Miss Lonelyhearts and A Cool Million

by Nathanael West

Miss Lonelyhearts, published in 1933, is Nathanael West's second novel. It is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression.

"Money and fame meant nothing to them. They were not worldly men."

"Wildly funny, desperately sad, brutal and kind, furious and patient, there was no other like Nathanael West.”

–Dorothy Parker

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Novels, American, Short Stories, Humor, Literature

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

Born Nathanael von Wallenstein Weinstein to prosperous Jewish parents, from the first West set about creating his own legend, and anglicising his name was part of that process. At Brown University in Rhode Island, he befriended writer and humourist S. J. Perelman (who later married his sister), and started writing and drawing cartoons. As his cousin Nathan Wallenstein also attended Brown, West took to borrowing his work and presenting it as his own. He almost didn't graduate at all, on account of failing a crucial course in modern drama. West indulged in a little dramatics of his own and, in tearful contrition, convinced a gullible professor to upgrade his marks.

After spending a couple of years in Paris, where he wrote his first novel, The Dream Life of Balso Snell, he returned to New York, where he managed (badly by all accounts) a small hotel, the Sutton, owned by his family. As well as providing free board for struggling friends like Dashiell Hammett, the job also gave West ample opportunity to observe the strange collection of misfits and drifters who congregated in the hotel's drugstore. Some of these would appear in West's novel Miss Lonelyhearts.

West spent the rest of his days in Hollywood, writing B-movie screenplays for small studios and immersing himself in the unglamorous underworld of Tinseltown, with its dope dealers, extras, gangsters, whores and has-beens. All would end up in West's final masterpiece, The Day of the Locust.

West's life ultimately ended as tragically as his fictions. Recently married, and with better-paid script work coming in, West was happy and successful. Then, returning from a trip to Mexico with his wife Eileen, he crashed his car after ignoring a stop sign and killed them both. This was just one day after the death of his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Reviews

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 4 out of 5]

kafamı dağıtacak tatliş bir kitaba ihtiyacım var diye dolanırken tam isabet. nathaniel west’in iki uzun öyküden oluşan kitabı bu ihtiyaca bire birmiş. ve elbet tomris uyar çevirisi, offf o ne lezzet.
ilk öykü “gönül abla”, bildiğimiz gönül ablalığı yapan püriten bir genç adamın hezeyanlarını anlatıyor. her iki öykü de 1920’lerin sonunda geçiyor. yani hem ekonomik kriz var hem içki yasağı.
atmosferi bu iki yasak belirliyor zaten. gelen mektuplar içler acısı. mahvolmuş kadınlar, işsizler… bu işi gazetede başka bir bölüme geçebilmek için geçici olarak yaptığını sanan gönül abla dağılmış. aklı fikri bu mektuplarda.
uzun öyküde epey hıristiyanlık göndermesi var, katoliklik, protestanlık ve püritenlik ve bunların birbiriyle ilişkisini biraz bilmek gerekiyor.
nathaniel west tatlı tatlı ve komik komik anlatırken işleri iyice karıştırmakta usta. burada da gönül abla püritenliği bırakıp çapkınlığa başlayınca olanlar oluyor.
ben ikinci öykü “temizinden bir milyon”u çok daha fazla sevdim. 17 yaşında evi barkı elinden alındığı için new york’a çalışmaya giden lem pitkin’in içler acısı hikayesi öyle komik ve öyle gerçek ki.
ekonomik krizde yükselen milliyetçilik, ırkçılık, bunu misler gibi kullanan eski belediye başkanı bay whipple, len’in etinden sütünden faydalandıkları halde inatla bu safsatalara inanması. ha bir de polislerin iyi olduğuna :)
ve tabii bu milliyetçi zırvalara inanıp ortalığı kırıp dökenler… bir gece içinde asılan zenciler, tecavüze uğrayan katolikler, öldürülen kızılderililer. alın bu güruhu şimdilerde bim’lere saldıranlarla aynı yere koyun. aynısının tıpkısı ikisi de. olması gereken gri hücrelerin yerinde saman var mübarek.
ve bu arada fırsatlar ülkesi amerika’da zengin olanlar. bir genelev var ki çinli wu fong’un işlettiği insan okudukça vay be diyor, ne hizmet :)
sonuç olarak çok hoş, çok gerçek, insanlardan tiksinirken gülmenizi de sağlayacak öyküler bunlar. west tatlı bir dille yazmış arada ahmet mithat gibi lafa karışmış. yazık 37 yaşında trafik kazasında ölmüş yoksa adını çok duyardık.
tomris uyar ise türkçe söylemiş gibi bir şey.

