"You see, Malloy, I'm writing a novel about Los Angeles….
It's a fantastic place, you know, Malloy…. It has a Spanish name,
with religious Roman Catholic connotations…. And yet, Malloy,
consider this: the really fantastic thing about it is that it's the
crystallization of the ordinary, cheap ordinary American.
The people. The politics. The cults…. And I'm going to put it
in a book…."
— Hope of Heaven, by John O'Hara (1938)
The Malloy character perhaps represents O'Hara, and the
speaker in the passage above, Nathanael West. The planned
book is perhaps The Day of the Locust , by West (1939).
The opening of Miss Lonelyhearts , an earlier work by West —
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The Miss Lonelyhearts of The New York Post-Dispatch (Are-you-in-trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. On it a prayer had been printed by Shrike, the feature editor.
“Soul of Miss L, glorify me. Although the deadline was less than a quarter of an hour away, he was still working on his leader. He had gone as far as: “Life is worth while, for it is full of dreams and peace, gentleness and ecstasy, and faith that burns like a clear white flame on a grim dark altar.” But he found it impossible to continue. The letters were no longer funny. He could not go on finding the same joke funny thirty times a day for months on end. And on most days he received more than thirty letters, all of them alike, stamped from the dough of suffering with a heart-shaped cookie knife. |
This post was suggested by an obituary in tonight's online
New York Times and by the German nickname — Würger ,
in English: Shrike — of a WWII German fighter plane
mentioned in that obituary.