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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
dark
funny
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears. When they finish, they feel better. But to those without hope, like Homer, whose anguish is basic and permanent, no good comes from crying. Nothing changes for them. they usually know this, but still can't help crying."
Okay here are the crazy times ! Shockingly I think this is the first novel that I could earnestly compare with A Confederacy of Dunces though JKT wins out for me in having more interest by virtue of place and characterisation.
Still there's a frenetic energy - Hollywood suffusion - here which hurries us along there's a character named Homer Simpson & I didn't know this novel was the origin & there seems to be some sort of reference to Citizen Kane but this was published in 1939 so coincidence? It's bizarre & chaotic & the masculine politics are in the gutter but I think it has left a good impression
Still there's a frenetic energy - Hollywood suffusion - here which hurries us along there's a character named Homer Simpson & I didn't know this novel was the origin & there seems to be some sort of reference to Citizen Kane but this was published in 1939 so coincidence? It's bizarre & chaotic & the masculine politics are in the gutter but I think it has left a good impression
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Weird.
I hope people aren't like this when I get to LA. Bunch of bizarre characters with not much happening - reminds me of a Wes Anderson movie...
I hope people aren't like this when I get to LA. Bunch of bizarre characters with not much happening - reminds me of a Wes Anderson movie...
I deeply prefer West's Miss Lonelyhearts, but maybe that's because I feel like there's been a lot of art heavily inspired by The Day of the Locust, with its cantankerous view of the Dream Factory, that is even better than West's (still very good) novel.
Finally back on track with my reading! A little time off is nice from time to time. Hence the gif of Kuzco and his dramatic entrance. One of my favorite Disney movies of all time, very underrated. Plus David Spade was the voice actor behind Kuzco, and I love Spade.
On with the book now, I bought this book as soon as I saw its plot and setting are 1930s America.
I am a sucker for that time period, along with the 1920s and the marvelous Jazz age comes the 1930s and The Great Depression with the rise of the film industry and Hollywood.
This book has an all-around melancholic atmosphere that I somehow could easily imagine as an older movie and the main roles of old Hollywood heartthrobs like James Dean or James Stewart.
The characters are universal and true to today’s people in search of money and glory in Hollywood. Most people who are reaching for these things end up in completely different situations in life, rarely who succeeds in their effort.
The characters in the novel only spiral down after coming to California, disappointed by their failure they become bitter and do many cruel things such as Tod attempting to rape Faye and fantasizing to do so multiple times, Faye sleeping with Miguel in Homers’ house, Homer becoming violent – really does paint a picture of Los Angeles in flames. Faye ends up running away from her dreams and leaves two men mentally broken – though they could have just moved on with their life when they saw that she doesn’t want them in that way or any way.
This novel does have a few problems, like racism, sexism, animal cruelty and homophobia but what else is new for novels from the 1930/1940s. Add the above mentioned as well and you get - well, not a nice picture of the American dream.
The last chapter sums the book up very nicely:
“Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize that they’ve been tricked and burn with resentment. Every day of their lives they read the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings, murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles, revolutions, war. This 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.”
Final thoughts about this book that it’s good but nothing spectacular, if you like reading about this time frame and about characters that are not necessarily likable check this book out. 3,5/5
Batshit insane.
Okay, so at first I had trouble settling into this one, because I was still very much processing the previous two books I've read. However, the second Homer Simpson stepped onto the page, I was swept off my feet. That man is a bigger nervous wreck than I am and, not gonna lie, I really loved his presence in the book. And finding out that Donald Sutherland played him on film just makes so much sense holy shit.
But even that aside, this novel is juicy in the sense that its prose is so rich and detailed that it was a delight to go through. The biblical title seemed almost misleading at first, because the plot reminded me of a hybrid of Hemingway and Kerouac mixed with hallucinations that come with a lack of sleep, but then you reach the final chapter and all makes perfect sense. And that's entertainment, I suppose.
Okay, so at first I had trouble settling into this one, because I was still very much processing the previous two books I've read. However, the second Homer Simpson stepped onto the page, I was swept off my feet. That man is a bigger nervous wreck than I am and, not gonna lie, I really loved his presence in the book. And finding out that Donald Sutherland played him on film just makes so much sense holy shit.
But even that aside, this novel is juicy in the sense that its prose is so rich and detailed that it was a delight to go through. The biblical title seemed almost misleading at first, because the plot reminded me of a hybrid of Hemingway and Kerouac mixed with hallucinations that come with a lack of sleep, but then you reach the final chapter and all makes perfect sense. And that's entertainment, I suppose.
There’s a guy painting a picture of LA going up in flames and he hangs out with a loose failed actress woman and a folksy doofus named Homer Simpson. There’s also a dwarf and some racism and some cockfighting. Wanna watch the movie but my eyes don’t like Karen Black.