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black coffee with a taste of almonds. Drink ye all of it.

[Brendan · Rating 2 out of 5]

There seems to be a distinct slice of fancy-pants literature in which mopey people mope about, do mopey stuff, and generally bemoan the lack of motivation that leads them to mopery. I’m thinking here of The Magus and The End of the Affair. In this case, West’s novel focuses on the eponymous hero, an advice columnist beset by depression under the weight of the letters he receives daily. He slumps around, unable to do what he thinks right, and stuck in the rut of drinking, joyless debauchery, and did I mention moping around?

West certainly wields an entertaining descriptive power, with solid, entertaining metaphors and similes. His secondary characters, particularly the brutal and sarcastic editor, Shrike, bring some jauntiness to the story, but usually at the expense of any hope Miss Lonelyhearts might foster.

The discussion of the novel in my 1000 books you must read before you die suggests that the protagonist struggles with his Christianity, but I found that to be an ambiguous proposition at best — it’s completely unclear to me whether he cares about Christian views at all. He’s mocked for them by Shrike, but he doesn’t really buy into them either. And he makes terrible decisions. Terrible.

So in the end, I have trouble understanding the fuss. Thinking about this post and the one I wrote yesterday, I’m inclined to wonder if there’s something in my critical faculty missing.

[Wehappyfew · Rating 2 out of 5]

İkinci öykü için 2.5 ** veriyorum.

[Skeptical · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes we are deprived of good works by the untimely death of a brilliant young author. Other times we heap underserved praise upon the works of authors because they die young. Alas, the latter is the case with Miss Lonelyhearts. Rather than being a brilliant exploration of the philosophical and moral quagmire and emotional devastation of living on the seamy underbelly of city life as so many reviewers have exhorted, Miss Lonelyhearts is a hodgepodge of uneven, unfinished thoughts by an author who is not yet in full command of his art. The characters are all supposed to be in deep emotional despair, but it is impossible to connect with them or their pain because so little of their lives is available to us. They are dressed up cardboard, mannequins wearing clothing. In the end, these are people we don't know and don't care about. They are riders on the subway of life. We get on, we notice they are absorbed it their own thoughts, their own pains. But the vision lingers only so long as it takes to exit the next stop. There is nothing there, no connection to remember them by. In the end we just don't care about them. We have our own lives to live. West is not up to the challenge. In all, a very unsatisfying read. Don't buy into the hype. This could have been a fine, fine novel in the hands of a better craftsman. 50 - 60 pages is just not of enough space in which to explore such a weighty subjects.

[Yuri Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Men have always fought their misery with dreams. Although dreams were once powerful, they have been made puerile by the movies, radio and newspapers. Among many betrayals, this is the worst.”
p 50, Miss Lonelyhearts.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was written during the Great Depression.... and it shows. Bleak, blunt, and cruel.

