You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by beritt
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
4.0
”[H]e was using the innumerable sketches he had made of the people who come to California to die (…) all those poor devils who can only be stirred by the promise of miracles and then only to violence” (182).
This novel was exactly what I hoped it would be: a story that captures the glittery-but-dangerous atmosphere of California (and specifically Los Angeles) exactly. I plan on re-reading this just to see how Nathanael West managed to convey such a specific mood without extensive scene-setting. For a novella like this one, it is almost over-populated with characters, and yet it seems those are precisely what create the mood of the story. I’ve never really read anything like it, and I am very intrigued.
From the very beginning, there is something in the air here. You know that sense that something is truly off, but you can’t pinpoint what it is?
That’s the feeling that pervades this novel.
There is very little plot here, but somehow it’s never dull — I’m guessing because of the sense of foreboding that permeates everything.
Tod has moved to Los Angeles to work as a Hollywood set designer, and in his spare time he works on his painting “The Burning of Los Angeles.” More often, though, he hangs around Faye, a girl who lives in the same building he does, and spends time with her and the various other guys who obsess over her.
The most significant of all of these is a man called Homer Simpson (!), who is excessively nice and self-effacing.
This being Hollywood, Faye and the men surrounding her are an odd collection of people. They could have been caricatures if West had not drawn them so carefully, and made them so believable — halfway between real person and pretence.
As the story unfolds, everyone seems to become more impatient, more restless, less kind, which can only mean one thing: none of this can end well.
I’m truly fascinated by the way in which West wrote this story — with so little plot and such lively characters, and with such precisely chosen details that they evoke an entire scene in just a few sentences:
“It was one of those blue and lavender nights when the luminous color seems to have been blown over the scene with an airbrush. Even the darkest shadows held some purple” (131).
I loved it, and will definitely read it again.
This novel was exactly what I hoped it would be: a story that captures the glittery-but-dangerous atmosphere of California (and specifically Los Angeles) exactly. I plan on re-reading this just to see how Nathanael West managed to convey such a specific mood without extensive scene-setting. For a novella like this one, it is almost over-populated with characters, and yet it seems those are precisely what create the mood of the story. I’ve never really read anything like it, and I am very intrigued.
From the very beginning, there is something in the air here. You know that sense that something is truly off, but you can’t pinpoint what it is?
That’s the feeling that pervades this novel.
There is very little plot here, but somehow it’s never dull — I’m guessing because of the sense of foreboding that permeates everything.
Tod has moved to Los Angeles to work as a Hollywood set designer, and in his spare time he works on his painting “The Burning of Los Angeles.” More often, though, he hangs around Faye, a girl who lives in the same building he does, and spends time with her and the various other guys who obsess over her.
The most significant of all of these is a man called Homer Simpson (!), who is excessively nice and self-effacing.
This being Hollywood, Faye and the men surrounding her are an odd collection of people. They could have been caricatures if West had not drawn them so carefully, and made them so believable — halfway between real person and pretence.
As the story unfolds, everyone seems to become more impatient, more restless, less kind, which can only mean one thing: none of this can end well.
I’m truly fascinated by the way in which West wrote this story — with so little plot and such lively characters, and with such precisely chosen details that they evoke an entire scene in just a few sentences:
“It was one of those blue and lavender nights when the luminous color seems to have been blown over the scene with an airbrush. Even the darkest shadows held some purple” (131).
I loved it, and will definitely read it again.