[Dos Passos'] preparation as a writer may be seen as four separate rites of passage, subjection to major ordeals of mind and spirit, which determined and tempered his view of the world and therefore the nature of his art.

He had, first of all, to come to grips with the actualities of life in the United States, from which he was isolated by the unusual circumstances of his birth and upbringing. Beyond that, World War I was to him a genuine initiation, a quick—and safe—plunge into the stream of real life that expunged the conventional expectations and beliefs of sheltered youth. The war also brought to a head the forces of socialism—communism, largely theoretical up to that point, in revolutions which were to provide a major cultural and intellectual referent for at least a generation. Siren song, intellectual pitfall, liberating vision, whatever the Russian experiment...