Described by Dorothy Parker as 'darkly comic', I discovered only misery. The writing is certainly skilful, but I found very little to like in this thankfully brief novel.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems I've given too many five-star ratings lately, but what can I say? I keep picking great books. Nathanael West's high reputation rests on a less than prolific output, including this very short novella - easily readable in just a few hours, but not quite as fast a read as you might think due to the intricacies of West's analogies and language and expressionistic allusions, quite a few of which are way out there and deserve pondering. After reading this and "Day of the Locust" I have to agree that West was a master. It would seem apparent to me that John Kennedy Toole must have read and been influenced by this, based on the sentence: "He begged the party dress to marry him."
Like "...Locust," the main character here is sleepwalking through a sort of freak show hell of modern urban America during the Depression. In many ways, by contrast, "Locust" is a model of restraint, with relatively less grandiose surrealism than exhibited here. This book is a tour-de-force, maybe too much so for some readers. With its freaks, and unrequited hopes and sexual frustrations and sudden outbursts of senseless violence, this book and "...Locust" are very much of a piece. One can see certain obsessions of West's in both. The grisly and pathetic failed goat killing in this book, very sad and disturbing, reminds me of the cockfight in "...Locust." The book ends on a critical point of action, even as the action is still going on, abruptly---with no lingering over aftermath. As with the other novel, this appears to be a trait of West's style. He ends it, unapologetically, and asks us to fill in the rest. Having the columnist get a hook up through his column (and the circular karma moral conundrum that results) is just one of the hooks that makes this book remarkably modern and contemporary, and valid for today's readers. -EG

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must say at the outset that I've read this novel (or novella) one and a half times. Several years ago I decided to take Harold Bloom (a well known literary critic) at his word and discover the merits of this work.

Well, I got close to half-way through, was aware that I was getting very depressed and decided that there was too much other stuff I wanted to read that didn't put me in a down mood. Plus, I was going through some really tough things in my personal life that I think accounted my mood. Normally I like books, plays, etc. that deal with difficult and tragic themes.

So, last week I decided to return to the work after reading that Flannery O'Connor (one of my favorite American writers) said it was one of her two favorite modern novels (the other being Faulkner's As I Lay Dying). I'm really glad I returned to it.

The title character, Miss Loneleyhearts, is never referred to by any other name. He is a man who writes an advice column for a newspaper in which he tries to embody the very essence of love (for him Christian love). After months of replying to the most heartbreaking and unnerving letters from very genuine and desperate people, he begins to spiritually unravel. We literally witness this unraveling as he looses faith in his capacity to give compassionate advice (and love) while at the same time realizing the presence of violence and evil in himself. We watch the very painful process of his very his soul draining out of him.

Since this blog is more about how stories are essential to our lives as opposed to a traditional book review, I'll confine my remarks to that perspective.

I think the story deals with the conflict....

Read more of my review on my blog: Your Life for a Story.

[Crystal Beran · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's something horrible about this book, in the way that Miss Lonelyhearts goes through the motions of humanity. He's got an almost robotic quality, as if his programming instructed him to try on a series of masks, logically discarding one when it proved not to fit.

Miss Lonelyhearts is the man who answers the Dear Abby letters for his newspaper. Each day he is greeted by a stack of papers upon which the essence of human suffering are written. He responds in every way possible through out the book, which makes it a truly fascinating exploration of our condition and our ability to cope with the suffering of others. He connects, he disassociates, he uses humor and violence. "He felt as though his heart were a bomb, a complicated bomb that would result in a simple explosion, wrecking the whole world without rocking it."

This is a beautifully written and haunting text. As Miss Lonelyhearts went responded in different manners to the pain of his readers, so too I responded to his pain with indifference, disgust, compassion and commiseration. To bring out such a range of reaction in the reader, to make reality a mirror to this text is the brillance of Miss Lonelyhearts.

[Stephen Hero · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Pole Riders Win Again

Third, maybe fourth, time that I've read this novelette. All within this lifetime, mind you, so there's no Shirley MacLaine-type Past Lives Pavilion New Age Spirituality Transcendental Meditation Exploration going on here.

And if there were, I'd probably be on my eighth reading of the novelette.

Anyway, I've read the thing several times because I simply love it. Not because I'm a dimwitted former member of parliament.

In fact, I'm still a member of parliament.


This is a great novel from a great author regardless of where you might very well stand regarding a narcissistic Christ complex whereby implied oppression banishes the individuality of devotees and undermines any stated spiritual growth.

