A Cool Million & The Dream Life of Balso Snell: Two Novels

by Nathanael West

Nathanael West was only thirty-seven when he died in 1940, but his depictions of the sometimes comic, sometimes horrifying aspects of the American scene rival those of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. A Cool Million , written in 1934, is a satiric Horatio Alger story set in the midst of the Depression. The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931) was described by one critic as "a fantasy about some rather scatological adventures of the hero in the innards of the Trojan horse."

Genres: Fiction, American, 20th Century, Novels, Literature, Literary Fiction, Short Stories

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1931

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

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly surprising! Surprisingly violent! And to think that this yellowing Avon paperback languished in my parents’ unused basement sauna for at least 10 years, only to be rescued by me during the holidays; which is one of the few heartwarming stories in these “tough economic times”, as I’ve been reduced to scrounging around for free books anywhere I can, and if they’re set in the depression so much the better.

The back cover copy says that “A Cool Million dismantles, piece by piece, its hero and the Horatio Alger myth”. Nothing could be more literally true. Poor Lem Pitkin is much like the heroine of de Sade’s Justine (another book rescued from the same sauna at the same time, though I read that one years ago) – a multiply gullible innocent systematically destroyed by a maliciously self-centered world. By the end his corpse has been scalped, de-thumbed, de-legged, de-teethed, and de-eyed - but not de-dumbed; even as a chopped up man he still believes in the American dream and his pursuit of a “cool million”. And why was he seeking this $$ in the first place – because a rich Jew, Asa Goldstein, had bought his quaint ancestral home, thereby displacing himself and his mother (who’s never seen again), so he could install it as the showpiece in his Manhattan shop window! Delillo has never put together so potent a satirical sequence as this.

I forgot to mention that Lem’s childhood sweetheart, after being raped by a local bully and left for dead, was abducted by Italian speaking Chinese hoodlums and made into a sex slave. Sick and funny stuff.

Upon reading this I was asked who Horatio Alger was and I realized I didn’t know much. I thought maybe he had written a book with a rags-to-riches theme, but I wasn’t sure about much else, so I looked him up (wikipedia), and his story was nearly as interesting as this book. As a young Unitarian minister he quickly and quietly quitted his post, and the town, after a scandal involving two teenage boys. It wasn’t until after his death that it was confirmed he had engaged in “the abominable and revolting crime of unnatural familiarity with boys”. After his departure he spent the rest of his life tirelessly working to help impoverished children, his many “American dream” books being just one aspect of this compassion. (Note: Compassion comment not ironic. Mr. Alger, contrary to whatever myths and stories have circulated down through time, seems like he was a complex guy who truly cared about kids.) I could say more, such as a biography that was actually a non-researched fantasia stood as the definitive life of Mr Alger for decades, and that his hometown recently removed his name from their annual celebration of his work with children once they found out about the pedophelia scandal... but this is a review of Nathanael West's novels...

The Dream Life of Balso Snell is even more wildly inventive than A Cool Million, but didn’t engage me nearly as much; though the hero’s initial entry into the anus of the Trojan Horse definitely got my attention. From what I could gather the book is a send-up of many literary tastes and trends of the day – stream of consiousness, Gertrude Stein, Dostoevsky, etc – all a la Faust Part II.

[Mb · Rating 4 out of 5]

