Nathanael West (1903–1940)
Auteur van Juffrouw Hartzeer/De achtste plaag
Over de Auteur
American novelist Nathanael West was born in New York City, the son of a prosperous building contractor. He began his college education at Tufts University but transferred to Brown University, from which he graduated in 1924. After graduation, West went to Europe and lived in Paris for a few years, toon meer where he wrote the short novel The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931), an avant--garde work that reflected his concern with the emptiness of contemporary life. West's modest legacy of completed works reached its peak of recognition during the period when later Jewish American writers were discovering black humor. Among novels that chronicle the wasteland despair and grotesque comedy of the time between the wars, West's Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and The Day of the Locust (1939) stand out as remarkable examples. The first is about a young man conducting a column of advice to the lovelorn who finds it increasingly impossible not to share the problems of his readers. The Day of the Locust story about a riot that ends with the burning of Los Angeles. If Franz Kafka (see Vol. 2) had lived to come to the United States and become a screenwriter, he might have written a book like The Day of the Locust, which Malcolm Cowley called the best novel ever written about Hollywood. West's other short novel, A Cool Million (1934), is, like The Dream Life of Balso Snell, an experimental work that offers variations on the theme of reality and illusion; both works look toward a literature of the absurd and deserve their place in literary history as influences on a school of American writers that came into prominence during the 1960s. West's own life had aspects of tragic absurdity. He was married to Eileen McKenney, the original of the central figure in My Sister Eileen, while his own sister became the wife of humorist S. J. Perelman. After writing Miss Lonelyhearts, West and his wife went to Hollywood and remained there until they were both killed in a car accident in 1940. (Bowker Author Biography) toon minder
Fotografie: http://www.davidlavery.net/barfield/
Werken van Nathanael West
Gerelateerde werken
Years of Protest: A Collection of American Writings of the 1930's (1967) — Medewerker — 40 exemplaren, 1 bespreking
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Gangbare naam
- West, Nathanael
- Officiële naam
- Weinstein, Nathan
- Pseudoniemen en naamsvarianten
- von Wallenstein Weinstein, Nathan
- Geboortedatum
- 1903-10-17
- Overlijdensdatum
- 1940-12-22
- Graflocatie
- Mount Zion Cemetery, Maspeth, Queens County, New York, USA
- Geslacht
- male
- Nationaliteit
- USA
- Geboorteplaats
- New York, New York, USA
- Plaats van overlijden
- El Centro, California, USA
- Oorzaak van overlijden
- car accident
- Woonplaatsen
- North Hollywood, California, USA
- Opleiding
- Tufts University
Brown University (PhB ∙ 1924) - Beroepen
- novelist
playwright
screenwriter
short-story writer
poet
essayist (toon alle 7)
hotel manager - Relaties
- Perelman, S. J. (brother-in-law)
Perelman, Laura (sister)
McKenney, Eileen (wife)
McKenney, Ruth (sister-in-law) - Organisaties
- League of American Writers
Screen Writers Guild
Motion Picture Guild
Motion Picture Artists Committee
Motion Picture Democratic Committee
Hollywood Anti-Nazi League (toon alle 10)
Columbia Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures
Republic Pictures
Universal Studios - Korte biografie
- Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein was the child of German-speaking Russian-Jewish parents living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He dropped out of high school and gained admission to college by falsifying his high school transcript. In 1931, West published his first work, The Dream Life of Balso Snell. In 1933, he got contract as a scriptwriter for Columbia Pictures and moved to Hollywood. He and his wife were both killed in a car accident in 1940.
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Besprekingen
Miss Lonelyhearts door Nathanael West
Wow, I've never read this until now. It's really good. Cynical as hell.
½
What's to say? It's a classic and totally absurd. A freak show. I like Miss Lonelyhearts more, but that's beside the point and doesn't diminish this work. Read both!
um well. so the first novella here is the one i read before and i remember not liking it all that well but having a book group discussion about it that gave me a better appreciation. now it's maybe 16 years later and i'm trying again and even with some of that old commentary in my head i like this even less than before. it's also a bit colored, i'm sure, by how much i hated the second novella in this book, but still.
so: miss lonelyhearts is a concept that i really do love actually. the idea of an advice column being started as sort of a fun, let's humor the ladies and give them something to read in the paper (this was first published in 1933) and how the man writing the advice starts to see how truly hard the lives of these women are, and how he can't help them even when he tries. it says something really important about society but i didn't care at all for the execution. (still, 1.75 stars)
a cool million: i know that satires aren't generally for me and almost always miss their mark where i'm concerned, and this was no different. i didn't realize going in that it was a satire and so at first i thought it was just a bit farcical (although not my thing) and threw sexual violence around quite casually (racism too!) but it got more and more extreme and more and more racist and i got more and more annoyed and i was so turned off by it that i can't even say for sure what the point was. (but i am pretty sure that i'd agree with it.) (.5 star)… (meer)
so: miss lonelyhearts is a concept that i really do love actually. the idea of an advice column being started as sort of a fun, let's humor the ladies and give them something to read in the paper (this was first published in 1933) and how the man writing the advice starts to see how truly hard the lives of these women are, and how he can't help them even when he tries. it says something really important about society but i didn't care at all for the execution. (still, 1.75 stars)
a cool million: i know that satires aren't generally for me and almost always miss their mark where i'm concerned, and this was no different. i didn't realize going in that it was a satire and so at first i thought it was just a bit farcical (although not my thing) and threw sexual violence around quite casually (racism too!) but it got more and more extreme and more and more racist and i got more and more annoyed and i was so turned off by it that i can't even say for sure what the point was. (but i am pretty sure that i'd agree with it.) (.5 star)… (meer)
Dark, dirty, bitter and funny. A man struggling with morality and losing his mind in the process. Beautiful filth. I need to have a bath now.
Also some of the sentences were so compelling that i had to reread them a bunch of times and savour their delicate composition.
Also some of the sentences were so compelling that i had to reread them a bunch of times and savour their delicate composition.
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- Populariteit
- #3,853
- Waardering
- 3.7
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- 28