“Miss Lonelyhearts” Discussion
Dear Miss Lonelyhearts,
I am writing to you for my little sister Gracie because something awfull hapened to her…. Gracie is deaf and dumb and biger than me but not very smart on account of being deaf and dumb…. Mother makes her play on the roof because we dont want her to get run over as she aint very smart. Last week a man came on the roof and did something dirty to her…. I am afraid to tell mother on account of her being lible to beat Gracie up. I am afraid that Gracie is going to have a baby…. If I tell mother she will beat Gracie up awfull…when she tore her dress they locked her in the closet for 2 days…. So please what would you do if the same happened in your family.
SPOILER ALERT
Do not read this discussion if you have never read Nathanael West’s novel Miss Loneyhearts but plan on reading said book in the future. We give everything away in this conversation, especially the ending.
Alright - I guess I’ll go first.
This was a… challenging read. I was reminded quite a bit of the first time I had to work my way through “To Kill A Mockingbird” - I think I have a grasp on what West is trying to convey about the state of the human condition, but I’m finding it awfully difficult to not be happy, perhaps relieved, when the main character is killed at the end, much in the same way I was relieved when they put that dog out of its misery in “Mockingbird”.
The letters were interesting, but the main narrative left my head spinning a bit. I didn’t think it was possible to squeeze this many metaphors and similes into one small book. Personally, I felt like that distracted me too much from the narrative to really sink my teeth into it. I tend to think fairly visually when I’m reading - translating the prose into my own personal movie - but the book painted such a chaotic tapestry of images that it was as if I was trying to work my way through a hall of Dali paintings presented in literary form.
So… there’s my initial thoughts, having just finished the book a few minutes ago. I’ll let it percolate in my head a bit and come back with something deeper later.
Interesting, Julie, because West was very much inspired by painting and painters in his works. Tod Hackett, the protagonist in Day of the Locust is a painter.
That chaotic tapestry of images that you wonderfully cite was deliberate and one of the stylistic reasons that I love the book.
From the New York Review of Books (backing up Julie’s point):
West is like a decorator with a pad — chintz here, solid color there; no, perhaps a bit of tweed.
I found it engaging and the whole thing interestingly creepy… the main character made the back of my neck crawl like I don’t even know what.
Hard to feel much about the sumbitch dying, though, and it was a bit telegraphed.
I liked the ’sitting in bed eating crackers’ bits.
Did you notice the Stations of the Cross symbolism, David? It wasn’t so much that West telegraphed Lonelyhearts’ death, he was on a path that leads to crucifixion and martyrdom.
I’m going to re-read it this weekend. I may appreciate it a bit more on a re-reading.
I think I missed it because it was hard for me to see Miss Lonelyhearts as a martyr. He was just such an unlikable person. I think the only character in the book I found remotely sympathetic was Doyle. Stylistically speaking, the book does some interesting things with language, but the characters left me more than a little cold. (Which is why I found Sandy’s comment that she actually liked the book so far so strange and ironic.)
Indeed do re-read it, David. It gets better with each pass. Trust me: I’m not one to re-read books but I come back to Lonelyhearts once a year.
As noted above, there is much packed into this slim, slim volume. More than its bits - metaphors, similes - the ideas contained in it were the ultimate pleasures for me.
At first I liked it on a story level - hooked by the ‘plot’ and its elements from my own life in my early twenties: Young idealistic guy gets a job that throws the sadness and confusion of the world at him. He realizes he can’t help all those who need him, and his disillusionment leads him to a crisis of faith which in turn leads him to make an endless round of bad choices. My first job out of college was in “Personnel” in City Hall San Francisco, believing at first that I could “help people” find the right job for them. I too lost myself in self-doubt and hedonism.
But there is so much more here, so many angles from which to examine it that the rest became a fascination of discovery to the end. The true end. For me, that was the redemption - “he was running to succor them with love” - and not his death (though chronologically it’s the opposite).
Describe it as a chaotic tapestry if you will - to me, it was like a ride on a Byronic horse in ‘Mazeppa.’ A harrowing, but ultimately grand ride in which a life is lost and gained.
The title is Miss Lonelyhearts. It is a biography. It is a specific type of biography: a gospel. Several gospels, actually, just like the New Testament. That was finally spelled out clearly in the chapter Miss Lonelyhearts Attends a Party. At the end, Shrike gives an account of Miss Lonelyhearts’ life and even says, it’s the gospel according to Shrike. Other gospels include The Gospel of the Rock (rather gnostic), and the Gospel of the Party Dress. There might be more - I only finished it a few moments ago.
Brilliant construction! And within, endless fodder for pondering.
To say I loved this book is an understatement. Thanks, Rodger!
Going away for the day; will take this book with me literally and figuratively.
