Beau read and liked Michael's review of Novels, 1920-1925: One Man's Initiation: 1917, Three Soldiers, Manhattan Transfer (The Library of America, 142):

"Consists of several early novels. The first (One Man's Initiation) is a rather callow attack on WWI from the perspective of an ambulance driver. It doesn't use the technique of pastiche from different sources that DP would later take up, and the pa...more Consists of several early novels. The first (One Man's Initiation) is a rather callow attack on WWI from the perspective of an ambulance driver. It doesn't use the technique of pastiche from different sources that DP would later take up, and the passages where various anarchist- and socalist-aligned soldiers wax eloquent on the future are pretty insufferable stuff.

The second (Three Soldiers) is a rather better attempt to get at the misery and injustice of the war for enlisted men. The politics handled more deftly here.

The third, and best, is Manhattan Transfer. Getting closer here to DP's use of newsprint and other materials stitched together, as he does in the later novels. Follows multiple characters in pre- and post-war New York. In aggregate, is kind of powerful. Still overwritten in parts.(less) "