[Nick · Rating 1 out of 5]

I no doubt should have read "Miss Lonelyhearts" when I was younger. For all the brief sallies of wit, the alcoholic central character is the least likable member of the cast, aside from Shrike, whose man purpose seems to be to inflict irrational nastiness on someone who then passes it on. Each of the women "Miss Lonelyhearts" fails to connect with, even the writers who send him forlorn letters, seem more human. The forlorn letter writers are in fact the most human of all, probably because the narrator has minimal opportunities to belittle them. It is difficult to see why "Miss Lonelyhearts" the charcacter suffers so much and is so cruel, since after all, he has a job when a lot of people didn't. Never has nihilism seemed less attractive.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nathanael West held a dim view of humanity, as evidenced by both this novella from 1933 and Day of the Locust, his classic 1939 vivisection of Hollywood in its early years. I was spurred to read Lonelyhearts after reading the first chapter of an intriguing comic book adaptation from a veteran alt-cartoonist I know, Gabrielle Gamboa. West was a ferocious writer and both tales, particularly Miss Lonelyhearts, are short and brutal, the blackest sort of satire. Not exactly the most uplifting, pleasant experience to read but one I won’t soon forget.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a bizarre book. Maybe it's that it was written so long ago, but I just found so many of the dialogue, scenes, and situations so strange that I didn't get people's responses to anything about 95% of the time.

[Misty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I expected, especially the identity of Miss Lonelyhearts, but I liked it a lot. The tone reminds me a bit of Invisible Man--sort of detached and ironic.

[Inna · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, the literary choices of Harold Bloom are the best for me.

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stunning and stark journey into the pit of darkness, this is a book one can hardly put down even though the train wreck of a conclusion is observable from the beginning.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m going to need some whiskey and gin now, please.

Well-written and deeply cynical and a little too much even for me, right now.

[Zeynep T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

İki uzun hikaye var kitapta. Yazarın iki hikayeyi de hakkıyla yazamadığını düşünüyorum. Konular başka bir yazarın, mesela Flannery O'connor, elinde harika bir kitaba dönüşürdü. Emek sömürüsü, ekonomik kriz, ikiyüzlü toplumsal ahlak, içki yasağı, din sömürüsü, cehalet gibi muhteşem temalar başarısız şekilde işlenmiş. Kimi yerde özellikle dini sömürü ve vahşi kapitalizm göndermelerini beğendim ama vasat kaldı metinlerin bütünü benim için. Amerikan kara mizahını sevemiyorum. İngiliz edebiyatı favorim bu konuda. Anlatımda incelik yoktu. Tabir-i caizse karakterler yığılmış birbiri üstüne öykülerde. Oradan oraya atladı durdu her şey.

Yazar, Dashiell Hammett, F. Scott Fitzgerald ve William Faulkner gibi edebiyatçılarla arkadaşmış. Erken yaşta trafik kazasında hayatını yitirmeseydi çok daha iyi çalışmalarını görebilirdik sanırım. Amerikan edebiyatı seviyorsanız modernizmin öncülerinden kabul edilen yazara şans verebilirsiniz.

[Sevim Tezel Aydın · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitapta birbirinden çarpıcı, yürek burkan iki hikaye var. Ekonomik buhranın yaşandığı, hayatların, değerlerin çalkantıda olduğu 1930'ların New York'unda geçen alegorik ve ironik hikayeler... İlk hikaye bir gazeteye mektup yazarak dertlerini anlatanları cevaplamaya çalışan bir gazeteciyi; ikincisi ise zengin olarak aile evini ipotekten kurtarmak amacıyla New York'a doğru yola çıkan saf bir genci anlatıyor. Aslında iki hikaye de aynı konuyu, "Amerikan Rüyası"nı, yıpranan değerleri ve bunun birey/toplum üzerindeki etkisini ele alıyor. Yazar karakterler ve içinde bulundukları ortamı dikkate alarak iki hikayede farklı üsluplar kullanmış. İlki neredeyse bir gazete yazısı gibi, ikinci hikaye ise masal havasında.

[Jocelyn]

I didn't love Miss Lonelyhearts but I admired that West captured:
- PTSD
- secondary traumatic stress
- why therapists have to have therapists
- the problems human moderators face
...all well ahead of time.

[Juliette · Rating 1 out of 5]

A friend recommended “Miss Lonelyhearts,” and it was sold with “A Cool Million.”

