You know what happens when you assume

Nathanael West today: dead like everyone else

Nathanael West's A Cool Million is not merely a Horatio Alger parody, but actually depicts the hapless protagonist, Lemuel Pitkin, as believing he is living a Horatio Alger story. It's a disturbing bit of social commentary—and also a bit pomo—in that Lem's wide-eyed, naïve understanding of how the world works is constructed out of such stories. The satire lies in the contrast of Lem's expectations—that of the nice mythic rags-to-riches tale that he thinks he's living—and reality, which West depicts as Hobbesian, insanely cruel and brutal, and especially exploitative of those who hold these kinds of rose-tinted beliefs. Lem blunders into becoming largely dismembered, murdered, and ultimately a posterchild for American fascism.

West gives us an important lesson, even if he does beat us over our heads with it in the process: your life isn't a story until it's over. Expectations of “what should happen” almost never pan out, and you usually don't get to choose what your own life story's about, in part because it's bigger than you, and also because whoever survives you can make that decision in your absence. West does a fairly good job of writing a story about how stories are deceptive, and he's largely able to do this through sheer force of blunt satire: it's very difficult to compose a nuanced and satisfying story about life being essentially devoid of reason or meaning, because the brutality and mindlessness in such stories has a strong tendency to undercut any degree of satisfaction. Still, a number of people have made excellent efforts in recent years; I would recommend David Mazzucchelli's comic Asterios Polyp or any of the most recent Coen bros. films.