The dismantling of the American Dream

Nathanael WestAfter reading Nathanael West’s A Cool Million, I think that the only way to really describe my reaction is unsettled. I’m disturbed, bewildered, and at the same time a little bit in awe. The book was definitely unlike anything we’ve read so far. It was satire, and it was blunt, and unemotional, but not in the strong way that the novels like Boxcar Bertha or Waiting for Nothing were. It was tragic and yet did not inspire empathy but just disgust. It reminded me a little bit of Vonnegut, and the way he tells outlandish tales as if they were reality, in a dry and satirical manner. Reading through the various incidents, I felt like I was reading a book of fairytale nightmares, tales gone wrong and taken on a dark and twisted route. There is the boy who must give up his mother's cow (à la Jack and the Beanstalk), the beautiful girl who is orphaned and must live with an ugly evil stepmother and evil stepsisters in her foster home (Cinderella) and this is just in the first few pages.
As the book continues, the protagonist finds his fairy godmother, or in this case an ex American President who appears at strategic moments to offer pep talks and spout American ideals and myths of success. The otherworldly realm of the book becomes more and more exaggerated as the painfully naïve and innocent protagonist becomes dismantled piece by piece, sequentially losing parts of his body which get closer and closer to his core. It begins with the pulling of his teeth, a protruding portion of his body, somehow still external and replaceable. Next is the loss of his eye, still an outer component which can be replicated and faked. After this the dismemberment comes to the level of flesh and he loses his thumb, then an even more significant body part, a limb, his leg. Next we move to the realm of his mind and intellect, and his scalp is removed. Finally he is struck to the core with a shot to the heart ending his life.
Throughout his slow disassemblement, which incredibly is only a small portion of the ills that befall him, he continues to pursue his ‘American dream’ to make a fortune, finding the fortune that comes out of each piece of bad luck—the loss of his eye gets him his first job (which then turns out to be a scheme which lands him unknowingly guilty in jail), the missing eye and fake teeth revolt a would-be customer when he finds himself enslaved in a house of prostitution, and his eventual freak status sans teeth, eye, leg and scalp score him a spot in an entertainment act, on the stage of which he is ultimately shot. His death brings the ultimate luck of making him a martyr, saving his mother, his childhood friend, and his wise protector and advisor. This reminded me of the level of optimism that Ilf and Petrov wrote about Americans possessing and found to be so irritable in their piece on the great American road trip.
While all of this is clearly part of a political satire and in no way intended to be a fathomable story, the frank manner in which it is all recounted, and the level of injustice which is done to this horrendously clueless man is nevertheless disturbing to digest. I think the most frustrating part about the whole thing is not the number of unjust incidents that befall young Pitkin, but the fact that throughout it all he never really wisens up, never stops trusting, and never takes a stand for himself.