Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
Here is a great American novel on par with Gatsby, I think. I can't believe I haven't come across it before.
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It's both well written and enjoyable. I'd never heard of this book until it appeared on my recommendations shelf and I've been trying to figure out why, especially as I then found two copies on the shelf at work. Not to mention how very impressive it was.
I guess there's only so much room for American literature from the thirties to have lasting worldwide appeal through to 2012. It was never on any syllabus I ever read that's for sure. Perhaps it should be. Depression era Hollywood certainly seems less horrifying and, well, depressing than other books about the same time in other parts of America.
That's not to say that this wasn't horrifying, because it was. Not least because everything written by Nathanael West in this novel could quite easily be written about the 21st century and especially that awful area of the world known as Hollywood.
The sense of foreboding or dread that you feel from the start of the novel may not be on a similar plane to [b:The Talented Mr. Ripley|156024|The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1)|Patricia Highsmith|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327943279s/156024.jpg|1817520] for example but it's there all the same. The climax on the other hand is much more powerful that almost anything else I've read and really quite unexpected in it's content. Until this point I was merely enjoying it but the effect it has on the overall reaction to the novel is incredible.
One thing I should point out to people reading a back cover blurb and thinking it sounds like a 1930s version of a [a:Bret Easton Ellis|2751|Bret Easton Ellis|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1274408405p2/2751.jpg] novel, this is not about the industry or about shallow, rich people, it is so much more than that. It is a novel about the effect of Hollywood and fame on the everyday reality of normal working class people. The quality literary equivalent of watching idiots line up to embarrass themselves on tv auditioning for The X Factor or Big Brother and taken to its logical extreme.
EDIT: I've just had the pleasure of watching John Schlesinger's underseen movie adaptation and a few quibbles aside it is more than a match for West's novel.
I guess there's only so much room for American literature from the thirties to have lasting worldwide appeal through to 2012. It was never on any syllabus I ever read that's for sure. Perhaps it should be. Depression era Hollywood certainly seems less horrifying and, well, depressing than other books about the same time in other parts of America.
That's not to say that this wasn't horrifying, because it was. Not least because everything written by Nathanael West in this novel could quite easily be written about the 21st century and especially that awful area of the world known as Hollywood.
The sense of foreboding or dread that you feel from the start of the novel may not be on a similar plane to [b:The Talented Mr. Ripley|156024|The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1)|Patricia Highsmith|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327943279s/156024.jpg|1817520] for example but it's there all the same. The climax on the other hand is much more powerful that almost anything else I've read and really quite unexpected in it's content. Until this point I was merely enjoying it but the effect it has on the overall reaction to the novel is incredible.
One thing I should point out to people reading a back cover blurb and thinking it sounds like a 1930s version of a [a:Bret Easton Ellis|2751|Bret Easton Ellis|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1274408405p2/2751.jpg] novel, this is not about the industry or about shallow, rich people, it is so much more than that. It is a novel about the effect of Hollywood and fame on the everyday reality of normal working class people. The quality literary equivalent of watching idiots line up to embarrass themselves on tv auditioning for The X Factor or Big Brother and taken to its logical extreme.
EDIT: I've just had the pleasure of watching John Schlesinger's underseen movie adaptation and a few quibbles aside it is more than a match for West's novel.
"Where else could they go but California, the land of sunshine and oranges?
Once there, they discover that sunshine isn’t enough.
They realize that they’ve been tricked and burn with resentment. Every day of their lives they read newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings, murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles, revolutions, wars. The daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is a joke. Oranges can’t titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing."
Empty and crumbling sets, weird architecture, starlets thirsting to be famous, religious fanatics, tired and sick artists, cockfighting, illusioned people, restless crowds, celebrity obsession, fake horses at the bottom of pools. Everything that made/makes Los Angeles so wonderfully bizarre or a dumpster fire, depending on your point of view. West's disjointed execution wasn't the best, but I keep coming to it, so there must be something there.
The movie is equally fascinating, perfectly capturing the grotesqueness and gloominess, and the final frenzied scene is incredible.
adventurous
dark
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
tense
fast-paced
Loveable characters:
Complicated
West does realism very well, and most of the book has the same sort of realism about Hollywood that you find in film noir and some of Bradbury's stories. Toward the end, it becomes bizarrely violent, going from a very detailed cock-fight to the abuse of a dwarf and on to rape fantasies and a grown man beating up a child and then being destroyed by a mob. Where it begins only sort of sad, it ends up appalling.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Any great deed is motivated by a dream or vision, but what happens if the dream is all that exists, untethered to any practical purpose? In Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust, these dreams that people are inhabit are the true opium of the masses, and it’s not tied to any one particular thing: silver screen stardom, spiritual awakening, sultry beauties parading in peepshows, and self-sacrificial limerence all operate on the same principle of creating an illusion that supplants reality. This book is pretty sordid and unsavory, but like a swig of vodka it delivers a good mule kick to the head. Dreams are empty suits only animated by the imaginations of individuals, and dreams that overshadow reality create slaves.