Shrike refers to Christ as “the Miss Lonelyhearts of Miss Loneyhearts”, further:
“I am a great saint,” Shrike cried, “I can walk on my own water. Haven’t you ever heard of Shrike’s Passion in the Luncheonette, or the Agony in the Soda Fountain? Then I compared the wounds in Christ’s body to the months of a miraculous purse in which we deposit the small change of our sins. It is indeed an excellent conceit. But now let us consider the holes in our own bodies and into what these congenital wounds open. Under the skin of man is a wondrous jungle where veins like lush tropical growths hang along over-ripe organs and weed-like entrails writhe in squirming tangles of red and yellow. In this jungle, flitting from rock-grey lungs to golden intestines, from liver to lights and back to liver again lives a bird called the soul. The Catholic hunts this bird with bread and wine, the Hebrew with a golden ruler, the Protestant on leaden feet with leaden words, the Buddhist with gestures, the Negro with blood. I spit on them all. Phooh! And I call upon you to spit. Phooh! Do you stuff birds? No, my dears taxidermy is not religion. No! A thousand times no. Better I say unto you, better a live bird in the jungle of the body than two stuffed birds on the library table.”
(From Shrike’s Passion in the Luncheonette, another gospel)
I liken Shrike to a very cynical John the Baptist, spreading the news of The Saviour while simulatenously mocking and debunking him.
I like that, Shrike as the Baptist.
Shrike himself, is not a fully realized character, to me. That’s not a flaw. He exists for a particular purpose and fulfills it. He’s certainly a crucial character, but other characters who appear less frequently seem drawn more completely. He exists mainly as contrast to Miss L. We don’t care about him, the way we care about the Doyles or Betty or even Mary. We can only think about him for his effect upon Miss L, for what he tells us about Miss L, whether true or not. Perhaps he is what Miss L could become (though that would negate Shrike as the Baptist which I’d rather not do).
It’s interesting how Shrike is omnipresent in Miss L’s consciousnes: I believe he appears in every chapter, in Miss L’s thoughts if not physically. The one exception is the last chapter. When God finally becomes a character, there is not a peep about or out of, Shrike.
This book is so essentially Christian that I wonder why you like it so much, Rodger.
And also, what you and Julie and David and anyone else who read it, make of the ending. I mentioned my interpretation in another message, but I realize others could see it differently.
When God finally becomes a character, there is not a peep about or out of, Shrike.
And Christ said on the cross:”Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
That, I think, is why Shrike vanishes, which means that Shrike is not John the Baptist but perhaps more representational of … God. Or, like the disciples of Christ, he is unable to do anything about Miss Lonelyhearts’ fate.
Food for thought. I’ll jump back on this thread later tonight. Got a long mov ie to watch.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m being too sensitive… but the book really felt like West was trying to comment on Christianity without really understanding it. I could be wrong about that, but there was something about the feel of the book that came off as shallow. The characters felt more like caricatures spouting speeches (like the one of above) that sound interesting and sophisticated, but seem to lack context. I mean… Miss Lonelyhearts doesn’t strike me as being a Christian, as much as he is a completely looney sociopath with a Christ complex who exists in some sort of literary vaccum, and everyone in this book seems to be completely barking mad in some way or another. The book struck me more as something akin to “Alice in Wonderland” but with religion instead of mathematics.
This book is so essentially Christian that I wonder why you like it so much, Rodger.
West liked to deconstruct literary conventions and the Gospel is a literary convention, a man made conceit, if you will.
The book struck me more as something akin to “Alice in Wonderland” but with religion instead of mathematics.
Astute. And there’s something wrong with that, Julie? You may have just paid West a high compliment.
Rodger - I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with it per se. Just a different take on the book.
There is something a bit over-stylized about the writing that could make the characters seem less than believable. It reminds me of certain films of the 30’s. Something with Bette Davis and Paul Henreid blowing smoke from cigarettes at each other, saying “Oh dahling, I love you dahling,” puff puff. “And I, you, dahling,” long puff.
Still, I find the humanity of the characters comes through the style, intact and real
Also, I agree that Shrike’s monologues and maybe some other parts were like speeches being spouted, but I didn’t find that off-putting. It reminds me of the intense intellectual discussions we all had in college and in our twenties. They’re fitting here. There is something young about this book, written by a young (ish?) man about a young man looking at the world.
We are seeing through the eyes of a young man-in-crisis. Far from being a “looney sociopath with a Christ complex,” Miss L. is a tragic figure who makes the young man’s mistake of trying to take the pain of the world upon his own shoulders. Christ-like, sure, but the idealistic young always try to save the world.
The book begins with that premise and the action comes as he falls apart in a variety of ways because of course, he can’t hold up the world. Shrike, for all his cynicism, is right about that.
I find that much of today’s anti-Christian sentiment in intellectual secular writing is guilty of “not understanding Christianity.” I don’t agree that West is guilty of that. I think his depiction of a character’s path to ‘getting religion.’ is dead on accurate: Growing up in a church that emphasized the letter of the law rather than the spirit. Growing older and questioning the Church’s symbols and practices and ultimately the very founding principles. Outright rejecting the Church. And then, little by little, returning to it with a more mature understanding.
The last part of the process wasn’t documented as it would be if Miss L. had been allowed to live to a ripe old age. But West demonstrates his thorough grasp of Christianity by the condensing it all in the fever dream. And he doesn’t leave out what Christian apologists often do: the mystical, mysterious, miraculous grace of God. THAT’s why I think the end is a great triumph, even in Christian terms!
