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A Cool Million
In this book, Nathanael West, a great American satirist, nearly laughs the Horatio Alger myth to death. Like many an Alger, Lemuel Pitkin leaves his home on the farm to seek his fortune in the Big City. By the time he is through, he has been robbed, bilked, thrown in jail, has lost his teeth, his eye, a leg, his scalp, and has witnessed a remarkable number of rapes and political riots. Others in the an ex-president of the United States (just released from jail); Lem's childhood sweetheart (now working in a Mott Street bordello); an oil-rich Indian; a Western desperado; and assorted agents and thugs of the Communists, Fascists and International Bankers. Through the story of Lemuel Pitkin, the four-square, All-American hero, and his sad fate at the hands of rabble-rousers and charlatans, West etched a classic parable of America in the chaotic Thirties.
142 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1934
30 people are currently reading
1551 people want to read
About the author
Nathanael West
47 books373 followersBorn 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.
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.
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June 17, 2019
Nathanael West may be America's bitterest novelist, and A Cool Million, or the Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin (1934),written in the worst years of The Great Depression, is by far his bitterest work. West loathed the cowardly illusions we call “dreams”--the utopian dream, the redemption-through-art dream, the redemption-through-compassion dream, the salvation dream, the romantic love dream—and foremost among the dreams he loathed was “The American Dream": the abiding fiction that America is “the land of opportunity” where anyone—however poor—who is honest, brave and willing to work can eventually become rich and successful.
West's novel is a darkly comic parody of the typical “Horatio Alger” novel, in which a poor but honest boy performs a series of brave actions and eventually rises “from rags to riches.” West's hero Lemuel Pitkin is indeed a poor but honest boy, but each time he tries to do something adventurous or brave he loses another body part: first his teeth, then his eye, his leg, his scalp, etc. And Betty Prail, the sweet girl he loves, fares no better: she is sexually abused, repeatedly raped, and sold into “white slavery.” All the time these horrific events are going on, our wholesome couple is surrounded by small time grifters, major con men, and various opportunistic types—including an ex-US president recently released from prison—who all loudly sing the praises of The Great American Dream. (There are a bunch of communists and government agents too, but they are just as bad as the rest.)
The satire is broad and vicious, and West's rage is never far from the surface. A Cool Million is the book Candide might have been if Voltaire had written it during a nervous breakdown. Still, it is so distinctively American that it could be the last angry book by Mark Twain, written right after his bankruptcy and the death of daughter Susy—something dark he would have written just for himself, something he would have hidden from his wife Livy for the rest of both their lives.
If you have no taste for passionate satire, or do not believe mutilation and rape can ever be legitimate sources of humor, then you should probably skip this book. But those who read A Cool Million will discover a nightmare vision of the American Dream that—more than three-quarters of a century after its author's death—still rings true today.
Speaking of ringing true today: the following is West's description of a crowd incited to riot by former president “Shagpoke” Whipple. It reminded me a lot of some of the p0litical rallies I've seen on TV in this election year 2016:
Before Mr. Whipple had quite finished his little talk, the crowd ran off in all directions, shouting “Lynch him! Lynch him!” although a good three-quarters of its members did not know whom it was they were supposed to lynch. This fact did not bother them, however. They considered their lack of knowledge an advantage rather than a hindrance, for it gave them a great leeway in their choice of a victim...
Another section of Shagpoke's audience, made up mostly of older men, had somehow gotten the impression that the South had again seceded from the Union...They ran up the Confederate flag on the courthouse pole, and prepared to die in its defense...As time went on, the riot grew more general in character. Barricades were thrown up in the streets. The heads of Negroes were paraded on poles...
May 16, 2021
America as Farce
In the 1930’s America still considered itself a young country with much to learn. By all appearances almost a century later the country has matured into itself, becoming more of what it already was. Unfortunately it hasn’t learned much at all.
Rubes, sharp businessmen, and thieves (as well as the odd paedophile or two) - these are the demographic categories in West’s farce of American life. These groups are governed by a combination of corrupt officials, brutal police, and a justice system dominated by stupidity.
All the great myths of America as the land of opportunity are trailed out sarcastically in A Cool Million. Henry Ford and John Rockefeller represent ideals toward which to strive. The threats that exist - particularly to female virtue - are the fault of foreign immigrants and black folk.
An ex-President is serving time for fraud (thus raising hopeful thoughts in the present day). But as he says “Here a man is a millionaire one day and a pauper the next, but no one thinks the worse of him.” He’ll be back in business and running for political office again in no time. It’s a great country. “Despite the Communists and their vile propaganda against individualism, this is still the golden land of opportunity.”
West’s protagonist is Lem, a Bernie Sanders prototype from Vermont, who is beaten down by the fraud prone ex-President, Shagpoke Whipple (the name has appropriate connotations in Britain), a remarkable Trump look-a-like, and by the primitive libertarianism of the American social system.
Among other indignities, Lem is subject to the malicious, Make-America-Great-Again nostalgia that has always been rife in the country. Lem’s antique family home in Vermont is foreclosed, dismantled and re-erected in the shop window of a New York City interior decorator.
In America, politics is a business like any other and Shagpoke is undeterred by his recent incarceration. "The time for a new party with the old American principles was, I realized, overripe. I decided to form it; and so the National Revolutionary Party, popularly known as the ` Leather Shirts,' was born. The uniform of our 'Storm Troops' is a coonskin cap like the one I am wearing, a deerskin shirt and a pair of moccasins. Our weapon is the squirrel rifle." It sounds absurd but I think Trump actually read this. He may even claim to have written it.
