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Two short novels by `30's screen-writer Nathanael West are paired in this volume. Miss Lonelyhearts is an otherwise unnamed man who writes the advice column for a New York newspaper. Struggling under the weight of the endless tales of crushing misery that cross his desk every day, harried by the cynicism of his morally bankrupt boss, Mr. Shrike, and living an utterly bleak personal life in Depression-era New York City, the protagonist fumbles his way through a series of drunken misadventures until reaching his final destiny.

The somewhat longer "Day of the Locust" exposes the lives of Hollywood hopefuls Tod Hackett, who works as a commercial artist, and Faye Greener, who dreams of being a movie star. Like so many others, Tod is consumed with desire for the stunning and seductive Faye, but she is only interested in people who can further her career. After losing the protection of her father, she makes an arrangement with a curious nonentity named Homer Simpson (no relation to the cartoon character) whom she mistreats mercilessly, leading to a brutal denouement.

There is a subtle albeit powerful religious message that permeates both of these novels and one wonders if West (himself a lapsed Jew) fully recognized it, but all the time that the protagonists spend resisting and decrying Christianity, the storylines plainly demonstrate how empty and pointless their lives are without it. Gritty, sordid and hopeless, but still worth reading. A few passages may be too disturbing for some, and though these novels are surely not as shocking as they must have been when first published, they certainly should not be recommended for young people.

Disturbingly violent and dark. Not the sharp cynical fun I had remembered from reading it years ago. I guess Mr. West does accomplish what he sets out to do, painting as dim a view of Hollywood as has ever been done. But it just doesn't make for very pleasant reading.

...that is, unless someone (say, an English Lit professor, one of that nefarious cabal whose mission is to take young minds, and suck out of them all enthusiasm for, and pleasure in, reading) is making you do it.

These two stories can stand on their own, without anyone's help. They're that good.

I sincerely wish everyone knew West's name. That man could write. It's been almost 35 years since I read these stories in college, but I still remember them and how they affected me.

Wow. Much like Paul Bowles, this author takes no prisoners. May I suggest that you be in a stable frame of mind before reading this novel, lest it prove to be one unsettling factor too many for you. I found myself to be none too comfortable to be counted as a member of the human race at the end of this book. Written at about the same time as Raymond Chandler's early novels and set in the same real estate, The Day of the Locust is about five times as sordid. It is totally original and totally unpredictable, except for the scent of doom that pervades it from the opening page. You know that the author was writing about what he saw. Los Angeles and Hollywood were rotten seventy years ago. What must they be like now? West covers so much ground, with such economy, and it's all so readable. This devastating work is a remarkable achievement. What a staggering loss that Nathanael West died so young. And what a surprise to find Homer Simpson hiding out in such a fine novel. Highly recommended.

Wow. Much like Paul Bowles, this author takes no prisoners. May I suggest that you be in a stable frame of mind before reading this novel, lest it prove to be one unsettling factor too many for you. I found myself to be none too comfortable to be counted as a member of the human race at the end of this book. Written at about the same time and set in the same real estate as Raymond Chandler's early novels, The Day of the Locust is about five times as sordid. It is totally original and totally unpredictable, except for the scent of doom that pervades it from the opening page. You know that the author was writing about what he saw. Los Angeles and Hollywood were rotten seventy years ago. What must they be like now? What a staggering loss that Nathanael West died so young. And what a surprise to find Homer Simpson hiding out in such a fine novel. Highly recommended.

In both of these stunning novellas - one set in New York, the other in Los Angeles - Nathanael West shows us a world without a center, one in which the various characters are therefore free to pursue their own idiosyncratic notions of bliss. Conspicuously absent is any widely accepted code of manners which might have a tonic influence in shaping character and aspiration, or even at lowest ebb in keeping people more recognizably human than grotesque. Thus the considerable element of the distorted which figures strongly in each of these pieces. Shrike in "Miss Lonelyhearts" and Faye Greener in "Day of the Locust" are each self-absorbed to a freakish degree, though West's point in such satiric but painful drawing is to bring contemporary readers to see the frighteningly normal in such freakishness, the unacknowledged bizarreness in modern everyday behavior.

In both of these stunning novellas - one set in New York, the other in Los Angeles - Nathanael West shows us a world without a center, one in which the various characters are therefore free to pursue their own idiosyncratic notions of bliss. Conspicuously absent is any widely accepted code of manners which might have a tonic influence in shaping character and aspiration, or even at lowest ebb in keeping people more recognizably human than grotesque. Thus the considerable element of the distorted which figures strongly in each of these pieces. Shrike in "Miss Lonelyhearts" and Faye Greener in "Day of the Locust" are each self-absorbed to a freakish degree, though West's point in such satiric but painful drawing is to bring contemporary readers to see the frighteningly normal in such freakishness, the unacknowledged bizarreness in modern everyday behavior.

I wish there was a rating under one star. I'm supposed to read this for a class, but, in rare fashion, I doubt that I will finish the novel. I realize this is supposed to be surreal, but must I sacrifice plot and character to immerse myself in "literature"?
Maybe I'm a product of the times, but a plot which is at least interesting would be nice, even if I don't care about the characters. Please: Barth, Barthleme, and Pynchon write complex, surrealistic fiction, but also give us characters we can care about and plots which fascinate.

Nathanael West was well practiced in the arts of revelation and cruelty that go way beyond what we normally think of as satire. "Miss Lonelyhearts" alone is a dark and disturbing jewel in his very strange crown. It bites the reader softly and injects a moral venom into the reader giving her over to experiences of psychological subtley and derangement that make ordinary psychological novels seem pedestrian - excercises in mere cataloguing. "Miss Lonelyhearts" is a visionary experience.

I wonder if Thomas Harris, the author of "Silence of the Lambs" got any of his inspiration for Hannibal Lector from the character of Shrike. Shrike is very bad. He is a sort of demonic being who cares enough about his victims to give them the very best in a form of torture that interrogates their souls and illuminates every last particle of illusion he finds in them. He doesn't eat their livers with fauva beans and a nice chiante because he doesn't need to. Showing them the nature of their souls in the hellish light of his inquiry is more than enough nourishment for him.
He is happy. He finds it no sin to labor in his vocation.
Miss Lonelyhearts himself is an abusive Christ figure who dies for no one's sins other than his own. He is a directionless victim full of lust and a malice disguised as compassion. He was born for ruin and his death is the exact opposite of anything we would ever call an apotheosis. No one's sins are redeemed. They are confirmed.

Nathanael West apparently was a self-hating jew but his moral rigor is so savage and extreme methinks he might be best thought of as a literary satanist come to torment and educate us all through demonic revelries that move in slow motion. I can't remember if there are very many colors described in this little poisonous novel because the whole effect on my inner eye is a dark wastescape composed of tones in black, false-white, and endlessly arranged shades of gray.

Surely "Miss Lonelyhearts" was one of the best novels of the twentieth century but hardly anybody has heard of it. I recommend it strongly to those who prefer their humor as black as the pit of hell, but hidden behind a sunlight that tortures the ground until spikes of grass grow up.

West always reminds me of Fitzy. Extremely cynical views on love and the America dream.

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