نهA Cool Million :The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin/Nathanael West
يك ميليون جرينگي يا (اوراق كردن لميوئل پيتكين)
رمان هجو اميز و كنايي ناتانيل وست،انتقادي همه جانبه و بي رحمانه به روياي امريكايي ست.اين حمله تند و تيز زماني نمود بيشتري پيدا ميكند كه متوجه ميشويد رمان در دهه ٣٠ قرن بيستم نوشته شده است.
رمان به غير از تمسخر روياي امريكايي سبك Rags to Riches را نيز به تمسخر ميگيرد.در اين سبك كه هوراتيو الگر را بنيان گذارش ميدانند،قهرمانهايي وجود دارند كه از گمنامي و فقر كامل به بالاترين درجه اشتهار و ثروت ميرسند.
قهرمان كتاب لميوئل پيتكين به توصيه يكي از همشهريان با نفوذش قصد دارد براي از گرو در اوردن خانه شان در نوجواني كار كند،ولي براي اين موضوع ابتدا بايد به شهر برود.همشهري اش،اقاي ويپل كه سابقا رييس جمهور امريكا بوده او را تشويق ميكند تا مانند راكفلر و فورد براي رسيدن به رويايش در كشوري كه روياها محقق ميشوند بجنگد.لميوئل نيز با گرو گذاشتن تنها دارايي با ارزششان يعني گاوشان و با بادي در گلو عازم شهر ميشود ولي..
لميوئل پيتكين نمونه بارز يك ادم پخمه است كه از يك حادثه به حادثه ديگري سكندري ميخورد.در طول داستان مكررا و بصورت خنده داري درگير مشكلات عديده اي ميشود.از او دزدي ميشود،سرش كلاه ميگذارند،بي گناه به زندان مي افتد،متناوبا دچار جرح ميشود و مورد سو استفاده قرار ميگيرد.در داستاني موازي كه خواننده كاملا درگيرش نميشود همين حوادث به نوعي براي بتي پريل دختر مورد علاقه پيتكين اتفاق مي افتند.مورد تجاوز قرار ميگيرد،دزديده ميشود،به فاحشه خانه فروخته ميوشد و در نهايت ناچارا به فاحشگي روي مي اورد.اين در حاليست كه در صحنه اي در ابتداي كتاب هر دوي انها مورد تعرض جواني قلدر قرار ميگيرند و اين هشداري ست كه وست از همان ابتداي داستان به خواننده ميدهد:(منتظر عاقبت به خير شدن انسانهاي ساده لوح و ضعيف نباشيد)..پيتيكن در طول سفرش و در راه رسيدن به مال و منال،همانطور كه از اسم كتاب پيداست،ابتدا تمام دندانهايش،سپس چشمش،بعد انگشت شصتش،پوست جمجمه اش و در نهايت يك پايش را از دست ميدهد و در اخر طبق برنامه اي كه روح خودش از ان خبر ندارد به شهادت ميرسد و تبديل به قهرماني ملي ميشود.در طول داستان،زماني هست كه حتي به نظر ميرسد بخت به او رو كرده ولي او خودش مقدمات هدر دادن ان را فراهم ميكند،چرا؟زيرا او ان مقدار حرامزادگي مورد نياز براي قاپيدن چنين مواقعي راندارد.
وست به عمد از عنصر تصادف در رمانش به وفور استفاده ميكند و خواننده نيز از اين موضوع خسته نميشود.زيرا در انتقاد به همه خوش باورها و ساده لوحاني كه انقدر به نقش تصادف براي رسيدن به موفقيت در زندگيشان اميدوارند هشدار ميدهد كه همين موضوع ميتواند بدبختان كند و بصورت معكوس پيش برود و در واقع فريب رندان و دولتمردان و ميهن پرستان را نخوريد.انهم در مملكتي كه پر از دزد و كلاه بردار و سياستمدار است..
وست در اثرش مهاجران را نيز بي نصيب نميگذارد.مهاجراني كه البته فهميده اند براي زندگي بايد دست به چه كارهايي بزنند.او ايتاليايي ها را ادم ربا،چيني ها را پا انداز،ايرلندي ها را بي رحم و رشوه بگير و يهوديان را طماع نشان داده است.
لميوئل پيتكين اما با همه اين مصائب كه بر سرش اوار ميشود هيچگاه خوش بيني اش را از دست نميدهد.اين اسقاط شدن شخصيت اصلي داستان استعاره اي ست از اسقاط و ويران شدن روحيه خوش باورانه تمام امريكايي ها كه منجر به ركود اقتصادي نيمه اول قرن بيستم شد طوري كه وست ميگويد:
ص ٩٩:اين موضوع لميوئل را نگران نكرد،چون لا اقل به نظر ميرسيد قرار است كاري نصيب اش شود:و اين در سال ١٩٣٤ خداوندگارمان عيسي مسيح ،براي خودش معجزه اي بود
دليل اصلي سقوط هاي متعدد شخصيت مركزي كتاب عجز او از منطبق كردن خودش با شرايط جامعه است.با اين وجود چيزي نگران كننده در مقاومت هاي ساده لوحانه پيتكين از تبديل شدنش به همان انساني كه جامعه ميخواهد وجود دارد؛
خواننده حتي گاهي اتفاقاتي كه براي او مي افتد را حقش ميداند و اين يعني؛
انسان براي بقا مجبور به دريدگي ميشود تا دريده نشود و اين باز بنا به قانون تنازع بقا يعني:
نسل انسانهايي مانند پيتكين منقرض شده است يا در حال انقراض است، پس طبيعي ست كه همه به جان همديگر افتاده اند.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 5 out of 5]