Shagpoke certainly could have written the Trump commercial playbook. Political memorabilia is a money maker is it not? “Coonskin hats with extra long tails, deerskin shirts with or without fringes, blue jeans, moccasins, squirrel rifles, everything for the American Fascist at rock bottom prices. 30% off for Cash.”
The Deplorables flock to his side, undoubtedly backed by the NRA of the day (in 1934, the year of the book’s publication, the NRA first became politically involved in publicising gun legislation to its members). The slogans are perennial: "America for Americans! Back to the principles of Andy Jackson and Abe Lincoln!" Shagpoke adopts the Nixon strategy: “In the South, where he expected to get considerable support for his movement, they would not stand for Negroes.” He knows his Americans.
Lem cannot avoid being enmeshed in the system of fraud and deceit. Having lost all his teeth as well as an eye, he is not all that hot on the employment market. But that doesn’t prevent him from engaging in further adventures worthy of an old fashioned Saturday morning serial at the cinema.
In the 1930’s America still considered itself a young country with much to learn. By all appearances almost a century later the country has matured into itself, becoming more of what it already was. Unfortunately it hasn’t learned much at all.
Rubes, sharp businessmen, and thieves (as well as the odd paedophile or two) - these are the demographic categories in West’s farce of American life. These groups are governed by a combination of corrupt officials, brutal police, and a justice system dominated by stupidity.
All the great myths of America as the land of opportunity are trailed out sarcastically in A Cool Million. Henry Ford and John Rockefeller represent ideals toward which to strive. The threats that exist - particularly to female virtue - are the fault of foreign immigrants and black folk.
An ex-President is serving time for fraud (thus raising hopeful thoughts in the present day). But as he says “Here a man is a millionaire one day and a pauper the next, but no one thinks the worse of him.” He’ll be back in business and running for political office again in no time. It’s a great country. “Despite the Communists and their vile propaganda against individualism, this is still the golden land of opportunity.”
West’s protagonist is Lem, a Bernie Sanders prototype from Vermont, who is beaten down by the fraud prone ex-President, Shagpoke Whipple (the name has appropriate connotations in Britain), a remarkable Trump look-a-like, and by the primitive libertarianism of the American social system.
Among other indignities, Lem is subject to the malicious, Make-America-Great-Again nostalgia that has always been rife in the country. Lem’s antique family home in Vermont is foreclosed, dismantled and re-erected in the shop window of a New York City interior decorator.
In America, politics is a business like any other and Shagpoke is undeterred by his recent incarceration. "The time for a new party with the old American principles was, I realized, overripe. I decided to form it; and so the National Revolutionary Party, popularly known as the ` Leather Shirts,' was born. The uniform of our 'Storm Troops' is a coonskin cap like the one I am wearing, a deerskin shirt and a pair of moccasins. Our weapon is the squirrel rifle." It sounds absurd but I think Trump actually read this. He may even claim to have written it.
Shagpoke certainly could have written the Trump commercial playbook. Political memorabilia is a money maker is it not? “Coonskin hats with extra long tails, deerskin shirts with or without fringes, blue jeans, moccasins, squirrel rifles, everything for the American Fascist at rock bottom prices. 30% off for Cash.”
The Deplorables flock to his side, undoubtedly backed by the NRA of the day (in 1934, the year of the book’s publication, the NRA first became politically involved in publicising gun legislation to its members). The slogans are perennial: "America for Americans! Back to the principles of Andy Jackson and Abe Lincoln!" Shagpoke adopts the Nixon strategy: “In the South, where he expected to get considerable support for his movement, they would not stand for Negroes.” He knows his Americans.
Lem cannot avoid being enmeshed in the system of fraud and deceit. Having lost all his teeth as well as an eye, he is not all that hot on the employment market. But that doesn’t prevent him from engaging in further adventures worthy of an old fashioned Saturday morning serial at the cinema.
December 11, 2018
رمان کم حجمی که در طول دو روز خواندن خندههای تلخ زیادی به سراغم اومد. این کتاب تاخت و تاز وحشیانهای به کاپیتالیسم و رویای آمریکایی است.کمیکی خشک و ناسور که قهرمان آن به رغم کوشش زیاد نه تنها از فرش به عرش نمیرسد، بلکه به زیرزمین هم تشریف میبرند. داستان نوجوان تهیدست و خوشبینی را روایت میکند که در دوران رکود بزرگ امریکا رهسپار یافتن بخت خود و نجات خانه مادرش میشود. با امیدی کورکورانه سفر خود را آغاز میکند از همان ب بسم ا.. هدف شروران و کلاهبرداران میشود. پسری با های و هوی زیاد (به هرکس میرسد از هوا و هوس و آرزوهای خودش میگوید) که در مسیرش قربانی بانکدارها، سیاستمدارها، جیببرها، بردهدارهای ایتالیایی، ج.ا.کشهای چینی و پلیسهای سادیستی ایرلندی-آمریکایی میشود. بدبختیهای قهرمان ما که زیاد و مختلف هستند در قالبی سورئال او را مجبور میکنند چیزهای با ارزشی را در ازای زندگی کردن بپردازد. خرده ریز شانسهای او هم به صورت معکوس میشوند و کردار خوب او بد تعبیر و تفسیر میشود. در چیزی که به نظر میرسد آخرین رسوایی و خواری اوست، آلت دست دو کمدین میشود که در صحنهای ظالمانه خندهدار او را کتک میزنند تا خندههای تلخی به وجود بیاورند. اما در دنیایی که هرگونه اقبال برای بدست آوردن پول از دست رفته است، قهرمان ما حتی در مرگ هم استثمار میشود و به صورت شهید بازیچه دست سیاستمدار شکستخوردهای میشود. رمان سراسر غیر انسانی، وحشیانه، مالامال از یاس و ترس و عدم اعتماد است. وست در مقام یک هجو نویس بزرگ به رویای پولدار شدن مردم فقیر میتازد. او را میتوان کافکای آمریکا نامید!
