nathaneal west is fucking brilliant
i re-read Miss Lonelyhearts and Day of the Locust yesterday.. oh wow. i'd almost forgotten how powerful they are (especially considering that one's just shy of 60 pages and the other's just over a 100); they're short but they'll knock a hole in your chest that takes days to heal. i want to share a few quotes (can't help it--HAVE to), but should probably give some context about each first: a) Miss Lonelyhearts--a newspaper columnist with a Christ complex struggles with humanity and morality and has to learn how to help his readers...and ultimately himself; b) Day of the Locust--(this one's kind of hard to describe, so i'll just try a string of adjectives) debauchery, loneliness, heartache, the disappearance of morality. anyway, here goes:
"What a kind bitch you are. As soon as any one acts viciously, you say he's sick. Wife-torturers, rapers of small children, according to you they're all sick. No morality, only medicine. Well, I'm not sick. I don't need any of your damned aspirin. I've got a Christ complex. Humanity...I'm a humanity lover. All the broken bastards..."
"He said that he was too tired to dance. After doing a few obscene steps in front of him, she sat down in his lap. He tried to fend her off, but she kept pressing her open mouth against his and when he turned away, she nuzzled his cheek. He felt like an empty bottle that is being slowly filled with warm, dirty water. When she opened the neck of her dress and tried to force his head between her breasts, he parted his knees with a quick jerk that slipped her to the floor. She tried to pull him down on top of her. He struck out blindly and hit her in the face. She screamed and he hit her again and again. He kept hitting her until she stopped trying to hold him, then he ran out of the house."
"He was carried through the exit to the back street and lifted into a police car. The siren began to scream and at first he thought he was making the noise himself. He felt his lips with his hands. They were clamped tight. He knew then it was the siren. For some reason this made him laugh and he began to imitate the siren as loud as he could."
(the first two are from Lonelyhearts; the third is from Locust)
"What a kind bitch you are. As soon as any one acts viciously, you say he's sick. Wife-torturers, rapers of small children, according to you they're all sick. No morality, only medicine. Well, I'm not sick. I don't need any of your damned aspirin. I've got a Christ complex. Humanity...I'm a humanity lover. All the broken bastards..."
"He said that he was too tired to dance. After doing a few obscene steps in front of him, she sat down in his lap. He tried to fend her off, but she kept pressing her open mouth against his and when he turned away, she nuzzled his cheek. He felt like an empty bottle that is being slowly filled with warm, dirty water. When she opened the neck of her dress and tried to force his head between her breasts, he parted his knees with a quick jerk that slipped her to the floor. She tried to pull him down on top of her. He struck out blindly and hit her in the face. She screamed and he hit her again and again. He kept hitting her until she stopped trying to hold him, then he ran out of the house."
"He was carried through the exit to the back street and lifted into a police car. The siren began to scream and at first he thought he was making the noise himself. He felt his lips with his hands. They were clamped tight. He knew then it was the siren. For some reason this made him laugh and he began to imitate the siren as loud as he could."
(the first two are from Lonelyhearts; the third is from Locust)