I probably found out about Nathanael West & read his 4 short bks when I was in my late teens. What a discovery! I divide his novels into the absurd (these 2) & the 'realistic' ("Miss Lonelyhearts" & "The Day of the Locust") but the delineation is tenuous. All 4 novels are social criticism. "The Dream Life of Balso Snell" is from 1931 & is a slim 60 pages. All I remember of it is that the protagonist finds the Trojan Horse & enters it thru its asshole - finding graffiti along the way. This was my favorite, probably b/c it was the most absurd. "A Cool Million" is West's parody of Horatio Alger stories - you know the ones: the newspaper boy works hard & thru dedication & the reward system of capitalism becomes a successful millionaire businessman. West blows the well-deserved holes thru that one. The subtitle of "A Cool Million" is "The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin" & the hero pursues fame & fortune w/ Alger-like naivity, failing every step of the way & gradually losing body parts in the process. 113pp, 1934, set in the depression.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly lacking in contrast, both of these works percolate in the fears and insecurities of not only a nation unsure of regaining its footing, there is something fundamental in his horror, Edmund Wilson was correct, West was our Kafka.

[Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nathanael West cannot miss!

[Henry Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the second story especially

"John D. Rockefeller would give a cool million to have a stomach like yours."

rip
Nathanael West

[Andrea Everett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a big fan of Miss Lonelyhearts when I read it last year, West doesn't get enough attention as it is, so I was more than happy to pick up this collection. It was...pretty good. I appreciate how imaginative West is, and just how earnestly he delves into the subjects he makes fun of (because that is often what he's doing). And, per usual, I appreciate the intertextuality of West's work (running the gamut of Homer, Dostoyevsky, Carroll, Horatio Alger, what have you). There are elements of each story that I didn't particularly care for, and I'm not sure that I liked either story as much as I remember liking Lonelyhearts, but, at the end of the day, reading Nathanael West is pure fun.

Some notes on the individual stories.

1. The Dream Life of Balso Snell. I just learned that this was West's first novel, and it honestly shows. I just...I don't know, I just didn't like it. It's a run-of-the-mill, modernist Caroll facsimile that doesn't really do anything or go anywhere. I know that West intentionally wrote the novel in an aggravating manner, but I also don't think readers need to respond to the nihilistic, stream-of-consciousness whims of every author, no matter how cleverly they present their ideas.
2. A Cool Million. I largely like this one. It could rival Lonelyhearts for the title of West's best work (I still haven't read Day of the Locust, though), but the "ironic" racism and misogyny bothered me on a visceral level. There were places in which it felt that West was exposing the plight of marginalized groups as a consequence of white America's pursuit of the American dream (and there were times when West was just really funny), and other times where it seemed like West was giving himself too much permission to be offensive. I did find chief Israel Satinpenny's speech deriding the white man's doubt in the civilization he imposed to be incredibly fascinating. And, of course, Shagpoke's political rhetoric at the end is unduly prescient. Can't say West wasn't on to something. In short: imperfect, but largely good.