صفحه تقدیم مترجم هم جالب است:
ترجمه این کتاب را تقدیم میکنم به:
قهرمانان دوران ما
برج سازان
رویافروشان
متخصصان پیشبرد فروش
صفحه تقدیم مترجم هم جالب است:
ترجمه این کتاب را تقدیم میکنم به:
قهرمانان دوران ما
برج سازان
رویافروشان
متخصصان پیشبرد فروش
June 29, 2022
Greasy satire of the most malicious kind. A rags to rags story about one man's valiant pursuit of the American nightmare. A surprisingly smooth and cinematic journey through the underbelly of America, which is not an underbelly so much as a carcass here, teeming with greedy maggots. The swindles are clever and the racism is either intentional or very sad indeed. Caricatures that will stick in the mind and slapstick that will make you wince. This mock picturesque ramble through urban squalor will titillate any enthusiast of descriptive prose or moral quandaries. Ask yourself, has anything changed? A poignant classic shedding light on societal struggles often brushed under the rug.
March 2, 2024
06/2022
From 1934
The 2nd of the 4 books Nathaniel West wrote before dying (in his 30s). A Cool Million Is a silly and ridiculous take on the Horatio Alger mythos. After always hearing about HA, I finally read a story and a half a few years ago (it is kid lit from the early 1900s). The hero, Ragged Dick, Is a homeless shoe shine boy with such a great attitude. Luck finds him and he works his way up with his winning personality.. Fun to read, I see that, but basically written to make people feel okay about poverty and homelessness. 'Cause you know, if they're starving, it's only their own attitude to blame.
West was a dark satirist and there is a lot to make fun of here.
It seemed significant to me that The Day of the Locust and this both have actual rapes occur, but they are casually mentioned, not graphic. Like West is saying bad things happen a lot in this world, and this is a bad thing that happens to women a lot.
From 1934
The 2nd of the 4 books Nathaniel West wrote before dying (in his 30s). A Cool Million Is a silly and ridiculous take on the Horatio Alger mythos. After always hearing about HA, I finally read a story and a half a few years ago (it is kid lit from the early 1900s). The hero, Ragged Dick, Is a homeless shoe shine boy with such a great attitude. Luck finds him and he works his way up with his winning personality.. Fun to read, I see that, but basically written to make people feel okay about poverty and homelessness. 'Cause you know, if they're starving, it's only their own attitude to blame.
West was a dark satirist and there is a lot to make fun of here.
It seemed significant to me that The Day of the Locust and this both have actual rapes occur, but they are casually mentioned, not graphic. Like West is saying bad things happen a lot in this world, and this is a bad thing that happens to women a lot.
September 7, 2017
This tragicomedy debunks the Horatio Alger Jr. myths of the American Dream during the 1930's depression. This is an unknown gem.
September 4, 2013
This third of West's four novels is a thematic continuation of Miss Lonelyhearts, his previous work. In that book, the failure of Christian religion to help victims of the Depression, and indeed solve the crisis itself, was the primary theme, with the fallacy of the American Dream secondary. In A Cool Million, the themes are reversed. The assumption that every American can achieve wealth and honor is mercilessly savaged while exposing the bigotry and racism of the Protestant elite.
Lemuel Pitkin is a naive seventeen-year-old mock hero who tries repeatedly to make money, originally to pay off his mother's mortgage, but is forever thwarted by an increasingly bizarre series of events. By the end of the book, he has evolved into a political pawn of the quasi-fascist, chillingly real National Revolutionary Party, which clearly is modeled after Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. At the time when West was writing his book in 1934 both countries were already well down the road to fatalistic fascism. It's this immediacy of West that I like; he writes during the Depression about the Depression, like a creative newspaper reporter would, and his voice is true and urgent, even after most of a century has passed.
I read somewhere that the famous critic Harold Bloom recognizes the voice of Ronald Reagan in this novel, well before his actual presidency some fifty years later. There is something to this: it's easy for me to imagine Reagan's Republican Party evolving to West's National Revolutionary Party (NRP), complete with their "storm troopers" wearing "leather shirts" and "coonskin caps" (just like the Nazi's actual brown-shirted version of the same) reflecting the extreme reactionary patriotism of both the NRP and Reagan's Republican Party.
It is ever so chilling to read in the very closing sentences of West's politically perceptive novel the NRP cheering the dead hero with "Hail the Martyrdom...Hail, Lemuel Pitkin...All Hail, the Americam Boy!" Of course, the German word for "Hail" is "Heil", as in "Heil Hitler."
West, writing en scène during the early 1930s, likely thought the United States was risking becoming like Italy and Germany if the problems of the Depression were not solved quickly. His first three novels demonstrate a keen passion toward this.
Lemuel Pitkin is a naive seventeen-year-old mock hero who tries repeatedly to make money, originally to pay off his mother's mortgage, but is forever thwarted by an increasingly bizarre series of events. By the end of the book, he has evolved into a political pawn of the quasi-fascist, chillingly real National Revolutionary Party, which clearly is modeled after Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. At the time when West was writing his book in 1934 both countries were already well down the road to fatalistic fascism. It's this immediacy of West that I like; he writes during the Depression about the Depression, like a creative newspaper reporter would, and his voice is true and urgent, even after most of a century has passed.
