{"product_id":"um-milhao-conta-redonda","title":"One million even","description":"\u003cp data-end=\"727\" data-start=\"0\"\u003ePublished in 1934, it is perhaps Nathanael West's cruelest novel. Lemuel Pitkin, a naive young man, sets out in search of success and ends up crushed by the social and economic machinery of the United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"727\" data-start=\"0\"\u003eAt first glance, it seems like a parody of fairy tales about the triumph of the simple man; in reality, it is a ruthless demolition of the rhetoric of the \"American dream\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"727\" data-start=\"0\"\u003eThe more I read, the more I wonder if it ever actually existed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"727\" data-start=\"0\"\u003eWest does not use compassion to explain a society that feeds on the naivety and misery of the most vulnerable. The novel's black humor is uncomfortable because it works like a mirror: it shows us that success, in this logic, only exists at the expense of crushing the \"other\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"727\" data-start=\"0\"\u003eSound familiar? We are always going around the same problems, right?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1575\" data-start=\"729\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNathanael West (1903–1940)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e was an American writer and screenwriter whose brief, yet intense, work became a reference for the satirical and disillusioned literature of the 20th century. Author of only four novels, including \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-end=\"1339\" data-start=\"1320\"\u003eMiss Lonelyhearts\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem data-end=\"1362\" data-start=\"1342\"\u003eThe Day of the Locust\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, he built a corrosive vision of American society, exposing the cruelty of success and the fragility of those who live on illusions. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1575\" data-start=\"729\"\u003eTo survive, he wrote screenplays in Hollywood between 1936 and 1940, in an industry he himself despised, but which paid the bills. Before that, he had managed hotels in New York, where he even offered rooms for free to writers he liked, just to enjoy their company. A strategy that was not very profitable, but literarily convenient.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1575\" data-start=\"729\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWest dedicated himself to parodying Western civilization with a poisoned humor and touches of surrealism, shaped by the misery and despair of the Great Depression. He gave \"words\" to human degradation, helplessness, and loneliness, creating characters so tragic that they almost become comical. Or is it the other way around?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1575\" data-start=\"729\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHis life ended abruptly on December 22, 1940, in a car accident. Beside him died his new wife, Eileen McKenny, whose life had inspired the popular play \u003cem data-end=\"1481\" data-start=\"1463\"\u003eMy Sister Eileen\u003c\/em\u003e. Until his end, he had the bitter taste of tragedy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1575\" data-start=\"729\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAlthough Nathanael West's fiction received some isolated praise from critics, the public completely ignored him. Supreme irony: after his death, academics and writers began to venerate him as one of the great satirists of the 20th century. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1575\" data-start=\"729\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHe left a short body of work. It continues to echo, because of the timeliness of its disillusionment.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sistema Solar","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51786811212042,"sku":null,"price":15.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0735\/2729\/6266\/files\/Um-Milhao-Conta-Redonda.jpg?v=1757849905","url":"https:\/\/www.malditalivraria.com\/en\/products\/um-milhao-conta-redonda","provider":"Maldita Livraria","version":"1.0","type":"link"}