[Allison Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to describe Nathanael West? Ummmm, gritty? Satirical, dark? The first works I read by him (“Miss Lonelyhearts” and “The day of the Locust” I preferred a bit over these two stories but these were still ….interesting. I felt like I missed something while reading Balso, but during those lost moments I felt like I was reading a ton of deep, insightful one-liners.

“A Cool Million” was kind of painful to read, but that was the point. A satiric “rags to riches” story that is painful the entire way. Trigger warning heavy, including rape, sex trafficking, assault, racism…pretty much all the things.

I’m bummed Nathanael died so early. He reads like a modern writer. I’m always a fan of social criticism too. I wish he had gotten to write more!

[Gareth Reeves · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel that A Cool Million deserves more readers. An outrageous lampooning of the American dream and a picaresque which manages to out-brutalize Lazarillo de Tormes. The Dream Life of Balso Snell was a bit of a mess, not really worth my time.

[John Wheatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Satirical take on the poor-boy-makes-good American Dream theme. It rolls along with plenty of grotesque comedy and recognisable character types. Very readable and funny.

[Leila · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book sucked so bad it was literally the most confusing and boring book I’ve read perhaps ever

[Christopher McCaffery · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some moments are genuinely hilarious in both these short books, but neither is quite a “Miss Lonelyhearts”

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A Cool Million" is a novel for our time.

[Stephen Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Balso Snell is for a select individual…

[Kierkegaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting stuff. I liked The Dream Life of Balso Snell until the weird sex thing at the end, and A Cool Million was neat, but nothing groundbreaking if you've read Candide.

[Sammy Gold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great character names

[Zeltzamer]

Two grotesque satires in the horror-comedy model typical of West, though the zany nightmarishness of the former novel (A Cool Million) lingers stronger in the mind than the latter (Balso Snell.) West’s style is akin to a knockabout vaudeville performer wearing a fright wig in a theatre, the house blackened more by darkness than people, being yanked off the decrepit stage by a noose instead of a cane.

[Kirsten Mortensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A Cool Million." A savage, dark, cynical, and very un-PC little book. You were warned ;-)

"The Dream Life of Balso Snell." I read this book -- also very short (about 60 pages) -- as an allegory.

The protag is a poet who enters the Trojan horse (i.e. an iconic artifact of the classical literary canon) through "the posterior opening of the alimentary canal" (heh) (The only other two openings were the the mouth, but that was out of Balso's reach, and the navel, but that "proved a cul-de-sac." Double heh.)

Once inside the horse's digestive tract, Balso encounters a number of peculiar individuals, all of whom want to talk his ear off. He finally realizes what they all have in common:

"The wooden horse, Balso realized as he walked on, was inhabited solely by writers in search of an audience."

Kind of like my Twitter feed :-D

As soon as Balso reaches that realization, he makes a resolution:

"H]e was determined not to be tricked into listening to another story. If one had to be told, he would tell it."

Totally cracked me up.

Yet interestingly, the book ends not by Balso writing/telling a story . . . suggesting that for West, the resolution of Balso the poet's dilemma was not to write, but something else entirely . . .

[Cullen Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A Cool Million" is to literature what Preston Sturges' "Miracle at Morgan's Creek" was to cinema: a cleverly satirical jab at society that uses conventional narrative forms as a means of criticism and creativity...and unstoppable laughter. West's "Million" is like a cinema serial gone completely awry...as though the naive heros and heroines of those cliffhanger episodes were dragged through the worst that contemporary life had to offer. "The Dream Life of Balso Snell," on the other hand, is an intriguing if incoherent riff on Dante's Inferno, led through the innards of a Trojan Horse. As the hero encounters one desperate failed writer (and lover, and human being) after another, one can't help but be disturbed by West's rampant nihilism. Humor is eclipsed by his uniquely jaded psychosis....I can't figure what it all means. Not as good as "Million" but worth reading to see West's wide range of talents.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nathanael West wrote two of my favorite 20th Century American novels: Miss Lonelyhearts and Day of the Locust. I didn't realize (until a few months ago) that he'd also written two other novels: The Dream Life of Balso Snell and A Cool Million. These novels aren't nearly as good as his others and aren't really worth reading, unless you are a student of American Literature or a completist.