Have you ever reconsidered an entire friendship based on a book recommendation?
I have.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miss Lonelyhearts

The story is allegorical. As is common with the allegorical form, it uses religion.
The trouble with a lonelyhearts newspaper column is the sort of crossing the proscenium arch between art and life - a newspaper column and people's real life problems. There's a dual negative/positive that that involves. On one hand, the positive of allowing one to talk to a stranger about their problems, just getting it off their chest, or a cry for help, albeit to an anonymous stranger (Miss Lonelyhearts), in a public forum, which is kind of a weird space. The negative is asking a stranger to advise how to solve their problems - problems that in a lot of letters, can't be solved.
The aching sadness in the letters highlights the fact that most of the letter writers find themselves in situations not of their making. The main reason the Miss Lonelyhearts column exists is the voyeuristic instinct to read about other peoples problems. The remark by Shrike advising Miss Lonelyhearts not to recommend suicide because that would reduce the readership, is shocking. If that is meant as dark satire, that's getting too dark.

Another observation, while reading this story, is comparing the social media available during the Depression era and that of today, now overwhelmingly narcissistic self promotion.

Here's a powerful piece of writing to reflect on and come back to.
'He found himself in the window of a pawnshop full of fur coats, diamond rings, watches, shotguns, fishing tackle, mandolins. All these thing were the paraphernalia of suffering: Man has a tropism for order. Keys in one pocket, change in another. Mandolins are tuned GDAE. The physical world has a tropism for disorder, entropy.'
'For the first time in his life, he is forced to examine the values by which he lived. Prodded by his conscience, he began to generalize. Men have always fought their misery with dreams. Although dreams were once powerful, they have been made puerile by the movies, radio, and newspapers. Among many betrayals, this one is the worst. The thing that made his share in it particularly bad was that he was capable of dreaming the Christ dream. He felt that he had failed at it, not so much because of Shrike's jokes or his own self-doubt, but because of his lack of humility.'

There are lots of great pieces of writing in there.
"Then he remembered Betty. She had often made him feel that when she straightened his tie, she was straightening much more". What is the symbolism here?

And so - the allegory has an oblique ending. We are not told Miss Lonelyhearts real name or how he fairs with his encounter on the stairs with Mr. Doyle.

I'll reflect on this unusual, brilliant piece of writing.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written during the Depression, these two novellas carry similar themes, but are written in very different styles. Miss Lonelyhearts tells of a newspaper columnist who writes an advice column. Despite the moniker, he's male. He thinks of himself as a Christ-like figure to his readers, yet he struggles about believing in Christ, and his fluffy generalisations about life seem unequal to the real burdens of his writers. His boss Shrike is a cynic, treating the whole column as a money-making joke. Miss Lonelyhearts' own interactions with the people around him ends mostly in depravity, violence and sex. Finally he achieves a state of moral high ground, but it is an apathetic state, as close as he can get to being Christ-like yet far removed from it. Right at the end, as a man hurt by him comes to kill him, Miss Lonelyhearts rushes to him in a loving embrace, and he is shot and killed in an act reminiscent of Christ's death.

A Cool Million is about Lemuel Pitkin, an honest, good-hearted, poor boy who, spurred on by the encouragement of ex-president Mr Whipple and the American Dream, seeks his fortune in New York to protect his house from being sold. Instead of prosperity, he meets injustice. He loses his teeth, an eye, a leg and his scalp, is imprisoned twice and beaten up multiple times, sees the girl he fancies forced into prostitution, and is finally killed. The story ends with him being celebrated as a martyr for the American Dream.

The two stories are similar in mood yet vastly different in their writing styles. Miss Lonelyhouse requires more effort and reflection to identify the motifs and analogies, but A Cool Million is a harder pill to swallow because you shudder with every sentence to read of how Lem will next be tricked or beaten or otherwise unrighteously dealt by. Each has its own unique tone. Miss Lonelyhearts is written mostly in an objective, clipped, newspaper-like tone which contrasts sharply with the heartfelt, ungrammatical letters written to Miss Lonelyhearts. A Cool Million on the other hand has an easy, light-hearted, almost fairy tale like tone that clashes with and highlights the bitterness of Lem's fate.

