A Cool Novel

A Cool Novel

A Cool Million has got to be the most fantastical novel I’ve read so far this term. Even though our protagonist has lost all his teeth, the satire of the novel is nothing less than biting-- in fact, Nathaniel West administers a deliberate chomp to Horatio Alger’s American dream, taking some limbs and eyeballs with it.

Lem’s adventure reminded me first and foremost of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, another story of a man on a journey, and another satire on journeys and the many things that can go wrong. But Vonnegut’s story wasn’t set in the depression. The actual depression rears its head every once and a while in the story, but never causes too much alarm, as it is hardly a direct problem with Lem. He started with nothing and ended with nothing. West argues that the only money to be had in America is just that—it’s all money to be had, be it through connections or sheer luck. The men praised by Shagpoke, like Henry Ford, are so sparse that he can only ever speak of two of them. If everyone in America could make it in America, it seems they would and there would be more stories to tell to either warn or inspire Lem.

Lem’s grotesque mutilations are personifications of the toll America takes on the highway of life, if you choose to ride it. Staying at home, Lem could have discarded his entire body, like his mother, and died. Instead, he was willing to sacrifice certain parts in order to survive. In his last job as a performer in a comedy show, his mutilations are the only thing that got him paid. The satire here is obvious, so obvious that the book is finished before you can say depression. I can’t wait to give it another read!