Rosinante to the Road Again
by John Dos Passos

Where to find this book Rosinante to the Road Again was published by George H. Doran Co. in 1922. It is now out of print. For used copies try Alibris.

  blurb    online book

The author
American novelist John Dos Passos lived from 1896 to 1970. Born the illegitimate son of a wealthy corporate lawyer and a "Southern gentlewoman," his life took him from early radicalism to a later strong conservatism. Raised largely abroad, he was educated at Harvard, served as an ambulance driver in World War I, and became the chief literary spokesman for the radical Left in the 1930s. Disillusioned by the Spanish Civil War, over time he came to embrace the Republican Right. Noted for his discerning verbal portraits of modern society, he is best known for his classic works Manhattan Transfer and the U.S.A. trilogy. John Dos Passos's life is recounted in a well-received biography by Townsend Ludington, first published in 1980 and re-released in paperback in 1998.
Go to Amazon for: U.S.A. (trilogy), by John Dos Passos (Library of America, 1996).
Go to Amazon for: John Dos Passos: A Twentieth Century Odyssey, by Townsend Ludington (Carroll & Graf, 1998).

The book
Usually described as a collection of essays, Rosinante to the Road Again is actually a thin story with interspersed chapters of literary commentary. The story is about two foreign travelers in Spain, Telemachus and Lyaeus, who journey from Madrid to Toledo on foot, Telemachus in search of the ineffable "gesture" that defines all that is Spanish. The road offers countless opportunities to stop at taverns along the way, where the pair meet the common, simple folk of the Spanish countryside, such meetings providing fodder for Dos Passos's subtle social commentary. The story is interrupted from time to time by musings about fine Spanish writers of the early 1900s and the various nationhoods they represent, including the time-worn Castilians and the fiercely independent Basques and Catalonians. While not a work of depth, this book nevertheless pleases, and the author's poetic turns-of-phrase enchant.
   In the biography by Ludington, it's told that Dos Passos asked the publishers if they would help create an informal, reportorial style for the book by omitting italics, leaving out apostrophes in words like "dont," and using dashes instead of quotation marks. They didn't go for it.

Video
A video, The Odyssey of John Dos Passos, features William Hurt as the voice of John Dos Passos and is narrated by Robert MacNeil. It was produced by the Educational Film Center in 1993 and is available from PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria VA 22314 (1-800-334-3337).

People from the book
In Rosinante, Dos Passos discusses a number of literary masters who are now known as part of the Generation of '98 (that's 1898, of course). The group is described at Sí, Spain (sponsored by the Spanish Foreign Ministry). In the book, Dos Passos features or mentions many members of this Group of '98, including Azorín, Miguel de Unamuno, Pío Baroja, and Antonio Machado.
   Antonio Machado, "Poet of Castile," made a particularly deep impression on Dos Passos.
   Rosinante's chapter XIV revolves around Jacinto Benavente, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1922. A thumbnail sketch of his life is found online at the Nobel Foundation.