I read somewhere that the famous critic Harold Bloom recognizes the voice of Ronald Reagan in this novel, well before his actual presidency some fifty years later. There is something to this: it's easy for me to imagine Reagan's Republican Party evolving to West's National Revolutionary Party (NRP), complete with their "storm troopers" wearing "leather shirts" and "coonskin caps" (just like the Nazi's actual brown-shirted version of the same) reflecting the extreme reactionary patriotism of both the NRP and Reagan's Republican Party.
It is ever so chilling to read in the very closing sentences of West's politically perceptive novel the NRP cheering the dead hero with "Hail the Martyrdom...Hail, Lemuel Pitkin...All Hail, the Americam Boy!" Of course, the German word for "Hail" is "Heil", as in "Heil Hitler."
West, writing en scène during the early 1930s, likely thought the United States was risking becoming like Italy and Germany if the problems of the Depression were not solved quickly. His first three novels demonstrate a keen passion toward this.
October 20, 2009
"Somehow or another I seem to have slipped in between all the 'schools.' My books meet no needs except my own, their circulation is practically private and I'm lucky to be published. And yet, I only have a desire to remedy all that before sitting down to write, once begun I do it my way. I forget the broad sweep, the big canvas, the shot-gun adjectives, the important people, the significant ideas, the lessons to be taught, the epic Thomas Wolfe, the realistic James Farrell-- and go on making what one critic called 'private and unfunny jokes.'"
-Nathanael West to F. Scott Fitzgerald
-Nathanael West to F. Scott Fitzgerald
April 6, 2008
No-one has ever viewed the American Dream with more cynicism, or more venom, than Nathanael West. His literary output was incredibly slender – one short novel, The Day of the Locust, and three novellas – but time has done nothing to diminish the power and the bitterness of his vision. West’s satire isn’t subtle, but it’s undeniably effective. Published in 1934, this is a savage and bleak little book.
July 4, 2017
"Ένα σπαρταριστό εκατομμύριο", εκδόσεις Αστάρτη.
Τρίτο βιβλίο του Ναθάναελ Γουέστ που διαβάζω, μετά το "Το άγριο Χόλιγουντ" που διάβασα τον Νοέμβριο του 2014 και το "Ο δεσποινίς Μοναχικές Καρδιές" που διάβασα τον Απρίλιο του 2015, και αυτό με την σειρά του μου έκανε αρκετά καλή εντύπωση. Πρόκειται για ένα άκρως σατιρικό έργο, γεμάτο μαύρο χιούμορ και ακραίες καταστάσεις, όπου οι υπερβολές της πλοκής και η γρήγορη εξέλιξη των όλων κωμικοτραγικών γεγονότων, αναδεικνύουν με τον πιο έντονο τρόπο όλες τις παθογένειες που κρύβονταν την "χρυσή" δεκαετία του '30, πίσω από το αναθεματισμένο Αμερικάνικο Όνειρο.
Πρωταγωνιστής της... κωμικοτραγωδίας αυτής, είναι ο Λέμιουελ Πίτκιν, ένας συμπαθητικός μα εκνευριστικά αφελής και εξοργιστικά εύπιστος νεαρός, που ξεκινά για την κατάκτηση του Αμερικάνου Ονείρου, έχοντας ως σκοπό να βγάλει αρκετά χρήματα ώστε να ξεφύγει από την φτώχεια και την μιζέρια. Όμως οδηγείται από την μια συμφορά στην άλλη, μπλέκει σ'ένα κάρο περιπέτειες, θα έρθει αντιμέτωπος με λωποδύτες, απατεώνες, σκληρούς κακοποιούς, αυταρχικούς μπάτσους, διεφθαρμένους δημόσιους υπαλλήλους, και πάει λέγοντας, ενώ στην πορεία θα μπει φυλακή και σωματικά θα χάσει κάμποσα πράγματα, εκτός από την ψυχική του ηρεμία και ασφάλεια. Αντί για το Αμερικάνικο Όνειρο, ο καημένος Λεμ θα δει με τον πιο σκληρό τρόπο πως είναι ο Αμερικάνικος... Εφιάλτης.
Όπως είπα, η όλη ιστορία λειτουργεί ως σάτιρα, και έτσι πρέπει να διαβαστεί. Δεν είναι να πάρει κανείς στα σοβαρά την πλοκή και όλα τα τρελά και σουρεαλιστικά πράγματα που συμβαίνουν, γιατί έτσι θα αδικηθεί το βιβλίο. Η γραφή είναι καλή, άμεση και βαθιά ειρωνική, με την αίσθηση του χιούμορ να είναι αρκετά έντονη και κατάμαυρη. Την εποχή που γράφτηκε το παρόν βιβλίο σίγουρα θα δημιούργησε έναν κάποιο σάλο, γιατί σαν έργο θίγει με έντονο τρόπο πολλά ζητήματα-ταμπού της (τότε) αμερικάνικης κοινωνίας.
