The Day of the Locust

       When i found out that we were going to read Nathaniel West's novel "The Day of the Locust", i was excited because i've never experienced a pulp novel that is about 1930's Hollywood. I must admit that the first page really grabbed me. It started with an interesting scene, it was not very hard to picture the scene because of the language that was used. It was very descriptive. However this descriptive use of language became an obstacle in the following pages of the novel. Many times, i've had pause moments and this minimised the joy that i wanted to get. Of course this has to do with the fact that English being my second language too. Unfortunately i've stopped reading this novel after the first half.

       I like it when novels tell stories of people who're the outcasts of societies. The people that we don't like to talk or don't want to say "Hi" or even hate in real life. In some of these novels, writers strive for creating a strong link between their readers and their characters (the characters that are "awful people") by creating various situations . The situations that would make way for characters to be "bad people". This way, we start to have more sympathy for those characters. Many times this had changed my prejudgements about "the outcasts of societies" in real life. Although i do not expect this from every novel i read, i just wanted to have some sympathy for the characters in the novel.

      But from what i understood of "The Day of the Locust" is not about it's characters, not about the plot which i was searching for primarily. It's more likely about experiencing the uncomfortability of darker side of Hollywood. I might re read this novel again with different expectations and may love it. Happened before. Why not happen again ?