A Not-so-cool Book

I hated A Cool Million. Absolutely hated it – I had to force myself to finish the last few painful chapters. But I didn’t hate it because I thought it was too depressing, or too negative; I’m perfectly capable of understanding and appreciating the art of satire and hyperbole. The problem I had with Nathanael West’s book is that it was just bad writing. Really bad writing.

For starters, its way too long and painfully redundant – though maybe that was on purpose, I’ll give him that. But beyond that, the hyperbole is so extreme and over-the-top that it made the book uninteresting. I didn’t care what happened to anyone – in fact, I was hoping Lem would die soon so I could put down the awful book already. It isn’t very funny, except for a handful of moments where I cracked a begrudging smile (it was more of a twitch at the corner of my mouth, really). Worst of all, it isn’t even original – West apparently lifted several passages directly from the pages of a few Horatio Alger novels (see these citations, one by Rachel Rubenstein and one from Wikipedia. I was unfortunately unable to access the articles cited). This fact is fairly widely acknowledged, making me wonder: since when is blatant plagiarism cause for literary praise? Sure, West’s ideas are great – I enjoy seeing The American Dream satirically ripped to shreds as much as the next cynical second-generation immigrant – but if he can’t even express them without heavily “borrowing” from one of his favorite authors, doesn’t that make him somewhat of a hack?

I also was not all too impressed with West’s treatment of female characters, nor of his overzealously stereotypical portrayal of racial and ethnic minorities. Far too much racism is passed as acceptable under the guise of “satire”: but if you’re simply repeating, with exuberance, racist tropes that we all already know and have heard over and over ad nauseum, then what clever point are you really making? At what point does enthusiastic ethnically-based slander stop being “satirical” or “funny” and be recognized as no more than your common, everyday racism? Maybe it’s a thin line to walk, but I’ve seen it done much more successfully, and I think West crossed it (and I’m sure it doesn’t need to be pointed out that West’s Jewish ancestry does not exempt him from being racist). And what point, exactly, is West trying to make by having Betty be repeatedly raped (and with an alarming nonchalance)? Sure, Lem is repeatedly injured and grotesquely disfigured, but for some reason West didn’t see fit to have Lem be raped repeatedly. Is the point, perhaps, that Lem’s disfigurements as a man are equivalent to Betty’s “disfigurements” as a woman – in other words, being raped as a woman is akin to losing various limbs and having your eye gouged out as a man? Or maybe that the worst possible misfortune West could conceive of for a woman is to be raped over and over (I’m sure rape survivors would really appreciate that). Or maybe it’s just a lack of imagination. I’m not quite sure what West was attempting to say here. But hey, if he couldn’t quite pull off satire, at least he succeeded quite well in pulling off misogyny.

I’ve heard A Cool Million be compared to Candide, and apparently West inspired later authors like Vladimir Nabokov (someone whose work I appreciate - I'm talking Pale Fire, though, not Lolita). But, legendary writer or no, I was not at all impressed. Maybe I would like some of West’s other works better, but after reading A Cool Million, I’m not all that enthused to give him another chance.

Examples of much better works of satire:

Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Aldous Huxley: Brave New World Joseph Heller: Catch-22