Miss Lonelyhearts

Last week, a Jeopardy! question was “Who is Nathanael West?” which gave me an itch to revisit this book I last (and first) read back in 1997. I honestly hadn't thought about the book in that time.

Thirteen years was not long enough. Ugh. What an utterly lousy book.

Don't get me wrong, West can turn a phrase – a lot of his imagery is great.

Like this from page 1:
“And on most days he received more than thirty letters, all of them alike, stamped from the dough of suffering with a heart-shaped cookie knife.”

But his word play, his imagery, his skill is wasted on a pointless story about ugly people thinking ugly thoughts and doing ugly things to each other for no reason at all.

Oh, can't forget–that all leads up to an ending as predictable and lazy as it is cliché.

Thanks for nothing, Trebek.

Miss Lonelyhearts is the Dear Abby of her day during America's Great Depression. But Miss Lonelyhearts is a he, not a she, and that's only the beginning of the ways Miss Lonelyhearts deceives her readers. Though he feels pity for his readers and their terrible lives, Miss Lonelyhearts has little to offer to help them.

Oddly, the most disturbed character in the book is Miss Lonelyhearts himself. He obsesses over the troubles of his readers but no one is able to help him. His editor doesn't even try, regarding the whole Miss Lonelyhearts column as a joke, a publicity stunt. His fiancé suggests he quit the job, something he can't bring himself to do. Miss Lonelyhearts tries several ways to help himself but all fail.

This is a very short novel, a novella really, but it is very thoughtful and darkly comedic. I read it twice, the second time after reading some commentary about the novel, and the second reading was a rich reading for me. The commentary says that Miss Lonelyhearts is a Christ-like figure who, in the end, sacrifices himself for his people, but to no end. The author, the commentary goes on to write, saw there was no place for the innocent, the sacrificial, in the evil modern world.

Nathanael West is my new favorite author. He is bleak, deadpan, cynical, and tortured, all refuges of the hyper-sensitive artist. Miss Lonelyhearts isn't as well-crafted as Day of the Locust, but West gets big points in my book for referring to Krafft-Ebing and Huysmans. He also refers to Des Esseintes's memorial to his virility here: “Alas, after much good fun the day comes when you realise that soon you must die. You keep a stiff upper lip and decide to give a last party. You invite all your old mistresses, trainers, artists, and boon companions. The guests are dressed in black,... the table is a coffin carved for you by Eric Gill. You serve caviar and blackberries and liquorice candy and coffee without cream.”