Τρίτο βιβλίο του Ναθάναελ Γουέστ που διαβάζω, μετά το "Το άγριο Χόλιγουντ" που διάβασα τον Νοέμβριο του 2014 και το "Ο δεσποινίς Μοναχικές Καρδιές" που διάβασα τον Απρίλιο του 2015, και αυτό με την σειρά του μου έκανε αρκετά καλή εντύπωση. Πρόκειται για ένα άκρως σατιρικό έργο, γεμάτο μαύρο χιούμορ και ακραίες καταστάσεις, όπου οι υπερβολές της πλοκής και η γρήγορη εξέλιξη των όλων κωμικοτραγικών γεγονότων, αναδεικνύουν με τον πιο έντονο τρόπο όλες τις παθογένειες που κρύβονταν την "χρυσή" δεκαετία του '30, πίσω από το αναθεματισμένο Αμερικάνικο Όνειρο.
Πρωταγωνιστής της... κωμικοτραγωδίας αυτής, είναι ο Λέμιουελ Πίτκιν, ένας συμπαθητικός μα εκνευριστικά αφελής και εξοργιστικά εύπιστος νεαρός, που ξεκινά για την κατάκτηση του Αμερικάνου Ονείρου, έχοντας ως σκοπό να βγάλει αρκετά χρήματα ώστε να ξεφύγει από την φτώχεια και την μιζέρια. Όμως οδηγείται από την μια συμφορά στην άλλη, μπλέκει σ'ένα κάρο περιπέτειες, θα έρθει αντιμέτωπος με λωποδύτες, απατεώνες, σκληρούς κακοποιούς, αυταρχικούς μπάτσους, διεφθαρμένους δημόσιους υπαλλήλους, και πάει λέγοντας, ενώ στην πορεία θα μπει φυλακή και σωματικά θα χάσει κάμποσα πράγματα, εκτός από την ψυχική του ηρεμία και ασφάλεια. Αντί για το Αμερικάνικο Όνειρο, ο καημένος Λεμ θα δει με τον πιο σκληρό τρόπο πως είναι ο Αμερικάνικος... Εφιάλτης.
Όπως είπα, η όλη ιστορία λειτουργεί ως σάτιρα, και έτσι πρέπει να διαβαστεί. Δεν είναι να πάρει κανείς στα σοβαρά την πλοκή και όλα τα τρελά και σουρεαλιστικά πράγματα που συμβαίνουν, γιατί έτσι θα αδικηθεί το βιβλίο. Η γραφή είναι καλή, άμεση και βαθιά ειρωνική, με την αίσθηση του χιούμορ να είναι αρκετά έντονη και κατάμαυρη. Την εποχή που γράφτηκε το παρόν βιβλίο σίγουρα θα δημιούργησε έναν κάποιο σάλο, γιατί σαν έργο θίγει με έντονο τρόπο πολλά ζητήματα-ταμπού της (τότε) αμερικάνικης κοινωνίας.
September 5, 2021
این کتاب یک تراژدی کمدی انتقادی به رویای آمریکایی است. پسرک فقیری که به دنبال پولدار شدن به سوی نیویورک می رود و از عنوان کتاب معلوم است که چه بر سر قهرمان داستان می آید. ماجرای کتاب در دهه ۱۹۳۰ و دوران رکود اقتصادی آمریکا رخ می دهد.
"سفر زیارتی او ساده و کوتاه بود اما حتی ۱۰۰۰ سال بعد از این هیچ تراژدی، هیچ شعر حماسی و هیچ داستانی در قیاس با روایت زندگی و مرگ لمیوئل پیتکین سرشار از این همه شگفتیهای عظیم نخواهد بود و شنیدنش برای نوع بشر با احساس همدردی عمیق همراه نیست..."
"سفر زیارتی او ساده و کوتاه بود اما حتی ۱۰۰۰ سال بعد از این هیچ تراژدی، هیچ شعر حماسی و هیچ داستانی در قیاس با روایت زندگی و مرگ لمیوئل پیتکین سرشار از این همه شگفتیهای عظیم نخواهد بود و شنیدنش برای نوع بشر با احساس همدردی عمیق همراه نیست..."
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November 26, 2019From the author of one of the most bitter pieces of American fiction, Day of the Locust, comes another surly-as-hell satire about the crock of shit that is the American dream. This time, I should point out, the satire is much, much more on the nose. If Day of the Locust was Scream, then A Cool Million is more like Scary Movie. Our "hero" tries and tries again, only to lose more and more body parts, each departing with the comic timing of a dying drummer in Spinal Tap. Meanwhile, there's a contingent of American fascists following a broke-ass loser who manages to cast himself as a demagogue and it's horrifyingly believable, especially given his vocal tics that make him come across as a 1930s version of a /pol/ dweller. This is good, good shit, now go get it.
September 2, 2011
OK, so its a grotesquely exaggerated in your face satire: thats the whole point. But the real disturbia is to be found not in the laconic and deadpan list of amputated fingers, scalps and other syphilitic like loss of extremeties which litter the story board, rather the uncomfortable anticlimax which goes against the grain of Western folklore: that if you work hard enough, try hard enough, chase your dreams and persevere, you will succeed.
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June 2, 2015"I'd settle for a cool million." - the homie Raru
How does one rate this book? You'd have to be a pretty sadomasochistic motherfucker to take any "joy" in this... and yeah it's well-written and I think somewhere deep down Nathan Weinstein was really appalled at the world around him and this was his only way of venting. It was the Great Depression after all. The satire holds up well. Shagpoke's commentary sounds eerily close to any post-2008 Obama speech, which is weird, cuz... who are we making fun of again? EVERYONE. There is no place to hide and God is Evil. I'm about done with satire, man. I know the world is fucked up. I don't need an extended metaphor on how everyone is a double-dealing piece of shit to tell me that and I don't get any joy at laughing cynically as the world erupts in flames. "Like, give me some ESCAPE, or something." No, I don't want fucking escape either. There really is nowhere to hide. K, I'm done. Gunna go listen to Clearlake in a dark room and weep until I can handle it again.
