Alone In The Universe (or, Being A Nathanael West Fan in Humanities)

While the bloggers in this class have said a myriad of things about Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, there's one thing in common between many of them: a sentence or two stating how, regardless of what they think of Allende, at least it's better than West.

 I could understand jealousy of his incredible mustache, but it seems like most people's issues are guided towards his novel, The Day of the Locust. Frankly, I just don't get it. Since reading The Day of the Locust in class, I have become a huge fan of West's works. I appreciate his lengthy, detailed descriptions, the darkness of the stories, the archetypes that are his characters, and the stark criticism of reality present, underlying the overall surreal feel of many of his passages. For some reason, I just don't get this same feeling with Allende. While West captivated me throughout The Day of the Locust with his sordid tale of Hollywood (and his since done the same with tales of advice column writers and scatalogical humor obsessed poets wondering the bowels of the Trojan Horse), Allende, unfortunately, hasn't done much of anything for me.

While I will admit that some of the 'magical realism' content in Allende's novel, including the giant dog (Barabbas), the man who can send ants away by telling them (Pedro), and, of course, good ol' Clara the Clairvoyant are at least of bizarre interest, I find the book, as a whole, to be dull. That being said, I've never been one for 'family epics,' regardless of style. Just not a genre that has ever captivated my interest. Beyond that, I found West, even in all of his strangeness, to be more relevant. Call me dark, but I'd rather hear West rant on the American Dream all night than spend half an hour hearing Allende ramble about an odd family. Can I understand why The House of the Spirits belongs in the curriculum? Yeah. Does that mean I need to care for it? Nope. Give me mustachio up there anyday!