Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The perfection of the dark side of human psychology., 21 Jun 1999
By A Customer
This book had some of my all time favourite writings in it. Of everything i've read in my lifetime, i've never read anything that comes close to nathanael west's mastery of dark imagery and dark commentary on the way the human mind works. Miss lonelyhearts has the feeling of a very strange comic strip to it, as it is told in small little bits, each bit with its own title. It uses alot of religious imagery, but in a very dark way. Miss lonely hearts is a writer for an advice column who develops some form of a god complex, or rather, he see's himself as some sort of martyr who will inevitably suffer to prevent other people from suffering. The imagery was very dark feeling, and there was just the right amount of a random-crazy-insane sense to it where it is scary, but close enough to reality to make me wonder how close everyone in the world is to actually going crazy. There is a similar concept in The Day of the Locust. People living in hollywood, they all want to lead normal lives, but there is some part of them that doubts EVERYTHING and leads to a deep frustration that can only find an outlet in the form of mass destruction. The ending was, to me, the best ending to a book ever written. A wonderful insane scary end to it all. Everytime i read it or see the movie i feel very disturbed for days... a very thought provoking story, it taught me to question how close we all are to... well... going nuts. I read many of the letters Nathanael West wrote... most were not too terribly wonderful, mostly he was just seeking advice/editing/ideas for his writings. But reading some of the letters explained alot about his ideas and motivations behind his more significant works. They did bother me a little because i thought The Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts (and others) were the product of only Nathanael West, but the letters indicate that much of his ideas were edited and deleted by other people. Also, there is an outline for a story he never wrote that sounded like a very promising idea. It was about a friendship club, people pay money to join the Golden Friendship Club (or something like that, i forget). I thought it was an excellent idea because it deals with this strange inner lonelyness that most people don't ever really recognize. It's very depressing... i believe people try to remain strong and convince themselves of independence and security, but there is a lonelyness that gnaws away at them, and if it goes unrecognized it prevents them from ever reaching their full mental potential. It is a very sad thing to realize, and i believe this story touches some part of that depressing lonelyness and makes it partially surface... sending the reader into a dark realm of self discovery, if they allow that to happen. All of the writings in this book are dark, tragic, and create an internal fear that could not be found ANYWHERE else. It is really a very sad book, don't read it if you don't want to be sad.
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