Nathanael West

Nathanael West ( born October 17, 1903 in New York City as Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein, † December 22, 1940 in El Centro, California ) was an American writer. He published during his lifetime, only four novellas or short novels that were quite unsuccessful. Only since the 1950s, they found 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

Nathanael West was born in 1903 when Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein in New York. His parents were German -speaking Jews from the then Russian -controlled Lithuania, who had emigrated in 1890 to America. His father, Max Weinstein had built a thriving construction and real estate companies in a short time and it brought some prosperity, and so spent the West and his sisters Laura and Hinda a sheltered childhood. The Weinsteins lodged with the education of Nathan and his sisters Laura and Hinda great importance to education, but hardly use religion; so Nathan was indeed probably ritually circumcised, but was never Bar Mitzvah. Because they Semitism and exclusion had been exposed in Czarist Russia, she dreamed of a full integration into American society for their children. In this sense the desired assimilation they sent their three children to public schools in Manhattan and inspired the young Nathan Weinstein for baseball. The summer of his youth was spent mostly at Camp Paradox, a summer camp for children of wealthy parents in the Adirondacks. Nevertheless, the Weinsteins saw in America as part of the educated middle class and gave her son the European classics such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy, Chekhov and Dostoevsky to read.

All the more disappointed his parents that evolved Nathan at a remarkably poor student and notorious truant. From 1917 he attended the prestigious DeWitt Clinton High School, but she left in 1920 without a degree. With a hand forged diploma, he enrolled in 1921 at Tufts College, a, but was forcibly expelled after only one semester because of his poor academic performance and frequent absences. In this plight him the chance came to the rescue: In college studied another Nathan Weinstein, whose testimony came to an unclear way into the hands of his namesake. With the documentation of the other Nathan Weinstein, the subsequent Nathanael West enrolled not only successful at Brown University, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the U.S., but they allowed him also, largely to limit its seminars on the humanities; the necessary credits in the unpopular science had already provided its namesake.

In his time at Brown University is West turned into a model if not, then at least passable students. The grants his parents allowed him a comfortable living. He cultivated a reputation as a campus - dandy, dressed in expensive Brooks Brothers suits and was a frequent guest at dance events. Even the women he was evidently inclined, but he had already contracted the gonorrhea before his enrollment. He read a lot, especially works of European and American avant-garde, and showed great interest in fairly absurd and grotesque subjects; so he was well versed in the mystical literature of the Middle Ages and a specialist in the military strategies from ancient to modern times. For all the popularity, however, he suffered greatly, that was denied as a Jew membership of one of the many student associations him. He himself became increasingly anti-Semite - he spurned Jewish women, calling them contemptuously bagels.

Name Change

His complicated relationship with his Jewish origins is clearly reflected in his discomfort with his name, who appeared to him to clearly Jewish. Already during his matriculation at Tufts College he had his name given as " Nathaniel Weinstein " - a classic first name of the WASP elite of New England. During his time at Brown University, he gave his fellow students often discreetly to understand that he had noble blood, and was then called " Nathanael von Wallenstein Weinstein ". Wallenstein was actually his mother Anna 's maiden name, and her family has been speculation about a possible relationship with the Duke of Friedland and Mecklenburg for generations; Nathanael was considered a particularly distinguished spelling of the first name. On August 16, 1926, he changed his name then officially Nathanael West. About the choice of the surname has been much speculation. West himself stated that Horace Greeley's famous recommendation Go West, young man! to be followed. In fact, his cousin Sam Weinstein was well but the model; He had already used the name " West" some time in the business.

After 1924

After graduating, he persuaded his parents to him to finance a stay in Paris. At this time, it attracted thousands artistically ambitious Americans, the so-called Lost Generation, to Paris, there to give the bohemian lifestyle. West spent just three months in France. West, who was often described by his contemporaries and biographers as a notorious liar and compulsive role players, should often claim to have spent there whole three years in later years. In the 1930s, he hit more bad than good as a screenwriter in Hollywood by. He was friends with writers like Dashiell Hammett and William Carlos Williams; the humorist SJ Perelman was his brother in law. Nathanael West died in 1940 in California with his wife in a car accident.

Creation

Nathanael West has written four novels and novellas smaller in his short creative life. The Day of the Locust is considered 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 have failed of success. One of the main characters in the novel is called " Homer Simpson". On him probably the name of the main character from the famous animated series The Simpsons returns. Was made ​​into a film The Day of the Locust, 1975; the screenplay was written by Waldo Salt, directed by John Schlesinger. The role of Homer Simpson was played by Donald Sutherland; continued to operate with Billy Barty, Karen Black and Burgess Meredith.

Works

• The Dream Life of Balso Snell. In 1931.
• Miss Lonely Hearts. In 1933. ( Reclam, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-15-009275-2 ) Write Miss Lonely Hearts. Diogenes, Zurich 1961. (Ibid., 1987, ISBN 3-257-20058-7 )
• Miss Lonely Hearts: A Novel, amerikan from the. English trans. and ed. by Dieter E. Zimmer, Zurich: Manesseplatz, 2012, ISBN 978-3-7175-2274-4

• A cool million or Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin Mister. Diogenes, Zurich 1972. (Ibid., 1987, ISBN 3-257-20249-0 )
• New edition; from the English by Dieter E. Zimmer, Manesseplatz Verlag, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7175-2232-4.

• Day of the Locust. Diogenes, Zurich 1964. (Ibid., 1997, ISBN 3-257-20059-5 )