Nathanael West

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Nathanael West (born October 17, 1903 in New York City , † December 22, 1940 in El Centro , California ; actually Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein ) was an American writer . He published only four novels or short novels during his lifetime, which were quite unsuccessful. It was not until the 1950s that they received critical acclaim and became known to a wider public. Today he is considered one of the classics of modern American literature and one of the pioneers of postmodernism .

Life

Early years

Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein was born in New York in 1903. His parents were German-speaking Jews from Lithuania , which was then dominated by Russian, who had emigrated to America around 1890. His father Max Weinstein had built a flourishing construction and real estate company within a short time and made it to some degree of prosperity, and so West and his sisters Laura and Hinda had a sheltered childhood. In the upbringing of Nathan and his sisters Hinda and Laura, the Weinsteins attached great importance to schooling, but hardly to religion; so Nathan was ritually circumcised, but never became a bar mitzvah . Because they had been exposed to anti-Semitism and marginalization in tsarist Russia , they dreamed of their children being fully integrated into American society. In the spirit of this desired assimilation , they sent their three children to public schools in Manhattan and got the young Nathan Weinstein enthusiastic about baseball . He spent most of the summers of his youth at Camp Paradox , a summer camp for children of wealthy parents in the Adirondacks . Nevertheless, the Weinstein saw in America as part of the educated middle class and gave her son the European classics like William Shakespeare , Charles Dickens , Henry James , Thomas Hardy , Gustave Flaubert , Chekhov and Fyodor Dostoyevsky to read, was of some of these authors, he still influenced as an adult writer.

His parents were all the more disappointed that Nathan turned into a remarkably poor student and notorious truant. From 1917 he attended the renowned DeWitt Clinton High School , but took part only irregularly and left it in 1920 without a school leaving certificate. With a hand fake diploma, he enrolled in 1921 at Tufts College one, but was due to his poor academic performance and frequent absences after only one semester forcedly expelled . In this emergency, chance came to his aid: Another Nathan Weinstein studied at college, whose certificates fell into the hands of his namesake in an unexplained way. With the documents of the other Nathan Weinstein , the later Nathanael West not only successfully matriculated at Brown University , one of the oldest and most renowned universities in the USA, but they also enabled him to limit his seminars largely to the humanities; His namesake had already provided the required credits in the unpopular natural sciences.

During his time at Brown University, West transformed himself into an if not exemplary, then at least passable student. The donations from his parents enabled him to have a comfortable life. He cultivated a reputation as a campus - dandy , dressed in expensive Brooks Brothers -Suits and was a frequent guest at dance events. Apparently he was also fond of women, although he had contracted gonorrhea before he was enrolled . He read a lot, especially works by the European and American avant-garde, and showed great interest in rather absurd and grotesque subjects; he was well versed in the mystical literature of the Middle Ages and a specialist in military strategies from antiquity to modern times. In spite of all his popularity, however, he suffered greatly from the fact that, as a Jew, he was not allowed to join one of the many student associations, which is why his Jewish origins made him uncomfortable. He scorned Jewish women and scornfully called them bagels .

Name change

His complicated relationship with his Jewish origins is clearly evident in his discomfort with his name, which he found too clearly Jewish. When he enrolled at Tufts College, he had already given his name as "Nathaniel Weinstein" - a classic first name of the WASP elite in New England. During his time at Brown University, he often discreetly indicated to his fellow students that he was of noble blood, and from then on called himself "Nathanael von Wallenstein Weinstein". Wallenstein was actually the maiden name of his mother Anna, and there has been speculation in her family for generations about a possible relationship to the Duke of Friedland and Mecklenburg ; Nathanael was considered a particularly distinguished spelling of the first name. On August 16, 1926, he officially changed his name to Nathanael West . There has been much speculation about the choice of surname. West himself stated that Horace Greeley's famous recommendation Go West, young man! to have followed. In fact, his cousin Sam Weinstein was probably the model; he had used the name "West" in business for some time.

After 1924: As a writer and screenwriter

After his studies, he persuaded his parents to finance a stay in Paris for him. At that time, thousands of artistically ambitious Americans, the so-called Lost Generation , moved to Paris to indulge in the life of the bohemian . By the time West set out on his trip, Paris had already become a place of mass tourism for American intellectuals and he only spent just under three months in France. Often described by his contemporaries and biographers as a notorious liar and compulsive role-player, West would often claim in later years that he had spent a full three years there.

After returning to the USA, West worked temporarily as a hotel porter, while at the same time writing his first novel: The Dream Life of Balso Snell , which satirically tells of a young man's search for a meaning in life, was unsuccessful when it was published in 1931 is still described by most critics as West's weakest novel. West had already worked on initial ideas for Balso Snell in college . The novella Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) about a newspaper editor who gives his readers advice on life under the pseudonym "Miss Lonelyhearts" is a bitter satire on the newspaper business. Miss Lonelyhearts brought West good reviews for the first time, but the sales figures were only moderate. With his next novel A Smooth Million (1934) West satirized the optimistic novels of Horatio Alger . He hoped to land a bestseller with the fast-written book, but sales fell short of expectations and the reviews weren't as good as Miss Lonelyhearts' .

