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Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Failures
Review: Although he was little known during his short lifetime, Nathanael West's MISS LONELYHEARTS and THE DAY OF THE LOCUST are two of the most influential works of 20th Century American Literature. They are the best of West's work, and I recommend them very highly. But West's work was extremely hit or miss, and this edition of his two lesser novels demonstrate that fact in abundance.THE DREAM LIFE OF BALSO SNELL is West's first novel, a surrealistic fantasy about a man who stumbles upon the Trojan Horse, climbs into the rectum, and meanders through the horse's lower intestines. Along the way he meets an aesthetically argumentative guide, a biographer who is writing a biography of a biographer, a mystic who is attempting to crucify himself with thumbtacks, and sundry others. There is an abundance of ideas here, some of them quite amusing and entertaining, but ultimately this parody of bad-taste pseudo-intellectualism becomes as bad-taste pseudo-intellectual as its subjects. Written between MISS LONELYHEARTS and LOCUST, A COOL MILLION satirizes the American dream via an extended parody of the Horatio Alger myth, and presents us with the story of a young man who goes out into the world to seek his fortune--and begins his adventures with his lady love sold into white slavery and he himself cast wrongfully into prison. This is an extremely bitter, often funny novel, and it is considerably more readable than BALSO SNELL, but its dryness quickly becomes tedious and the work lags far, far behind either MISS LONELYHEARTS or LOCUST. These novels are interesting failures at best, and while West fans will enjoy seeing how the writer developed but both THE DREAM LIFE OF BALSO SNELL and A COOL MILLION have more academic interest than anything else. Recommended for hardcore fans, but all others should pass them by.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Failures
Review: Although he was little known during his short lifetime, Nathanael West's MISS LONELYHEARTS and THE DAY OF THE LOCUST are two of the most influential works of 20th Century American Literature. They are the best of West's work, and I recommend them very highly. But West's work was extremely hit or miss, and this edition of his two lesser novels demonstrate that fact in abundance. THE DREAM LIFE OF BALSO SNELL is West's first novel, a surrealistic fantasy about a man who stumbles upon the Trojan Horse, climbs into the rectum, and meanders through the horse's lower intestines. Along the way he meets an aesthetically argumentative guide, a biographer who is writing a biography of a biographer, a mystic who is attempting to crucify himself with thumbtacks, and sundry others. There is an abundance of ideas here, some of them quite amusing and entertaining, but ultimately this parody of bad-taste pseudo-intellectualism becomes as bad-taste pseudo-intellectual as its subjects. Written between MISS LONELYHEARTS and LOCUST, A COOL MILLION satirizes the American dream via an extended parody of the Horatio Alger myth, and presents us with the story of a young man who goes out into the world to seek his fortune--and begins his adventures with his lady love sold into white slavery and he himself cast wrongfully into prison. This is an extremely bitter, often funny novel, and it is considerably more readable than BALSO SNELL, but its dryness quickly becomes tedious and the work lags far, far behind either MISS LONELYHEARTS or LOCUST. These novels are interesting failures at best, and while West fans will enjoy seeing how the writer developed but both THE DREAM LIFE OF BALSO SNELL and A COOL MILLION have more academic interest than anything else. Recommended for hardcore fans, but all others should pass them by.
Rating: 
Summary: "A Cool Million": A Stomach Churning Satire
Review: Former President of the United States Nathan "Shagpoke" Whipple, now C.E.O. of the Rat River National Bank of the town of Ottsville, Vermont, tells young Lemuel Pitkin, "The story of (John D.) Rockefeller and of (Henry) Ford is the story of every great American...Like them, you were born poor and on a farm. Like them, by honesty and industry, you cannot fail to succeed." With this advice in hand thus begins Lem's journey to secure his fortune and to prevent the foreclosure on his mother's house. The only collateral Lem can put up for the tiny loan he obtains from Whipple's bank is the family cow. After all, according to the ex-President, you must have some money in order to make money. "A Cool Million" is Nathanael West's mordantly witty and deeply bitter satire of a decent, but profoundly naive young man's attempts to achieve the American Dream during the darkest days of the Great Depression. West effectively lampoons the false promise of the old maxim that hard work and diligence equals success in America. For all his determination, Lem suffers one horrible indignity after another and is ripped to shreds in the process. A pawn in a facist plot to take over New York City, his final achievement is an unintended martyrdom. The only thing that prevents me from giving this small gem a 5 star review is the constant feeling of dread that I felt in the pit of my stomach while reading this extraordinarily disturbing novella.
Rating:
Summary: "A Cool Million": A Stomach Churning Satire
Review: Former President of the United States Nathan "Shagpoke" Whipple, now C.E.O. of the Rat River National Bank of the town of Ottsville, Vermont, tells young Lemuel Pitkin, "The story of (John D.) Rockefeller and of (Henry) Ford is the story of every great American...Like them, you were born poor and on a farm. Like them, by honesty and industry, you cannot fail to succeed." With this advice in hand thus begins Lem's journey to secure his fortune and to prevent the foreclosure on his mother's house. The only collateral Lem can put up for the tiny loan he obtains from Whipple's bank is the family cow. After all, according to the ex-President, you must have some money in order to make money. "A Cool Million" is Nathanael West's mordantly witty and deeply bitter satire of a decent, but profoundly naive young man's attempts to achieve the American Dream during the darkest days of the Great Depression. West effectively lampoons the false promise of the old maxim that hard work and diligence equals success in America. For all his determination, Lem suffers one horrible indignity after another and is ripped to shreds in the process. A pawn in a facist plot to take over New York City, his final achievement is an unintended martyrdom. The only thing that prevents me from giving this small gem a 5 star review is the constant feeling of dread that I felt in the pit of my stomach while reading this extraordinarily disturbing novella.
Rating: 
Summary: For the West completist only
Review: [NOTE: This review refers only to A Cool Million.] Nathanael West, A Cool Million (Berkeley, 1934) Despite having published less than six hundred pages of material in his short and rather unhappy life, Nathanael West is revered in critical circles for two groundbreaking American novels, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust. West published three other novels during his lifetime, and while Lonelyhearts and Locust are constantly in print, the others-- The Dream Life of Balso Snell, A Cool Million, and Good Hunting-- are considerably harder to get hold of. (There is a hardcover edition of four of the novels, excluding Good Hunting, in print from the library of America.) Reading A Cool Million, it's not hard to see why it might not be as popular as his two better-known works. A Cool Million is a vicious satire of the Horatio Alger stereotypes popular during the Depression, the endless stories of how anyone with enough gumption could succeed in America. West takes an Alger-like hero, Lemuel Pitkin, and sends him on his way to the big city to make his fortune (actually, he's after $1500, but we'll put that aside). By the time he reaches the big city, he's been robbed and arrested. And things only get worse from there. The supporting cast contains not a single likable character (by design) save Pitkin, who's more pathetic than likable, and his childhood sweetheart, whom we first meet as she's being abducted by white slavers to work in a Chinese brothel. Everyone's out for something, and most of them seem to wact to extract it from poor Pitkin. It is satire that, by turns, treads the edge and hops over it into that fuzzy area where one can't be sure whether West is still being satirical, or whether he's letting a nasty streak of his own show. This far removed from the book's timeliness and publication date, only scholars can be sure, and thus the book doesn't hold up as well as it otherwise might. But if you're not a fan of the Horatio Alger mythology, this should be right up your alley. **
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