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A review by athousandgreatbooks
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West
4.0
An ambitious young reporter is tasked with writing advisory messages for a newspaper’s lovelorn column. ‘Miss Lonelyhearts’, as the columnist is dubbed, starts out confident and clever, contemptuous of the correspondents he is supposed to advise and help. The whole thing is a farce, meant only to increase ‘circulation’.
But the letters are not easy to ignore and are filled with such genuine suffering that the constant stream of human anguish and cry for help begin to get under his skin. Soon his life begins to fall around him as he comes to realize the fraudulent state of affairs he’s presiding over. He takes refuge in idealism, partly to fortify against the harshness of the world and partly to counter the cynicism of his editor, a diabolical nihilist of the Mephistophelean order whose commentary on the world verges on the vicious.
It’s a hard-boiled story, dark and unapologetic, rough around the edges and elliptical in its narrative form, a black comedy that comes after tragedy has washed over a dozen times over.
But the letters are not easy to ignore and are filled with such genuine suffering that the constant stream of human anguish and cry for help begin to get under his skin. Soon his life begins to fall around him as he comes to realize the fraudulent state of affairs he’s presiding over. He takes refuge in idealism, partly to fortify against the harshness of the world and partly to counter the cynicism of his editor, a diabolical nihilist of the Mephistophelean order whose commentary on the world verges on the vicious.
It’s a hard-boiled story, dark and unapologetic, rough around the edges and elliptical in its narrative form, a black comedy that comes after tragedy has washed over a dozen times over.