Some Christians today are almost ashamed of that side of their religion and emphasize to their non-religious friends a more palatable version of the faith. The 30’s were intensely intellectual years and West didn’t take the easy way out at the end.
You could argue that the end is a tragedy. You could argue that it is the farcical view of Christ’s life on earth and his death. And you’d be right on both counts because that’s exactly what Christ’s life as a man was. Just like our own lives and deaths are tragedy and comedy, both.
The letters to Miss Lonelyhearts that are excerpted at the beginning of the book — startlingly frank for 1930s literature — set the tone and the philosophy: the human condition is one that is so fucked up beyond repair (and always has been)that the notion that anyone can save this is laughable. Literally.
The human condition is also such that we must try - via religion, art, back-to-the-country organic living, whatever - even if we die in the attempt.
The slapstick death of Lonelyhearts is the logical ending for anyone or anything that tries. But what is the alternative - a living death, like Shrike’s?
This book is relevant today - I’m amazed at how people look to Obama as a savior of this country. But why not? Why the hell not?
The slapstick death of Lonelyhearts is the logical ending for anyone or anything that tries
So trying to make a difference, to provide a source of salvation and faith for others,is ultimately an act of futility and delusion. Jesus Christ, Joan of Arc, Mahatma Ghandi, JFK, RFK, MLK, Miss Lonelyhearts.
“C’mon,” West seems to be saying, “you had to know this was going to happen”, hence David’s comment about West “telegraphing” the climax.
Miss L lacks the foreknowledge that Jesus Christ acquired, that his days on earth were numbered if he chose to continue his path. (The Last Temptation of Christ demonstrates this surrender very well)
“But I don’t want to go among mad people!”
“Oh, you can’t help that… we’re all mad here…”
Yes …
BTW, no one has addressed the clumsy and aggressive sexuality of Miss Lonelyhearts (the character)or the incident with the lamb
Everything in this novel is cohesive, so Miss Lonelyhearts’ sexuality just fits into the bigger picture about him. He fails at everything. He can’t drink without passing out and/or getting ill. He can’t write worth beans. He can’t tell the truth. He can’t help people as he wants to do. He can’t hold his own in an intellectual discussion with his boss. As for the symbols of Christianity, like the lamb and the cross - he mishandles and misunderstands them too.
All the Christian trappings in this novel are viewed askew, appropriately so. West (who I think is a Jew?) understands Christianity so well that he can twist it (in the same way a master writer can manipulate grammar).
A question for Rodger: You’ve re-read this book periodically, over many years. What changes of perception have you had toward it, if any?
He fails at everything.
Indeed. The character of Miss Lonelyhearts would have been comfortable in West’s The Day of the Locust.
What changes of perception have you had toward it, if any?
I’m going to re-read it next week when I get some of my books out of storage in L.A. I’ll let you know.
no one has addressed the clumsy and aggressive sexuality of Miss Lonelyhearts (the character)or the incident with the lamb
I filed them under “looney sociopath”.
He’s the opposite of a sociopath, Julie. He’s a simple and perplexed man upon whom a great responsibility has been hoisted. He is, in essence, a failed Messiah. There are, seriously, lines of comparison between Monty Python’s Life of Brian and West’s Miss Lonelyhearts.
Actually, I could see a lot of similarities between Life of Brian and Miss Lonelyhearts.
Ok, sociopath might be a bit harsh, but the man does come across as quite detached from anything I’d call reality and completely inept at interacting with his fellow humans. (Although, that said, most of the humans surrounding him seem completely inept at normal human interaction as well.)
the man does come across as quite detached from anything I’d call reality and completely inept at interacting with his fellow humans
You know, now that I think about it, Julie, there are vast similarities between Miss Lonelyhearts and my Hal character in the Hal’s Incidents tales.
Hmmmmmmmm. A little West-ian influence there, I suspect.
I suddenly got a hankering to look up ’shrike’ in the dictionary, realizing it was too good a name to not mean something. Perfect: a sharp billed little bird that impales insects and worries them to death with its beak!
The idea you (Rodger) put forth of Shrike being a jealous John the Baptist immediately appealed to me when you said it. And at some point over the last couple of days, I’ve decided he takes on just about all the roles in the New Testament as foil to Miss Lonelyhearts’ Christ, all except God. Of that he is incapable.
Both characters are failures, but Miss Lonelyhearts trumps Shriker in the end because he tries. The lack of successful results is not important here. It’s the attempt to evolve that makes Miss Lonelyhearts a more fully realized human being than Shrike is.
Yes, Sandy, we sort of touched on that earlier with the concept of the false Messiah and the idea that Miss Lonelyhearts at least tries to do something for the good of humanity … futile as the gesture may be, and this is where West’s meaning gets so nihilistic to the point that it’s hard to bear.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Shrike stands in for John the Baptist, the disciples of Christ, and even, to a degree, Pontius Pilate, ultimately washing his hands of the whole affair.