A scattershot collection of essays and fictional sketches that mostly misses the mark. As someone who admires Dos Passos’s early fiction (I haven’t delved into his post-1930s work, yet), I'm surprised to find the weakest parts of these essays are his attempts to write “literary nonfiction,” in which he portrays the Spanish peasants in the narrative style of a novelist. The writing is flat and dull in these sections, with neither the insight of fiction nor the fine detail of reportage.

Dos Passos is at his strongest in this collection when he moves away from these flights of fancy and just gives direct commentary on Spanish literature, history, art, and culture. (I realize this opinion is the opposite of most critical reviews of this text.) He tends to shift into these modes in chapters that alternate with the character sketches. Although Donald Pizer tries to argue that this structure connects Dos Passos’s essays to the fiction and poetry of High Modernism (including the author’s own later brilliant fiction of the 30s), I find the argument unconvincing for the simple reason that Dos Passos’s technique here is too unrefined. Using Don Quixote to link Spain to a mythic past and naming one traveling peasant “Telemachus” are hardly groundbreaking stylistic choices. The highlight of the book is the chapter on Machado, as Dos Passos provides a few translations of his poetry, which made me wish I were reading a collection of Machado’s poetry rather than this volume.

In short, this collection is just what it appears to be: a very young writer enamored with a country and testing out his writing chops in some early sketches -- dipping his toe into the water, so to speak. The raw talent and potential are all there, but the final product lacks refinement. A much better place to start with Dos Passos is his novel published in the previous year, [b:Three Soldiers|1096587|Three Soldiers|John Dos Passos|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347307945l/1096587._SY75_.jpg|1245376].