Nathanael West was like a 1930s Tim Robinson – taking mundane social anxieties and amplifying them, making them surreal and grotesque, satirising the American way of life

I've just read West's two most well known works, the novellas Miss Lonelyhearts (1931) and Day of the Locust (1939). And each book gave me the distinct feel of Tim Robinson's most recent projects, that's the film Friendship and The Chair Company (TCC).

I think they both satirise the American way of life by taking mundane social anxieties and amplifying them, making them surreal and grotesque. Like a nightmare of the American Dream.

They both harness absurdist humor. Their characters, who are extremely neurotic and temperamental, are constantly pitted in highly tense and volatile situations that tend to spiral out of control. Add to that, dollops of existential angst and social alienation.

I read Miss Lonelyhearts first, and started to notice comparisons by all the bizarre situations and characters the protagonist is faced with. Those odd little interactions that go on a tangent and spiral out of control.

He writes a column called Miss Lonelyhearts, and he is referred to as such throughout the novella, remaining unnamed but for his moniker. The letters he gets are so bleak and bizarre, and so so funny – but you don't feel like you should be laughing.

They're very reminiscent of moments like in TCC where we see the crazy rambling long-winded messages of the pants fans' WhatsApp group. TCC never goes anywhere near as dark as West, however.

MLH's neurosis are playing havoc throughout the novella. The letters he receives are so depressing that he's having a nervous breakdown. He's often querying his purpose in life as continues to feel more and more sapped of life and aimless.

To those who haven't seen TCC, Robinson's Ron Trosper becomes fixated on a chair company, after the chair he's sitting on collapses beneath him, humiliating him in front of all his colleagues at an important presentation. He goes down a wormhole of shady scenarious and comes face to face with a mix of strange and dangerous characters. It's intimated that his fixation is fuelled by a nervous breakdown and that he's done something similar before. Towards the end of the first season he goes through a real journey of self reflection, trying to figure out his purpose in life.

In both works, it's far to say the characters' breakdown is exacerbated by the strange scenarios and characters around them.

In MLH, he's the office joke since he writes the MLH column, or at least feels as if he is. He feels further isolated by the actions of his editor at the paper, Shrike, who plays pranks on him and gives him cynical advice. Again, there are similarities with Ron in TCC in this sense. Both characters are often emasculated and isolated from those around them.

West’s The Day of the Locust focuses on marginalized people in Hollywood, some of whom become dangerous when their dreams are thwarted. Similarly, Robinson’s characters often spiral into aggression when faced with minor social failures or rejection. The characters who most notably come to mind are the dwarf, Earle and the Mexican in TDoftL and, in TCC, Mike Santini, the restaurant security guard played exceptionally well by Joseph Tudisco (give that man an award!). And of course, probably the most maniacal of Robinson's characters Craig Waterman in Friendship.

They both amplify mundane social anxieties until they become surreal and grotesque. West has visions of sordid realism, like the painting of 'The Burning of Los Angeles' which evokes visions of the January 6 United States Capitol attack. While also satirising the superficiality and artificiality of culture. A culture built on imitation, which sounds awfully similar to the world we're living in today with thirst-traps and TikTok, celebrity culture stretched to its most extreme sense globally, no longer hemmed into West's 1930s Hollywood tapestry. (TDoftL's Faye Greener was thirst-tapping every male character she encountered.)

In essence, West uses horror to convey his satire. Which is similar to the nightmarish situations TCC's Ron finds himself in. Like the altercation with the man who had the dented forehead, and the repercussions this puts on Ron's psyche after Mike tells him he could have killed him when he punched it. That ensuing chase sequence, where he's held at gunpoint by a man cheating on his wife who forces Ron to make a video of him 'cheating' by kissing the woman he was cheating on, to stop Ron from blackmailing him.

Then you have the endings of MLH and Friendship which feel similar, both have a chaotic climax with a gun being fired.

I honestly could go on….I haven't even mentioned the tragedy of Homer Simpson…but this post I feel is already too long.