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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
west is almost too good of a satirist - from the opening pages the erudite reader is made aware that his vision of hollywood is being narrated with an endlessly skeptical and cynical eye, one which never lets up its ruthless disparaging of the whirlwinds of facade that occupy the novel. its brilliance, perhaps, lies in the deliberate extinguishing of any kind of respite from a hollywood plagued by artifice and pretension, written in rich prose at once impassioned and defeated, the decrying of falseness without any necessity to reaffirm an underlying truth.
the day of the locust, for its entirety, is buoyed along by a persistently garish and stylistically excellent depiction of a surreal, technicolor-tinted fever dream, a lurid landscape where dreams cannot be shot down because they have never even bothered to maintain the impression of any tethering to reality. west narrates his novel with a truly cinematic flourish that befits his world, one of the few times where the affectation 'lynchian' is truly earned. stage four: the sign bears no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is its own pure simulacrum.
the day of the locust, for its entirety, is buoyed along by a persistently garish and stylistically excellent depiction of a surreal, technicolor-tinted fever dream, a lurid landscape where dreams cannot be shot down because they have never even bothered to maintain the impression of any tethering to reality. west narrates his novel with a truly cinematic flourish that befits his world, one of the few times where the affectation 'lynchian' is truly earned. stage four: the sign bears no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is its own pure simulacrum.
Apparently I'm just not a fan of Nathanael West. I didn't care for any of the characters. They were flat and had ugly personalities and lacked virtue. The subject matter and plot of the story were mundane: I was unable to care. The story arc was largely anticlimactic and uninteresting. The point of the story was trivial and unimportant to me.
Hollywood's quintessential novel, and arguably, America's novel. West captures the loony calamity of the movie industry, while drawing parallels to the entire country. Tod Hackett is a painter working on his final project, "The Burning of L.A.," when he falls in love with the fake, selfish, Daisy Buchanon-like star-to-be, Faye Greener. The diversity of characters gives this book its shape: the self-depravity of Homer, the drunkenness and poverty of Earle, the temper of Abe---all of whom are star-struck by the beautiful and hollow Faye. From cockfights to funerals to violent mobs, The Day of the Locust slowly devolves into the madness and hysteria of a culture that has lost the promised American Dream.
medium-paced
Since I was a teenager I have salt & peppered my reading with a number of the Great American Classics...nearly all of the Hemingway's, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc...Edgar Allen Poe...of the more modern authors many John Updike, Jack Kerouac, even Joyce Carrol Oates and a few others along the way....it's fun, interesting reading. Sooooooooo...The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West, an American Classic about Hollywood in 1939, has been on my reading list for a long, long time. I picked up a copy at the library the other day...gave it a read...and...and IT SUCKED! Horrible...one of the biggest let downs of my reading experience. It's NOT about he glory days of Hollywood, the cinema capitol of the world...it's about a couple of country bumpkins who end up in Hollywood with no plans other than make it Big and their trials & tribulations...So what! Who the flip cares? Not one redeeming character...one who's name is Homer Simpson! Doh! Yeah...I thought it was a real stinker...so glad I got a loaner and didn't pay for this crap...not much else to say...suck-o...1 outta 5...
My vote for the Great American Novel - The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West. Why? West's short novel speaks to what every single American has to deal with - the falsehood of Hollywood, the ultimate con, the complete fake, the billion dollar illusion, shoved in everybody's face, like it or not.
As Nathaniel West captured so brilliantly, once anything or anyone is in Hollywood, there is no escape from being converted into artificiality - even a wooden chest of drawers is painted to look like unfinished wood.
Adults beating the spontaneity out of children so their kid can be the next Shirley Temple. How twisted. Adults dressing, speaking, moving, expressing themselves in imitation of what they see on the screen. How sick. How appalling. How American.
How Nathaniel West captured it all perfectly in this Great American Novel: The Day of the Locust.
I love this photo capturing how the five-pointed stars in the Hollywood sidewalk mirror the five-pointed stars in the American flag.
challenging
dark
funny
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Really well written but sometimes saddled down by too much detail of secondary characters.
At the end I found myself wondering what this was all about. Guy in Hollywood wants to bed girl, is surrounded by weirdos. Becomes a weirdo after a trippy scene at a premiere.
A long 150 pages.
At the end I found myself wondering what this was all about. Guy in Hollywood wants to bed girl, is surrounded by weirdos. Becomes a weirdo after a trippy scene at a premiere.
A long 150 pages.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was an incredible look into the psyche of the American Dream, and more specifically the dreams of people looking to make it in Hollywood. Each character represents the different challenges and West does an incredible job showing the hopelessness everyone leaves with.