In order to be able to lead a lavish lifestyle with elegant clothing despite the lack of success, West began to look for other activities and became a screenwriter in Hollywood . He initially worked for Columbia Pictures , later also for the western studio Republic Pictures and RKO Radio Pictures . West took up almost all of the work on the scripts, and at times he earned 350 US dollars, many times more than what he had previously received as a hotel porter. With the possible exception of Stranger on the Third Floor , the films with his participation are largely forgotten today. He processed his life in Hollywood in the novel Day of the Locust , which is his most extensive work and is widely praised today, but received only moderate reviews at the time and only sold around 1500 copies in the first few months. He was friends with writers like Dashiell Hammett or William Carlos Williams ; the humorist SJ Perelman was his brother-in-law.

In April 1940 he married Eileen McKenney, the sister of the author Ruth McKenney , who immortalized them in her stories about " My Sister Eileen ". Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney died in a car accident in California on December 22, 1940, just one day after the death of their writer friend F. Scott Fitzgerald .

Create

Nathanael West has written four smaller novels or short stories in his short creative period . While West's name was practically unknown to the general public during his lifetime, it was rediscovered from the 1950s and is now highly regarded. His works are comparatively unknown in Germany, even though Manesse Verlag published new translations of West's three main works ( Miss Lonelyhearts , A Cool Million , The Day of the Locust ) in the early 2010s .

In West's works there is a feeling of forlornness and isolation of the individual in the modern age of the 20th century who searches in vain for (spiritual) redemption, long-term happiness or professional success. His novels address the US public space and show the negative influence, cynicism and falsehood of newspapers ( Miss Lonelyhearts ), political campaigns ( A smooth million ) and the film industry ( The Day of the Locust ). West was a socialist, but he clearly rejected ideological perspectives and seldom represented explicit political intentions. Nevertheless, his work is determined by the experiences of the world economic crisis and a concern about its human consequences. The figures feel an emptiness and hopelessness, they practice mental and physical cruelty against their fellow human beings (and occasionally against animals as in the cockfight in Day of the Locust ). For William Carlos Williams , West's prose is characterized by a new way of speaking, which on the one hand takes up the jargon of journalists, but at the same time allows the "full expression of his feelings". The "dead atmosphere" of Miss Lonelyhearts reflects the "incredible dead lives of the people" who have become villains in this century.

The Day of the Locust is considered by many critics to be the best book ever written about Hollywood. The story takes place during the Great Depression and describes the alienation and despair of an inhomogeneous group of people whose dreams of success have failed. One of the main characters in the novel is called "Homer Simpson". The name of the main character from the well-known cartoon series The Simpsons may go back to him. In addition, Miss Lonelyhearts in particular isconsidered outstanding, this novel was described by his biographer James F. Lightas his most perfect workeven before The Day of the Locust . The prominent literary critic Harold Bloom called Miss Lonelyhearts his personal favorite novel from literary modernism and saw the novella in his canon as one of the eight greatest achievements of American culture of the 20th century.

Film adaptations

Advice to the Lovelorn (based on Miss Lonelyhearts ) with Lee Tracy by Alfred L. Werker was the first film adaptation of a work by West in 1933, but this rather loose film adaptation turned out less dark than West's novel. In 1958, the second film adaptation appeared, Life is a lie with Montgomery Clift , which was a little more faithful to the work. Most recently, Miss Lonelyhearts was directed as a television film with Eric Roberts in 1983 .

The Day of the Locust was filmed in 1975; Waldo Salt wrote the screenplay and was directed by John Schlesinger . The role of Homer Simpson was played by Donald Sutherland ; continued to operate Karen Black , Burgess Meredith , William Atherton and Geraldine Page with.

Works

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rachel Rubinstein: Members of the Tribe: Native America in the Jewish Imagination . Wayne State University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-8143-3700-4 ( google.de [accessed December 2, 2019]).
  2. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. pp. 35-36.
  3. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. pp. 8, 28.
  4. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. p. 4.
  5. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. p. 5.
  6. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. pp. 8-11.
  7. ^ Dorothy Gallagher: Book Review - Lonelyhearts - By Marion Meade . In: The New York Times . May 7, 2010, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed December 2, 2019]).
  8. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. pp. 16-18.
  9. ^ Stanley Edgar Hyman: Nathanael West . U of Minnesota Press, 1962, ISBN 978-0-8166-0278-0 ( google.de [accessed December 2, 2019]).
  10. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. p. 37.
  11. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. p. 37.
  12. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. pp. 30-31.
  13. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. pp. 138-139.
  14. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. pp. 138-139.
  15. ↑ Nathanael West: The Day of the Locust. Manesse, 2012. pp. 254-255.
  16. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. p. 193.
  17. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. pp. 200-201.
  18. ^ Nathaniel West Stranded Between "Art" and "Life" | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved February 9, 2020 .
  19. ↑ West, Nathanael: Miss Lonelyhearts. Manesse, 2012. Quoted in: Afterword by Dieter E. Zimmer , p. 145.
  20. ↑ James F. Light: Nathanael West. An Interpretative Study. Northwestern University Press, 1971. pp. 138-139.
  21. ^ Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust. In: John Pistelli. April 27, 2016, accessed December 2, 2019 .
  22. ↑ Advice to the Forlorn (1933) at the Internet Movie Database. Retrieved December 2, 2019 .
  23. ^ Miss Lonelyhearts (1983) at the Internet Movie Database. Retrieved December 2, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME West, Nathanael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weinstein, Nathan Wallenstein (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH new York
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1940
Place of death El Centro , California