How does one rate this book? You'd have to be a pretty sadomasochistic motherfucker to take any "joy" in this... and yeah it's well-written and I think somewhere deep down Nathan Weinstein was really appalled at the world around him and this was his only way of venting. It was the Great Depression after all. The satire holds up well. Shagpoke's commentary sounds eerily close to any post-2008 Obama speech, which is weird, cuz... who are we making fun of again? EVERYONE. There is no place to hide and God is Evil. I'm about done with satire, man. I know the world is fucked up. I don't need an extended metaphor on how everyone is a double-dealing piece of shit to tell me that and I don't get any joy at laughing cynically as the world erupts in flames. "Like, give me some ESCAPE, or something." No, I don't want fucking escape either. There really is nowhere to hide. K, I'm done. Gunna go listen to Clearlake in a dark room and weep until I can handle it again.
June 15, 2013
Such an underrated West novel. It's a pretty clear rip off of Voltaire's Candide, but you know what? I am okay with reading a 20th Century version of that masterpiece, since the lessons are as dramatic set against the backdrop of the Great Depression. It's also interesting how the American Dream lines up so well with Leibniz's ideas about optimism, and that gives West's work an even sharper edge. As always, West is so darkly hilarious in this book that I was constantly laughing, then feeling really guilty about laughing. Poor Lemuel.
May 31, 2012
Interesting. Some points; the 'hero' being called the 'hero' despite back to back failures and implications in criminal activity and failure to rescue the 'damsel in distress' was cute. The racism and rape 'jokes' (was it supposed to be funny?) reached a point where it was uncomfortable and gross, I felt it surpassed the limits even when considering the novels satirical nature. I enjoyed the communism.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 14, 2024
Nothing less than the proto-Transparent Things, West anticipating Nabokov’s glee for doing absolutely heinous shit to one’s characters. Hey, why not—it makes for all sorts of great happyhappy. This is about as hard as satire gets with fun still attached, having the added bonus of being one of them Bill-Dougs-Romans (that’s German; no biggie).
December 21, 2015
West's third book comes between "Miss Lonelyhearts" and "The Day of the Locust" in his bibliography. It immediately follows "Lonelyhearts" and is the last West would be heard of for five years, having gone off to Hollywood to write for the pictures. "A Cool Million" exists in a middle area between his semi-realistic books (previously mentioned) and his purely surrealistic debut, "The Dream Life of Balso Snell." Snell, as I wrote before, jumps from tree limb to tree limb without looking back, the vague "plot" merely a series of set pieces that poke fun at academia, the capital-C-Classics, and the state of the world circa 1931.
"A Cool Million" uses the stories of Horatio Alger as its framework. If you haven't read any Alger, his books are the archetypal "Rags to Riches" stories -- even if you haven't read them, you know the structure. A young boy leaves home, usually some sort of hardscrabble existence, to make his fortunes in the world. Through hard work, honesty, perseverance, and more than a little blind luck, meets a wealthy gentleman who "likes the cut of his jib" and puts him on the road to prosperity.
You get the idea. You've probably seen one form of parody of this or another in your lifetime, even if it's fourth or fifth generation removed from the source. West gives us Horatio Alger as written by Michael O'Donoghue -- through a series of misunderstandings, swindlings, brutalities, and cases of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, our plucky hero, one Lemuel Pitkin of Ottsville, VT, loses his nest egg, his teeth, an eye, a thumb, a leg, his scalp, and pretty much all of his dignity. The female of his fancy, Betty Prail, is sold into sexual slavery, then reconnects with Lem several times, before they come under the sway of several shady characters -- a banker, a captain of industry, a revolutionary, an Indian who lives among the white man -- each of which take Lem further away from his dream of making the $5,000 needed to keep his family home from foreclosure.
If you've ever read Michael O'Donoghue's "Phoebe Zeit-Geist" or the stories of Terry Southern, you'll be right at home here. Wave after wave of bad stuff happens to our hero, who just keeps on a-chuggin'. Some of it is quite funny. Some of it is dated. More than a little of it would offend modern sensibilities. West really nails the language of the old stories: "Justice will out. I am happy to acquaint my readers with the fact that the real criminal, Mr. Wellington Mape, was apprehended by the police some weeks after Lem had been incarcerated in the state penitentiary." There's also lots of funny names like Wellington Mape, Shagpoke Whipple, Sylvanus Snodgrasse, and Israel Satinpenny. By the end, I had laughed at more of it than not, even if it doesn't have the mix of laughs and heartbreak that "Miss Lonelyhearts or "Day of the Locust" do. This is broad satire, and should be treated accordingly. If you're going to read all of his books (and why wouldn't you?), you don't need this review. If you only want to get a little taste, read "Miss Lonelyhearts" first, "Day of the Locust" second, and check these out later if you're still in the mood for more.
"A Cool Million" uses the stories of Horatio Alger as its framework. If you haven't read any Alger, his books are the archetypal "Rags to Riches" stories -- even if you haven't read them, you know the structure. A young boy leaves home, usually some sort of hardscrabble existence, to make his fortunes in the world. Through hard work, honesty, perseverance, and more than a little blind luck, meets a wealthy gentleman who "likes the cut of his jib" and puts him on the road to prosperity.