Of the two in this collection, A Cool Million does have some entertaining moments, but gets so ridiculous that I had to force myself to finish it. I was struck by how much the Shagpoke Whipple character seemed almost contemporary in the way that he championed the capitalist American Dream (like a Ronald Reagan or Rush Limbaugh). I guess West was spoofing Horatio Alger stories in this novel; but since I haven't read anything by Alger, that point didn't increase my enjoyment of the book.

[John G.]

Greatly enjoyed this book and these stories! Hard to believe these were written in 1931 and 34, the language and issues are quite contemporary. West has a unique voice and vision, I read his "collected works" sometime back and these were the two stories that stood out from that collection, even thought they aren't hailed as his best pieces. Dream Life of Balso Snell is simply bizarre and weird and trippy, never read anything quite like it. Wonderfully inventive and playfully irreverent! A Cool Million is a sad, dark, brutal indictment of the free market ideology, an anti-Horatio Alger story if there ever was one. Again, this story is hauntingly ahead of it's time and captures the current mood and mindset of this election campaign to a tee. West was almost a century ahead of his time, have to get his other books too and reread them with fresh eyes.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Narratorial intrusions, shifts of person and register (pastiches of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Arthur Rimbaud, and William Shakespeare in the latter work), and different literary forms—the letter, the drama, the narrative, the poem. The resonance with Thomas Pynchon’s work is evident—verbal excesses, fantasies, satiric exaggerations.

Acquired May 17, 2007
P.T. Campbell Bookseller, London, Ontario

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Balso was fun but weird. A Cool Million was exactly as advertised, a very (very) sarcastic jab at Horatio Alger stories. Both were good. Day of the Locust/Miss Lonelyhearts are clearly the high points in his criminally short career.

I always forget how funny West is and more so, how modern his humor feels. His sarcasm and satire still feel razor sharp today. I really wish we could have gotten one more novel out of him. Reading his earlier work has only reinforced my feeling that he was one novel away from "great american novel" levels of quality.

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Hunter Thompson's favorites, and thanks to the Doctor for listing it. Stunningly cynical, this dark little gem decapitates the Horatio Alger myth and dumps a load down its throat. In its own evil way, "A Cool Million" sheds more light on the American Dream - our most cherished national delusion - than a hundred thousand pages of Ayn Rand.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Haven't read A Cool Million yet, although I plan to.

Read Dream Life over the course of a couple drunken train rides back from the city, and maybe it's not such a great book to read when you're not sober. Intentionally, kind of over-the-top bizarre in a way that isn't so satisfying, as I never felt like there was much of a payoff.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did West assume his readers were too simple to understand any degree of subtlety or was he too simple to write with one? At least it was a quick read. I didn't mind either tale, and did find humor in several parts, but thought there wasn't as much substance behind the too-obvious satire as I had hoped to uncover.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some moments of brilliance, but there's a reason why most people talk about Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust as his masterworks.

The Dream Life of Balso Snell, however, makes me wonder if John Barth or any of the other slightly wacky metafiction folks held it as an influence, especially since it was written all the way back in 1931.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as resonant as A Day of the Locusts, but certainly worth the time it takes to read these novellas. A Cool Million just gets drearier and drearier. I laughed a lot. Strange that West isn't required reading.

[Becky Lipsitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nathanael West changed my life in college. My professor William Melvin Kelley suggested I read him and everything about West's writing blows me away. I wish I could write like him. Please read these two novels. West deserves to be heard.

[David Parson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing with Nathanael West is that his concepts are more interesting than his prose style. Yes, he's funny, but he's also straightforward and dry, in my opinion. So as a grouping of novels, yes, he's a terrific satirist. But taken individually, the novels are...meh.