I wouldn't say either story is easy to read. They are bitter and painful, and there is almost no hope of redemption. But they are stories written by a brilliant author in an era that unfortunately made them wholly appropriate tales.

[Cemre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gönül Abla: 3 yıldız
Temizinden Bir Milyon: 2 yıldız

Kitabı almadan önce bir roman olduğunu düşünmüştüm; fakat Gönül Abla bir öykünün Temizinden Bir Milyon diğer öykünün adıymış.

Bu iki öyküyle bir kere daha 1930'lu - 40'lı yıllarının Amerika'sını konu edinen eserlerin ilgimi çekmediğini, pek benlik olmadığını gördüm. Yine de Gönül Abla öyküsünün kendisini ilgiyle okuttuğunu söyleyebilirim. Temizinden Bir Milyon'u ise sevemedim.

[gaby · Rating 5 out of 5]

My coming to know Nathanael West was like rounding a corner and accidentally running smack into a stranger who thereafter instantly becomes your best friend. I knew almost nothing about him before picking up this greying little 100 page book for a dollar at Black Oak. When I'd finished it a couple of days later, I was in love!

Nathanael West was born Nathan Weinstein in 1903 in Manhattan. A wealthy but iconoclastic child, Nathan dropped out of high school and got into Tufts University by forging his own transcript. After failing out of Tufts, he transferred to Brown University by using the transcript of another Tufts student named Nathan Weinstein.

Nathanael died at 37, having produced a couple of books and a couple of B-movie screenplays. He died in a car crash near Los Angeles, on his way to F. Scott Fitzgerald's funeral.

Miss Lonelyhearts was his magnum opus. Published in 1933, it is from the very first page a striking work. It follows Miss Loneyhearts, the "Dear Abby" of the day, who takes the job of writing the advice column for a newspaper thinking it'll be an ironic joke job, but who becomes infected with the extremely modern suffering of the people who write in for help. The young man is never given a name besides Miss Lonelyhearts. He immediately reminded me so much of Holden Caulfield - and in fact the whole book feels very much like a precursor to Catcher in the Rye in tone and message.

Finally, the real star of Miss Lonelyhearts is not the boyish antihero after whom it is named, but West himself and his unflinching playfulness with language. I read parts of this book aloud because the language was so physical, spectacular, and very grimcore. In one of my favorite lines, West describes that in kissing, "he drove his triangular face like a hatchet into her neck".

It does a disservice to the visceral power of this book to simply say it's the best thing I've read in a really long time, maybe years. I cannot recommend it more highly.

[Selena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I made a promise to myself that I woudl actively work toward reading all of the books listed on the 1001 books to read before you die list. Sometimes I’ve pouted through the books and then there are times where the list leads me to a new author and gem that I would have missed completely.

Miss Lonelyhearts is Nathanael West’s most famous book, through really, it is a novella. Miss Lonelyhearts is the nickname for the advice columnist for a magazine. (the reader never finds out Miss Lonelyhearts’ real name). He takes the job and treats it as a joke – it was meant to be a joke. And then he has to read these letters. These letters that are filled with such misery and desperation that perfectly captures Depression era sentiments. It’s impossible to treat the letters flippantly once Miss Lonelyhearts reads their candid and tragic tales.

More troubled than all of the folks that write these sad letters is Miss Lonelyhearts himself. He wants so hard to help them but cannot even know where to begin. He tries alcohol to numb his mind and sex to tired it but to no avail. His fiance encourages him to quit his job, his editor makes a mockery out of his emotional response to these letters and even God and religion, he feels, fail him.

I’ve read commentary on the book which states that, in some ways, Miss Lonelyhearts is a representation of Christ. He sacrifices himself on the verge of what is a real religious epiphany and to what end? Life goes on just the very same.

