In this 1931 Dada-inspired work, the first novel of the author of Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, the eponymous anti-hero stumbles across the Trojan Horse and climbs inside. His journey takes him through a mental jungle, offering an unforgettable look at the dark side of the American dream.
The Dream Life of Balso Snell
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Special Offers and Product Promotions
- This item is eligible for our 4-for-3 promotion. Eligible products include select Books and Home & Garden items. Buy any 4 eligible items and get the lowest-priced item free. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
You smell that? The rotting flesh, burning hair, wet dog, hot garbage smell? Thank Balso Snell,
By
This review is from: The Dream Life of Balso Snell (Paperback)
At its core, "The Dream Life of Balso Snell" is about a guy who, for no apparent reason, climbs into the anal orifice of a massive Trojan Horse. While inside the cavernous digestive track, presumably making his way up the colon, throughout the intestines, and eventually to the stomach, Balso Snell meets several randomly placed people with individualized stories to tell. At each stop, Balso listens to the various tales, learning that each person wishes to express themselves in some literary fashion. With each banally uninteresting tale, however, he ends up avoiding the various characters like one would avoid pungent, human-sized excrement. That's about it.
There are attempts at making the book a philosophical endeavor, or perhaps a poetic parable, but both are really pathetic attempts at covering up the true scatological intentions. Nathaniel West claimed that the point was to "protest against writing books", but the execution is lacking. Sure, West's attempt to irritate readers with a completely incoherent tale, pretentiously intending to confuse or disgust readers with perpetual and obscure references to fecal matter and excretory organs, was successful in that he used it as a vehicle for protest, but it fails to reach the actual desired result because of its actual incoherence, insipid subject material, and tedious slow delivery. Absent of any truly worthwhile literary merit, I'm reminded of a famous proverb that's often heard in various fashions: If it smells like S#@*, and it looks like S#@*, well, it's probably S#@*.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Citations (learn more)
54
books
cite this book:
See all 54 books citing this book
- Modernism, 1910-1945: Image to Apocalypse (Transitions) by Jane Goldman on 11 pages
- Modes of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Twelfth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy) by Robert A. Latham on 4 pages
- The Day of the Locust (Signet Classic) by Nathanael West on 4 pages
- Comedy/Cinema/Theory by Andrew S. Horton on page 153, page 170, and page 173
- Walks In Hemingway's Paris: A Guide To Paris For The Literary Traveler by Noel R. Fitch on page 126, and Back Matter
See all 54 books citing this book
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
