Henry James once declared that
"the novelist succeeds to the sacred office of the historian".
John Dos Passos implemented the idea, as suggested by Alfred Kazin in his introduction to "The big money". Putting together the life of Henry Ford, F.W Taylor, T.Veblen and the fiction of Charley Anderson, Mary French and Margo Dowling, is quite meaningful indeed.
What is fiction, what is reality ?
A question which concerns above all the large corporations. Their declared values and history that can be read on corporate brochures are more often fictious than real. The english language has a very accurate expression for that : wishful thinking.
The saying : "Reality outpasses fiction" deserves to be taken seriously. The problem is to know where reality can be caught. The answer is given to us by John Dos Passos : wondering what USA is, really, he says :
"USA is the speech of the people".
What people say is the best access to corporate truth. It is only a matter of interpretation.
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