The Ambulance Drivers

Posted on 23 September 2018 by James McGrath Morris

After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense twenty year friendship and write some of America s greatest novels, giving voice to a lost generation shaken by war.Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps When the war was over, both men knew they had to write about it they had to give voice to what they felt about war and life.Their friendship and collaboration developed through the peace of the 1920s and 1930s, as Hemingway s novels soared to success while Dos Passos penned the greatest antiwar novel of his generation, Three Soldiers In war, Hemingway found adventure, women, and a cause Dos Passos saw only oppression and futility Their different visions eventually turned their private friendship into a bitter public fight, fueled by money, jealousy, and lust.Rich in evocative detail from Paris cafes to the Austrian Alps, from the streets of Pamplona to the waters of Key West The Ambulance Drivers is a biography of a turbulent friendship between two of the century s greatest writers, and an illustration of how war both inspires and destroys, unites and divides. Read The Ambulance Drivers author James McGrath Morris – kino-fada.fr THE AMBULANCE DRIVERS Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War serves as both a dual biography and a story of 2 men who shared an ambition of making themselves the pre eminent writers of their generation I wish to give credit to James McGrath Morris for writing such an interesting and ...I learned a lot about Dos Passos that I didn t already know about himand I plan to start reading himmuch of what was relayed about Hemingway, I already knew a lot abouthowever, I learned new things about his relationship with John Both complicated men..I found the writing of this seemed a lot like r...GNAB I received a free electronic copy of this biographical history from Netgalley, James McGrath Morris, and Da Capo Press in exchange for an honest review Thank you for sharing your very hard work with me And there was a great deal of incredibly hard work involved in compiling this history There is so much out there about Hemingway, and so little about Dos Passos that finding truth imbedd...Thank you Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review this excellent work So completely readable you lose track at times that this is non fiction, until you arrive at the pages of sources, citations and end notes at the conclusion Readers hesitate to embark on another examination of Hemingway, but framed as this was in the context of his relationship with Dos Passos it created boundaries and a focus Perhaps because I was not familiar with Dos Passos life, I felt at times as the book was Thank you Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review this excellent work So completely readable you lose track at times that this is non fiction, until you arrive at the pages of sources, citations and end notes at the conclusion Readers hesitate to embark on another examination of Hemingway, but framed as this was in the context of his relationship with Dos Passos it created boundaries and a focus Perhaps because I was not familiar with Dos Passos life, I felt at times as the book was skewed toward him, but that may not be true Nor was that a complaint, since I learnedthere, and so enjoyably I have Three Soldiers, but haven t read it yet I can t say that the descriptions of his other,experimental, works really appeal to me, thus damning me forever to the ranks of the popular reader, and not the literary eagle I dream to be However, when the author describes what Dos Passos wanted to do wi...With so much having been written about Hemingway, this book takes an interesting perspective as it explores the long friendship between Hemingway and his fellow US writer John Dos Passos Both served as ambulance drivers during WW1 both were later war correspondents and both, of course, contributed to the formation of modernist literature Hemingway s books still speak to us Dos Passos are rarely read other than by academics.The book is a kind of dual biography of the two ...Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos met on the battlefields of WWI when Dos Passos was 22 and Hemingway not quite 19 Both were volunteer ambulance drivers, both later became war correspondents and both later became novelists A close friendship developed between them and for many years their lives moved in tandem along very similar trajectories But the friendship became mainly on Hemingway s sideandvolatile and increasingly the ...Quick and Entertaining A must read for fans of Hemingway and military buffs Could not put down.Rivals to the End There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through. Homer translated by Samuel Butler There are no pacts between lions and men. Brad Pitt as Achilles in Troy 2004 , screenwriter David Benioff The Ambulance Drivers is a dual biography of the writers Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos that concentrates on their interactions from primarily the end of the First World War 1914 1918 to t Rivals to the End There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through. Homer translated by Samuel Butler There are no pacts between lions and men. Brad Pitt as Achilles in Troy 2004 , screenwriter David Benioff The Ambulance Drivers is a dual biography of the writers Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos that concentrates on their interactions from primarily the end of the First World War 1914 1918 to the middle of the Spanish Civil War 1936 39 after which they mostly broke off contact The reason for the break was over the death of Jos Robles 1897 1937 , an academic friend of Dos Passos who acted as a Russian interpreter during the Spanish Civil War Robles insider knowledge gained in his translation duties was the likely reason he was purged by the Russians, who acted as military advisors to the Republican forces This whole topic is covered in depth by Stephen Koch s The Breaking Point Hemingw...I forgot what a nasty person Hemingway was until reading this book Appreciate he tried in his writing to perfectly describe and imperfect world while Dos Passos was out to change the world yet I would have much rather had those drinks with Dos alone rather then spend any time with Hemingway The final breakup between these two came over Spain and the murder of Jos Robles by the Communist More could have been written by the author on how Hemingway went from describing the world to paper over a I forgot what a nasty person Hemingway was until reading this book Appreciate he tried in his writing to perfectly describe and imperfect world while Dos Passos was out to change the world yet I would have much rather had those drinks with Dos alone rather then spend any time with Hemingway The final breakup between these two came over Spain and the murder of Jos Robles by the Communist More could have been written by the author on how Hemingway went from describing the wo...I got this book free from Netgalley in exchange for my honest feedback I would give the book 3 stars because the amount of research the author had to do to put this together is quite impressive I felt like I was getting a look into the private lives of Hemingway and Dos Passos, not just information I could find on Wikipedia or something The detail and timeline was fun to follow, although it did feel a little choppy at times jumping back and forth between the two I don t think there is any wa I got this book free from Netgalley in exchange for my honest feedback I would give the book 3 stars because the amount of research the author had to do to put this together is quite impressive I felt like I was getting a look into the private lives of Hemingway and Dos Passos, not just information I could find on Wikipedia or something The detail and timeline was fun to follow, although it did feel a little choppy at times jumping back and forth between the two I don t think there is any way to avoid that in a book about 2 separate people though.I would likely give this book a higher rating if it was less descriptive about war and the atrocities that come with it Somehow when reading the book description I didn t realize how much the book would talk about war, and some of it is quite graphic I have a wild imagination and incredible memory, so I avoid books movies tv shows that are too graphic and dark because they leave a lasting negative impression on me...

English
23 September 2018

James McGrath Morris