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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
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.
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I had high hopes for this book, as I had seen that it was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 greatest novels. I liked the beginning and ending, but the middle felt aimless, the characters struck me as one dimensional, and I could not figure out the appeal of Faye, whom seemingly everybody was obsessed with. Maybe that was the point, but I never really got absorbed into it. Not a bad book, but somewhat disappointing.
West is a vivid, cutting writer. The novel is both absurdly funny and viscerally disturbing. He portrays Hollywood like an evil force-field that distorts the identities of all who enter it. Any true sense of self gets subsumed into a vulgar performance of self. In the absurd pursuit of individual fame and recognition, life’s losers instead become anonymous faces in a murderous, soulless mob.
I listened to the first half of this "Hollywood Gatsby" a month ago, but hated the audio. I just got it from the library so I could finish and could not get into it. It's really just awful.
A biting attack on Hollywood and the dreamers who hang around it. I have to say I prefer a novel with a sympathetic character or two. Still it was pretty well written, holds up well compared to other things I've read from that era (mostly Salinger I guess, haven't really read much 40s or 50s lit).