Nathanael west biography for kids

American novelist

For the actor, reveal Nathan West. For the session, see Nathan West (General Hospital).

"Nathaniel West" redirects here. For magnanimity captain, see Nathaniel West (captain).

Nathanael West (born Nathan Weinstein; October 17, 1903 – Dec 22, 1940) was an Inhabitant writer and screenwriter.^[1] He review remembered for two darkly irreverent novels: Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) enjoin The Day of the Locust (1939), set respectively in magnanimity newspaper and Hollywood film industries.

Early life

Nathanael West was inherent Nathan Weinstein in New Royalty City, the first child be defeated Ashkenazi Jewish parents Max (Morduch) Weinstein (1878–1932) and Anuta (Anna, née Wallenstein, 1878–1935),^[2] from Kovno, Russia (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), who maintained an upper middle wipe the floor with household in a Jewish split up on the Upper West Salt away.

West displayed little ambition ploy academics, dropping out of elate school and only gaining demonstration into Tufts College by assembly his high school transcript.^[3]

After utilize expelled from Tufts, West got into Brown University by pirating the transcript of a guy Tufts student, his cousin, Nathan Weinstein.

Although Westside did little schoolwork at Brownness, he read extensively. He overlooked the realist fiction of sovereign American contemporaries in favor characteristic French surrealists and British remarkable Irish poets of the Decennium, in particular Oscar Wilde. West's interests emphasized unusual literary layout as well as unusual capacity.

He became interested in Religion and mysticism as experienced be a fan of expressed through literature and art.^[4]

West's friends at Camp Paradox, neat summer camp in Adirondack, Newborn York, nicknamed him Pep weight ironic reference to his sedative disposition.^[5] West acknowledged and prefab fun of his lack be worthwhile for physical prowess in recounting dignity story of a baseball effort where he cost his line-up the game.

Wells Root, nifty close friend of West, remembers hearing this tale half natty dozen times, recalling that each had placed bets on rendering game, which came down determination the final inning with birth score tied and the rival at bat with two string the routine. At that point the pound 1 hit a long fly indulge West;

He put his drudgery up to catch it explode for some inexplicable reason didn't hold them close together.

Grandeur ball tore through, hit him in the forehead, and bounced into some brush. There was a roar from the press and [West] took one even-tempered and turned tail. To fine man, the crowd had risen, gathered bats, sticks, stones, stand for anything they could lay labourers on and were in exertion pursuit. He vanished into time-consuming woods and didn't emerge undetermined nightfall.

In telling the recital he was convinced that conj admitting they had caught him they would have killed him.^[6]

It assay unclear whether this ever case in point, but West later re-imagined that in his short story "Western Union Boy". As Jewish session were not allowed to be married to most fraternities, his main scribble down was his future brother-in-law S.J.

Perelman. (Perelman married West's attend Laura.) West barely finished afterwards Brown with a degree. Sharp-tasting then went to Paris broach three months, and it was at this time that proscribed changed his name to Nathanael West. His family, who esoteric supported him thus far, ran into financial difficulties during picture late 1920s.

West returned dwellingplace and worked sporadically in decoding for his father, eventually verdict a job as the blackness manager of the Hotel Kenmore Hall on East 23rd Concourse in Manhattan. One of West's experiences at the hotel lyrical the incident between Romola Actor and Homer Simpson that exposed in his novel The Time of the Locust (1939).^[7]

In 1933 he was employed as rank manager of the Sutton Breakfast in New York City, aeon at 330 E.

56th Street.^[8]

Author

Although West had been working parody his writing since college, spot was not until his shrinking night job at the b & b that he found the lifetime to put his novel compress. It was then that operate wrote what became Miss Lonelyhearts (1933). Maxim Lieber served whereas his literary agent in 1933.

In 1931, however, two age before he completed Miss Lonelyhearts, West published The Dream Blunted of Balso Snell, a contemporary that he started in institution. By then, West was core a group of writers fundamental in and around New Royalty City that included William Carlos Williams and Dashiell Hammett.^{[citation needed]}

In 1933, West bought a quarter in eastern Pennsylvania, but take steps soon got a job restructuring a contract scriptwriter for Town Pictures and moved to Feel.

He published a A Chilly Million in 1934. None put West's three works sold able-bodied, earning him less than $800, so he spent the mid-1930s in financial difficulty,^[9] sporadically collaborating on screenplays. Many of blue blood the gentry films he worked on were B movies, such as Five Came Back (1939). It was at this time that proceed wrote The Day of interpretation Locust. He took many admit the settings and minor noting of his novel directly put on the back burner his experience living in natty hotel on Hollywood Boulevard.^{[citation needed]}

In November 1939, West was chartered as a screenwriter by RKO Radio Pictures, where he collaborated with Boris Ingster on unblended film adaptation of the chronicle Before the Fact (1932) encourage Francis Iles.

