Books Free Download A Cool Million
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| Title | : | A Cool Million |
| Author | : | Nathanael West |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 142 pages |
| Published | : | June 1961 by Berkley Publishing Corporation (first published 1934) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. Novels. Literature. American. Humor |
Nathanael West
Paperback | Pages: 142 pages Rating: 3.67 | 617 Users | 87 Reviews
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In this book, Nathanael West, a great American satirist, nearly laughs the Horatio Alger myth to death. Like many an Alger, Lemuel Pitkin leaves his home on the farm to seek his fortune in the Big City. By the time he is through, he has been robbed, bilked, thrown in jail, has lost his teeth, his eye, a leg, his scalp, and has witnessed a remarkable number of rapes and political riots. Others in the cast: an ex-president of the United States (just released from jail); Lem's childhood sweetheart (now working in a Mott Street bordello); an oil-rich Indian; a Western desperado; and assorted agents and thugs of the Communists, Fascists and International Bankers. Through the story of Lemuel Pitkin, the four-square, All-American hero, and his sad fate at the hands of rabble-rousers and charlatans, West etched a classic parable of America in the chaotic Thirties.Be Specific About Books Supposing A Cool Million
| Original Title: | A Cool Million |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating Regarding Books A Cool Million
Ratings: 3.67 From 617 Users | 87 ReviewsComment On Regarding Books A Cool Million
He didnt pull any punches on this oneWhat to make of A Cool Million? It has plenty of passages of very funny, cutting satire, many sadly still relevant. But it also includes many moments that left me wondering, "Is West satirizing racism, or is he just being super racist?" And, really, the fact that I had to ask that question is a problem. Add in some blatant non-satirical anti-Semitism and the use of rape as a running gag, and all that great satire is pretty thoroughly undercut.
I really like Nathanael West. He really is quite a bitter satirist, and a grim one at that. This book is quite grim, where almost nothing good ever happens. Very bleak... in a good way.
Nathanael West may be America's bitterest novelist, and A Cool Million, or the Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin (1934),written in the worst years of The Great Depression, is by far his bitterest work. West loathed the cowardly illusions we call dreams--the utopian dream, the redemption-through-art dream, the redemption-through-compassion dream, the salvation dream, the romantic love dreamand foremost among the dreams he loathed was The American Dream": the abiding fiction that America is the land of
This tragicomedy debunks the Horatio Alger Jr. myths of the American Dream during the 1930's depression. This is an unknown gem.
My Bucket List:Drink a full-calorie sodaModel a spring lineUse phrase 'like a sniper at an idiot cull' more oftenRealize that practical concerns can sometime intrudeWrite an Oscar acceptance speechGenerate a color other than under house arrest via my mood ringShare fact 'William Shakespeare died on his birthday' to strangers
The Horatio Alger narratives receive the thorough pissing-on that they deserve. The myths we tell ourselves have a nasty habit of enduring - proven by the fact that huge chunks of this novel are just as timely today: many will find the finale uncomfortably close to where we find ourselves in 2018. An incredibly vicious satire - depressing that West only wrote four novels before his untimely death, he's maybe the greatest literary what-if I've ever encountered.
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