You get the idea. You've probably seen one form of parody of this or another in your lifetime, even if it's fourth or fifth generation removed from the source. West gives us Horatio Alger as written by Michael O'Donoghue -- through a series of misunderstandings, swindlings, brutalities, and cases of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, our plucky hero, one Lemuel Pitkin of Ottsville, VT, loses his nest egg, his teeth, an eye, a thumb, a leg, his scalp, and pretty much all of his dignity. The female of his fancy, Betty Prail, is sold into sexual slavery, then reconnects with Lem several times, before they come under the sway of several shady characters -- a banker, a captain of industry, a revolutionary, an Indian who lives among the white man -- each of which take Lem further away from his dream of making the $5,000 needed to keep his family home from foreclosure.
If you've ever read Michael O'Donoghue's "Phoebe Zeit-Geist" or the stories of Terry Southern, you'll be right at home here. Wave after wave of bad stuff happens to our hero, who just keeps on a-chuggin'. Some of it is quite funny. Some of it is dated. More than a little of it would offend modern sensibilities. West really nails the language of the old stories: "Justice will out. I am happy to acquaint my readers with the fact that the real criminal, Mr. Wellington Mape, was apprehended by the police some weeks after Lem had been incarcerated in the state penitentiary." There's also lots of funny names like Wellington Mape, Shagpoke Whipple, Sylvanus Snodgrasse, and Israel Satinpenny. By the end, I had laughed at more of it than not, even if it doesn't have the mix of laughs and heartbreak that "Miss Lonelyhearts or "Day of the Locust" do. This is broad satire, and should be treated accordingly. If you're going to read all of his books (and why wouldn't you?), you don't need this review. If you only want to get a little taste, read "Miss Lonelyhearts" first, "Day of the Locust" second, and check these out later if you're still in the mood for more.
March 19, 2017
این از اون کتابهاست که اگه از یکی داستانش رو بپرسی احتمالاً خیلی هیجانزده نمیشی واسه خوندنش. داستان یه پسر دهاتی که به امید رویای آمریکایی میره "سرزمین فرصتها" که زندگیش رو بسازه ولی همینطور تو فلاکت فرو میره. تم خیلی تکراریه و سبک هجونامه هم دیگه از مد افتاده. ولی کتابه بیشتر از اینهاست. داستانش خوب و پرکششه، بعضی جاها واقعاً خندهداره و ترجمه رضا علیزاده هم خیلی خوب طنز ماجرا رو منتقل میکنه. یه بخشهایی از کتاب هم توصیفهای خیلی درخشانی داره که دیدنش تو همچین سبک داستانی عجیبه.
۲۰۰ صفحه تو قطع پالویی، تمرکز چندانی هم نمیطلبه، خیلی مناسبه که با خودت ببری اینور و اونور و خرد خرد بخونیش.
۲۰۰ صفحه تو قطع پالویی، تمرکز چندانی هم نمیطلبه، خیلی مناسبه که با خودت ببری اینور و اونور و خرد خرد بخونیش.
July 11, 2021
Nearly unreadable ugly and vicious proto-satire (i.e., smug mockery with no subtext of authentic anger at the highlighted injustices - a contemporary example would be South Park). Because the satire is inoperative, the abundant violence, racism, and misogyny/rape come across as celebrated. I would recommend skipping it and reading Miss Lonelyhearts and/or The Day of the Locust instead.
September 30, 2016
Oh my god Nathanael West what are you doing to me ughhh
June 1, 2023
Angry brutality meets satirical humor.
September 7, 2019
فکر می کردم آخرش خوب تموم می شه. اما خیلی خیلی خیلی خیلی از چیزی که انتظار داشتم تلخ تر تموم شد...
May 5, 2022
A farcical tragedy (does that make it satire) about 1930s America where a young man is taken apart piece by piece by several different factions. West puts a lot into here and sometimes his personal ideologies are rather obscured but there is tons of xenophobia, Jewish banking conspiracies, anti-communism and classical American racism. The ending itself is ambiguous either presenting a nightmare or a dream come true depending on your interpretation and feeling of how strong the satire. Not for the easily triggered, but it's not great either.
July 11, 2018
This is an uncomfortable book to read. First things first: there are only two women in the story, Lem’s mother, and his girlfriend. His mother goes missing at the beginning of the book, and his girlfriend gets raped over and over throughout the story. Not explicitly, of course, but wow. Is that really all the author can think to do with a female character? The second uncomfortable thing is the oh-my-God racist caricatures. Every racial stereotype is in this book, and I can’t tell if they’re being used as satire or if this is the only way the author knows people who are not white. If these caricatures are supposed to be funny, the joke flew right over me.
Lemuel Pitkin’s mother is in danger. She needs money to pay off her mortgage or the creditor will foreclose and sell her house to a museum. Lem takes it upon himself to go out into the world and make his fortune because, as his elder Mr. Whipple says it, in America it is impossible not to succeed! All one has to do is work hard and be honest, and anyone will get rich!
But when Lem gets out into the world, he is cheated and led astray at every turn. Every rich person in this book is a crook trying to screw over the poor, and every poor person is also a crook trying to screw over other poor people. Lem’s reward for doing good deeds is to lose a body part. First his teeth, then his eye, then everything else.
The entire book is written like a lofty epic. Lem Pitkin may as well be Beowulf for all the overblown dialogue in this book. Lem tries to be a good person, but he finds nothing but crooks and cheaters, and a government working to protect them.