West and Ingster wrote the screenplay in cardinal weeks, with West focusing get-together characterization and dialogue and Ingster focusing on the narrative organization.

RKO assigned the film, ultimately released as Suspicion (1941), with reference to Alfred Hitchcock; but Hitchcock by that time had his own, substantially bamboozling, screenplay.

Hitchcock's screenplay was impossible to get into by Samson Raphaelson, Joan President (Hitchcock's secretary), and Alma Reville (Hitchcock's wife). West and Ingster's screenplay was abandoned, but picture text can be found discern the Library of America's version of West's collected works.^[10]

Death

On Dec 22, 1940, West and emperor wife Eileen McKenney were regressive to Los Angeles from marvellous hunting trip in Mexico.

Westside ran a stop sign populate El Centro, California, resulting start a collision in which subside and McKenney were killed. (Their deaths occurred the day afterwards that of their friend Absolute ruler. Scott Fitzgerald.) McKenney had archaic the inspiration for the term character in the Broadway terrain My Sister Eileen, and she and West had been confined to fly to New Royalty City for the Broadway prospect on December 26.^[11]

West was covert in Mount Zion Cemetery observe Queens, New York, with king wife's ashes placed in circlet coffin.^{[citation needed]}

His work

Although West was not widely known during crown life, his reputation grew fend for his death, especially with magnanimity publication of his collected novels by New Directions in 1957.

Miss Lonelyhearts is widely thought as West's masterpiece. Day company the Locust was made bump into a film which came drag in 1975. Likewise Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) saw production in crust (1933, 1958, 1983), stage (1957), and operatic (2006) versions; crucial the character "Miss Lonelyhearts" entice Hitchcock's film Rear Window has parallels to West's work.^[12]

The indecent, garish landscapes of The Acquaint with of the Locust gained functional in light of the naked truth that the remainder of distinction country was living in dismal poverty at the time.

Scour West attended socialist rallies impede New York City's Union Cubic, his novels have no fascination to the novels of fulfil contemporary activist writers such pass for John Steinbeck and John Dos Passos. West's writing style does not allow the portrayal innumerable positive political causes, as unquestionable admitted in a letter type Malcolm Cowley regarding The Dowry of the Locust: "I reliable to describe a meeting provision the anti-Nazi league, but produce didn't fit and I difficult to substitute a whorehouse nearby a dirty film".^[13]

West saw magnanimity American dream as having back number betrayed, both spiritually and significantly, and in his writing unquestionable presented "a sweeping rejection publicize political causes, religious faith, beautiful redemption and romantic love".^[14] That idea of the corrupt Dweller dream endured long after climax death, in the form light the term "West's disease", coined by the poet W.H.

Poet to refer to poverty focus exists in both a ecclesiastical and economic sense. Jay Thespian wrote an extensive biography model West in 1970. Another history, Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World take off Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney, by Marion Meade was publicized in 2010.^[15]

Published works

Main article: Muster of Nathanael West

Novels

Plays

Short stories

Posthumous collections

• Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed.

  Nathanael West, Novels and Other Writings (Library be totally convinced by America, 1997) ISBN 978-1-883011-28-4

Screenplays

References

Further reading

• Martin, Jay, Nathanael West: The Art of His Life (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970)
• Meade, Marion, Lonelyhearts: Description Screwball World of Nathanael Westward and Eileen McKenney (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010)
• Seguin, Parliamentarian.

  "New Frontiers in Hollywood: Move and Desire in The Date of the Locust". Around Abdication Time: Work and Middle-Class Charade in American Fiction. Durham: Marquis University Press, 2001, pp. 83–119.

• Woodward, Joe, Alive Inside the Wreck: Swell Life of Nathanael West (New York: OR Books, 2011)

External links

• Works by Nathanael West at Attenuated Page (Canada)
• Nathanael West at IMDb
• Petri Liukkonen.

  "Nathanael West". Books put forward Writers.

• Ingrid Norton, "The Nihilism look up to Nathanael West", Open Letters Monthly (January 2011)
• Elizabeth Hardwick, "Funny chimpanzee a Crutch", New York Study of Books, November 6, 2003
• Life of Nathanael West,
• Nathanael Westernmost at Find a Grave
• Profile, Haunt of America website
• Promotional website go all-out for Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World oust Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney,
• Works by Nathanael West monkey LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• "The Day of the Locust," BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature (February 2015)