I haven’t read the Great Gatsby but I’ve heard that it perfectly epitomizes life in post-WWII, Depression-era America. I think West’s Miss Lonelyhearts should be added to that list. In its few pages, it gives across the essence of a time.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miss Lonelyhearts was not a story I enjoyed. However, a story does not have to be enjoyed to qualify as a significant piece of writing. I am discovering Nathaniel West a bit late and am somewhat fascinated by his work. Writing in the midst of one of America's darker chapters...the Great Depression...West employs the spare and dark prose a reader might more readily expect from a post-modern, post-God, contemporary nihilist.

Crisis eras bring out both the best and worst qualities in people. West's focus is strictly on the baser instincts and casual cruelties we inflict on one another as members of the human race. The characters in Miss Lonelyhearts are either pathetic, deranged or cruelly manipulative. The setting tends to be bleak. The backdrop is one of a society in tatters. Today's reader can ratchet up the level of discomfort very quickly by pondering the parallels between the bleak 1930s and today's economic turmoil.

Miss Lonelyhearts is the pseudonym for an otherwise nameless man who writes an advice column for a newspaper. Initially, we learn, the idea for the column was meant as a joke, devised by Miss Lonelyheart's vicious editor, Shrike. Time and exposure to the myriad miseries of his fellow man via the letters Miss Lonelyhearts receives each week take their toll. Miss Lonelyhearts, already a fragile psychological specimen with a Christ complex and a tenuous grip on reality, edges closer and closer to a complete breakdown as the story unfolds. He is egged on by Shrike at each turn.

This story is short, ugly and powerful. If you have never read Nathaniel West, I would suggest beginning with the somewhat more structured and palatable "The Days of the Locust" and then moving on to Miss Lonelyhearts.

[Edie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nathanael West’s “Miss Lonelyhearts” is a story of dysfunction. The novella is divided into fragmented pieces, each composed of perverted, collapsing systems. West introduces commonplace patterns of order only to grotesquely destabilize each. He destroys nearly every social and personal structure of humanity, perverting relationships, bodies, even aspects as fundamental as gender distinction. West’s language, too, is a broken system. His disjointed narrative lacks a definite beginning or end, and even within each section, dialogue is frequently interrupted and sentences often trail away indefinitely, lacking completion. “Miss Lonelyhearts,” on a global and local scale, reads like an incomplete circle. The title character fails to complete a full revolution of any system in the novella, instead falling prey to a severely brutal brand of violence. He feels that “all order is doomed, yet the battle is worth while.” The broken systems of West’s narrative suggest that the inherent violence of human beings precludes the successful progress of any social system, particularly on a spiritual and empathetic level.

West's cynical view of society and human nature makes sense within the context of a Depression narrative. As Miss Lonelyhearts muses, “Man has a tropism for order… The physical world has a tropism for disorder, entropy." The chaos and despair of West’s physical world at his time of writing prohibited man’s natural proclivity for order. Neither West nor his characters seem able to overcome the distress of their surroundings, instead bleeding into the margins without finding clear meaning.

[Kirstie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would say this novella is more like a 3 1/2 but Goodreads won't allow it. This is one of those works that tells about a place in time and a certain sense of loneliness that seems timeless that never seemed to get its due recognition.

Miss Lonelyhearts ia actually a man who must answer the advice letters that come into the paper...and these letters enlist is help in every topic that seems imaginable. Meanwhile, Miss Lonelyhearts himself is ensnared in his own problems, namely the adulterous situation he finds himself in. There is a great deal in here about society and religion. The writing is also a sign of the times as well and can get quite sexist against female writers, for instance, but it does indeed make me hopeful to see how far we've come as a country and a society from the 1930s anyways.

Passages I liked:

pg 9 "He knew now what this thing was-hysteria, a snake whose scales are tiny mirrors i which the dead world takes on a semblance of life. And how dead the world is...a world of doorknobs. He wondered if hysteria were really too steep a price to pay for bringing it to life."

pg 17 Miss Lonelyhearts put his arm around the old man. Tell us the story of your life," he sad, loading his voice with sympathy.

"I have no story."

"You must have. Every one has a life story."

pg. 31 The physical world had a tropism for disorder, entropy. Man against Nature...the battle of the centuries. Keys yearn to mix with change. Mandolins strive to get out of tune. Every order has within it the germ of destruction. All order is doomed, yet the battle is worth while."