Nathanael West writes some wonderful modernist prose in this two-story volume. The Day of the Locust is about life in Hollywood, as seen from the eyes of a certain Tod Hackett, who comes to Hollywood to make his fortune. Behind the sartorial splendour he finds the true nightmarish reality of life, grim and moribund as always. As the amatory rival of a certain Homer Simpson, Tod vies for the hand of Faye, a former courtesan who puts on a childish facade to recapture her lost innocence. As always, the reptilian nature beneath is revealed under duress, and the novel ends in a cathartic orgy of violence that ties up a lot of loose ends. The Dream Life of Balso Snell is an absurdist tale about Balso, who finds the Torjan horse as he pokes around the ruins of Ilium, and climbs into its alimentary canal, end-first. He has a series of experiences that take him through all of Western culture in the guise of cultural tropes we know only too well: Raskolnikov, Iago, Marlowe et al…
I personally found the latter novel to be far superior to the former. The first story was concise, dry and conveyed a sense of cleanliness by its antiseptic prose that evoked the birth of Hollywood in a fin-de-siecle setting. Events unfolded slowly and you were kept abreast of them, while getting keen insights into yone’s neuroses. Balso’s tale is a whole other ball of wax though, referencing abstruse works and other arcana in a solipsist fashion. My recommendation: read them both, but if you absolutely have to pick one, pick the latter.
ISBN: 978-0-014-118288-9
