Nathanael West

 Forty-five years ago, my forage into the C20th American novel for the sake of unit 305 included some Fitzgerald, Catcher in the Rye, Saul Bellow, The Bell Jar and The Sound and the Fury. A despairing look at Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Not much else. My essays were on Eugene O'Neill/Tennessee Williams and Sylvia. I wish I'd read Nathanael West but I think I imagined The Day of the Locust was science fiction, as per that of the triffids, and even then that was a genre I disparaged with the utmost gusto.

One great reason for reading West would be that his books can be read in a day. Four of them fit into a neat little paperback. A better one is that he's tremendous.

Miss Lonelyhearts is almost shockingly cruel in places. I'd say 'cynical' by way of praise, where it is a good thing when understood properly, but most seem to take it as a negative the way it's come to be used. Since the whole theme of C20th American Lit seemed to be the 'American Dream' and its casualties, heaven knows where we are by 2026 when this tawdry view of it was available in the 1930's. The broken lives, the commodification of misery, maybe it's a shame it ends so dramatically but, as with Gatsby, it's as if it's not tragic enough unless it does.

The Day of the Locust is possibly more substantial although both belie their low word counts with big themes and quality writing. Here is the first famous fictional Homer Simpson and one wonders at the reference point because surely Matt Groening would have rest West. 

He is an awkward, downbeat character finding himself among the community of Hollywood extras who live with more hope for their film careers than their talents justify,

Faye's affectations, however, were so completely artificial that he found them charming. 

....

He believed that while she often recognized the falseness of an attitude, she persisted in it because she didn't know how to be simpler or more honest. She was an actress who had learned from bad models in a bad school.

 

There is a great deal to like about West and I'll pile straight into his other two novellas, grateful to have caught up with this element of a reading list from all those years ago. I did once add Sherwood Anderson, and Carson McCullers. I'd read some Hemingway before I got to university, and Ken Kesey. I don't remember Edith Wharton being on the list. The C20th was only 80% through. 

I'd like to think that eventually I will have read enough, and maybe even 'got it' enough, to be worthy of the B.A. (Hons) that, quite honestly, seemed like an underwhelming achievement but that might not be my fault. They seemed happy enough to present me with a certificate. I suspect that the conferring of degrees is not quite the great thing that those who don't have them imagine. Not in 1981 and maybe not in 2026 either.

But I'm here to celebrate Nathanael West, not denigrate educational qualifications. It's another victory for following one clue after another. I arrived at him via Weldon Kees and, yes, one can make the connection.