Anyone have one? — HarringtonSmith (talk) 22:32, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly. When I read the article and reread the leade, I thought the same thing. Your comments are much more complete than my early thoughts. What we need is a wordsmith. I'm a heavy hammer (5 kg type) man myself. Also good at connecting details and wikilinks, but nothing in between, so will let this task linger on. Too bad, because Dos Passos is too important a writer to leave in leade limbo.TGC55 (talk) 23:45, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Concurred and decided to edit the lead accordingly. Who cares whether he was illegitimate, and even if we care, wouldn't we mention this mother along with his father? Preferably neither, but I didn't excise those details from the details of the article since obviously someone thought parentage was important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frogs96822 (talk • contribs) 04:50, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Sloppy Writing
Whoever put this together should not be trusted- check out the birth and death dates- completely and obviously wrong. Also, Dos Passos is listed under 21st century authors when he's been dead for decades. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.254.172.43 (talk) 16:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 20:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Anti-FDR
Dos Passos had attended the 1932 Democratic National Convention and… harshly criticized the selection of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the party's nominee.
 * Was there a particular candidate whom he favoured? Valetude (talk) 16:26, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Mexico
There is no mention of his travel to Mexico, his big friendship with Manuel Aples Arce, founder of Estridentismo, one of Mexico's avant-garde, nor his work translating one of Manuel Maples Arce's book of poetry into english.