Sunday, February 22, 2009
Hollywood Novels
With the Oscars fast approaching, I thought it reasonable to note my inability to connect with two of the most enduring 'Hollywood novels': Waugh's The Loved One and Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust. The latter, which I recently finished, struck me as surprisingly incomplete. Of Faye Greener, in particular, much more, I felt, ought to have been written. Alfred Kazin loved the novel, but I found it - much like that typical Hollywood personality - curiously underdeveloped.
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Budd Schulberg's "What Makes Sammy Run?" ain't bad. There has been a handful of good-to-really-good Hollywood novels in the last five years or so: Wesley Strick's "Out There in the Dark," Jerry Stahl’s “I, Fatty,” about Roscoe Arbuckle, and Joe Heller’s “Funnymen” and Rupert Holmes’ “Where the Truth Lies,” both about Martin and Lewis-style duos (the latter of which completed the circle by being made into a movie). There probably are others that I do not know of.
ReplyDeleteDear Roger: Thank you for your post. I look forward to following up on your suggestions. --Jesse
ReplyDeleteunderdeveloped????
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