<![CDATA[The Day of the Locust]]>

false <![CDATA[The Day of the Locust]]>

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Tod Hackett is a brilliant young artist - and a man in danger of losing his heart. Brought to an LA studio as a set-designer, he is soon caught up in a fantasy world where the cult of celebrity rules. But when he becomes besotted by the beautiful Faye, an aspiring actress and occasional call-girl, his dream rapidly becomes a nightmare. For, with little in the way of looks and no money to buy her time, Tod's desperate passion can only lead to frustration, disillusionment and rage... *** a selection from: CHAPTER 1: Around quitting time, Tod Hackett heard a great din on the road outside his office. The groan of leather mingled with the jangle of iron and over all beat the tattoo of a thousand hooves. He hurried to the window. An army of cavalry and foot was passing. It moved like a mob; its lines broken, as though fleeing from some terrible defeat. The dolmans of the hussars, the heavy shakos of the guards, Hanoverian light horse, with their fiat leather caps and flowing red plumes, were all jumbled together in bobbing disorder. Behind the cavalry came the infantry, a wild sea of waving sabretaches, sloped muskets, crossed shoulder belts and swinging cartridge boxes.. Tod recognized the scarlet infantry of England with their white shoulder pads, the black infantry of the Duke of Brunswick, the French grenadiers with their enormous white gaiters, the Scotch with bare knees under plaid skirts. While he watched, a little fat man, wearing a cork sun-helmet, polo shirt and knickers, darted around the corner of the building in pursuit of the army. "Stage Nine--you bastards--Stage Nine!" he screamed through a small megaphone. The cavalry put spur to their horses and the infantry broke into a dogtrot. The little man in the cork hat ran after them, shaking his fist and cursing. Tod watched until they had disappeared behind half a Mississippi steamboat, then put away his pencils and drawing board, and left the office. On the sidewalk outside the studio he stood for a moment trying to decide whether to walk home or take a streetcar. He had been in Hollywood less than three months and still found it a very exciting place, but he was lazy and didn't like to walk. He decided to take the streetcar as far as Vine Street and walk the rest of the way. A talent scout for National Films had brought Tod to the Coast after seeing some of his drawings in an exhibit of undergraduate work at the Yale School of Fine Arts. He had been hired by telegram. If the scout had met Tod, he probably wouldn't have sent him to Hollywood to learn set and costume designing. His large, sprawling body, his slow blue eyes and sloppy grin made him seem completely without talent, almost doltish in fact. Yes, despite his appearance, he was really a very complicated young man with a whole set of personalities, one inside the other like a nest of Chinese boxes. And "The Burning of Los Angeles," a picture he was soon to paint, definitely proved he had talent. He left the car at Vine Street. As he walked along, he examined the evening crowd. A great many of the people wore sports clothes which were not really sports clothes. Their sweaters, knickers, slacks, blue flannel jackets with brass buttons were fancy dress. The fat lady in the yachting cap was going shopping, not boating; the man in the Norfolk jacket and Tyrolean hat was returning, not from a mountain, but an insurance office; and the girl in slacks and sneaks with a bandanna around her head had just left a switchboard, not a tennis court.

990677

1939

The Day of the Locust

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3 31 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 30 08:59:29 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 28 21:21:55 -0700 2009 other California, up the Five a ways and then off to the left.... Where I grew up people speak of LA in the same disgusted, dismissive, and morbidly fascinate...more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 01 13:03:32 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 05 13:55:53 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999 Mon Mar 09 22:21:06 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 11:49:13 -0700 2009
i love nathaniel west always because no matter how much i try ...more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Feb 12 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 11 13:57:31 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 23:26:31 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 3 false false Sat Aug 29 05:58:46 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 06:58:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Oct 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 09:41:22 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 14 17:16:06 -0700 2009 The Day of The Locust
New York: Random House
238 pp. $ 19.95
0899663028

This is not a story about the glamorous Hollywood that we see, but the non-glamorous side that needs to be told about. That is the main focus in the novel The Day of the Locust b...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sun Oct 28 08:06:01 -0700 2007 Mon Jan 05 00:38:17 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Sep 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 12 11:06:15 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 30 18:47:35 -0700 2008 Day of the Locust seemed pretty much the West Coast counterpart to Gatsby. It's quick and straightforward and void of much style. West speaks through an omniscient (though largely, here, reliable) narrator who shifts between several lost souls all lusting af...more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Jan 15 12:56:43 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 06 07:13:04 -0800 2008

"It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that are....more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Oct 04 15:24:25 -0700 2007 Sun Nov 18 07:16:40 -0800 2007 Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust, (Penguin, London, 2006)

This is more of a novella than a novel really, and its modern prose and simplistic language makes it easy to read in many ways. It is not what I would necessarily call an 'easy read' though, simply because of its charac...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 12 16:51:39 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 12 17:09:13 -0700 2007
"The Day of the Locust" is yet another work that came to me via my volumino...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1998 Tue Aug 25 15:02:05 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 15:03:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 15 20:20:42 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 15 20:27:06 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 10:36:13 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 17 10:50:12 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Dec 18 12:16:51 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 18 12:22:49 -0800 2008 Never watch the horrible movie adaptation fro...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Apr 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 13 16:26:07 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 21 10:10:08 -0700 2008 t...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jan 24 08:43:05 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 08:49:58 -0800 2009 The Day of the Locust is ultimately too insubstantial to really care about. There's a flatness to both the characters and the prose that makes them easy to forget, and the plot, a satiric wink at 30s melodrama, feels strained. ]]> 5 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jul 31 19:52:10 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 31 19:54:51 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Feb 09 20:39:23 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 09 20:42:05 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Sat Apr 18 19:45:13 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 19:47:02 -0700 2009
One of my favorite beach books.]]>