I’m all for lampooning that, but the racial stereotypes hold the book back from being a truly great satire. I think the book is mocking racism and the people who blame foreigners and blacks and Jews for all of America’s problems, but it’s hard to tell because they are so distracting. Ditto for Lem’s girlfriend being raped and then sold to a whorehouse, where she is raped again and again until she escapes, only to be a victim of rape and kidnapped yet again. What’s that supposed to satirize? Perhaps it’s supposed to mock how this great nation of hard-working, honest men and women chews them up and spits them out, but did the author really have to do it this way?
I suppose it could be argued that white Americans are portrayed just as horribly as racist criminals preying on anyone weaker than themselves, but it doesn’t exactly feel balanced.
One laugh-out-loud moment is a speech Mr. Whipple makes to a group of Southerners, playing on their love for their country and their fears of losing their freedom. When he tells them all their problems are caused by foreigners, he leads them to lynch his employer, and “the crowd ran off in all directions, shouting 'Lynch him. Lynch him' although a good three-quarters of its members did not know whom it was they were supposed to lynch. This fact did not bother them, however. They considered their lack of knowledge an advantage rather than a hindrance, for it gave them a great deal of leeway in their choice of a victim.”
It has been a century since those words were written, and America is no different. It is full of crooks, and only the biggest crooks get rich. The honest people get ripped apart by life. Piece by piece.
Lemuel Pitkin’s mother is in danger. She needs money to pay off her mortgage or the creditor will foreclose and sell her house to a museum. Lem takes it upon himself to go out into the world and make his fortune because, as his elder Mr. Whipple says it, in America it is impossible not to succeed! All one has to do is work hard and be honest, and anyone will get rich!
But when Lem gets out into the world, he is cheated and led astray at every turn. Every rich person in this book is a crook trying to screw over the poor, and every poor person is also a crook trying to screw over other poor people. Lem’s reward for doing good deeds is to lose a body part. First his teeth, then his eye, then everything else.
The entire book is written like a lofty epic. Lem Pitkin may as well be Beowulf for all the overblown dialogue in this book. Lem tries to be a good person, but he finds nothing but crooks and cheaters, and a government working to protect them.
I’m all for lampooning that, but the racial stereotypes hold the book back from being a truly great satire. I think the book is mocking racism and the people who blame foreigners and blacks and Jews for all of America’s problems, but it’s hard to tell because they are so distracting. Ditto for Lem’s girlfriend being raped and then sold to a whorehouse, where she is raped again and again until she escapes, only to be a victim of rape and kidnapped yet again. What’s that supposed to satirize? Perhaps it’s supposed to mock how this great nation of hard-working, honest men and women chews them up and spits them out, but did the author really have to do it this way?
I suppose it could be argued that white Americans are portrayed just as horribly as racist criminals preying on anyone weaker than themselves, but it doesn’t exactly feel balanced.
One laugh-out-loud moment is a speech Mr. Whipple makes to a group of Southerners, playing on their love for their country and their fears of losing their freedom. When he tells them all their problems are caused by foreigners, he leads them to lynch his employer, and “the crowd ran off in all directions, shouting 'Lynch him. Lynch him' although a good three-quarters of its members did not know whom it was they were supposed to lynch. This fact did not bother them, however. They considered their lack of knowledge an advantage rather than a hindrance, for it gave them a great deal of leeway in their choice of a victim.”
It has been a century since those words were written, and America is no different. It is full of crooks, and only the biggest crooks get rich. The honest people get ripped apart by life. Piece by piece.
February 5, 2017
West's update of Candide, with the protagonist a poor Vermont boy who suffers numerous bodily indignities (loss of teeth, eye, etc.) during the depression. Recently mentioned in the New York Times Book Review as a novel relevant today for its portrayal of Shagpoke Whipple, an ex-President who becomes a fascist leader. I didn't find it terribly "relevant," but the novel wasn't a waste of my time.
Although the novel is short, I would not recommend it for those who have not read Nathanael West before. I would recommend reading Miss Lonelyhearts and the Day of the Locust (conveniently published together in one edition), both short and better novels in order to get your fill of West.
Although the novel is short, I would not recommend it for those who have not read Nathanael West before. I would recommend reading Miss Lonelyhearts and the Day of the Locust (conveniently published together in one edition), both short and better novels in order to get your fill of West.
September 1, 2013
A Cool Million tells the story-- in mock heroic style-- of a young man who goes out into the world, armed only with his industriousness and optimism, to claim his piece of the American Dream. Within the first few pages, he and his love interest are, variously, beaten, raped, imprisoned, sold into slavery, mugged, swindled, and maimed. To call it a savage satire is an understatement, then, and its humor is so pitch black that reading it is sometimes painful. It makes its point boldly and persuasively, though. I've read the novel twice now and can appreciate its grotesque appeal.
December 17, 2017
What to make of A Cool Million? It has plenty of passages of very funny, cutting satire, many sadly still relevant. But it also includes many moments that left me wondering, "Is West satirizing racism, or is he just being super racist?" And, really, the fact that I had to ask that question is a problem. Add in some blatant non-satirical anti-Semitism and the use of rape as a running gag, and all that great satire is pretty thoroughly undercut.
September 9, 2018
The Horatio Alger narratives receive the thorough pissing-on that they deserve. The myths we tell ourselves have a nasty habit of enduring - proven by the fact that huge chunks of this novel are just as timely today: many will find the finale uncomfortably close to where we find ourselves in 2018. An incredibly vicious satire - depressing that West only wrote four novels before his untimely death, he's maybe the greatest literary what-if I've ever encountered.
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