6 results for "Business"

Miss Lonelyhearts

NATHANAEL. WEST
Miss Lonelyhearts is Nathanael West's second novel. He began writing it early in 1930 and completed the manuscript in November of 1932. Published in 1933, it is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression. In the story, Miss Lonelyhearts is an unnamed male newspaper columnist writing an advice column for the lovelorn and lonesome, a duty that the other newspaper staff considers a joke. As Miss Lonelyhearts reads letters from desperate New Yorkers, he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional bar fights. He is also the victim of the pranks and cynical advice of Shrike, his feature editor at the newspaper. Miss Lonelyhearts tries several approaches to escape the terribly painful letters he has to read: religion, trips to the countryside with his fiancée Betty, and affairs with Shrike's wife and Mrs. Doyle, a reader of his column. However, Miss Lonelyheart's efforts do not seem to ameliorate his situation. After his sexual encounter with Mrs. Doyle, he meets her husband, a poor crippled man. The Doyles invite Miss Lonelyhearts to have dinner with them. When he arrives, Mrs. Doyle tries to seduce him again, but he responds by beating her. Mrs. Doyle tells her husband that Miss Lonelyhearts tried to rape her. In the last scene, Mr. Doyle hides a gun inside a rolled newspaper and decides to take revenge on Miss Lonelyhearts. Lonelyhearts, who has just experienced a religious enlightenment after three days of sickness, runs toward Mr. Doyle to embrace him. The gun "explodes", and the two men roll down a flight of stairs together. The general tone of the novel is one of extreme disillusionment with Depression-era American society, a consistent theme throughout West's novels. However, the novel is a black comedy, characterized by a dark sense of humor and irony. Justus Neiland, among others, has pointed out the use of Bergsonian laughter, in which "the attitudes, gestures, and movements of the human body are laughable in exact proportion as that body reminds us of a machine." The novel can be read through a Marxist lens as a condemnation of alienation and the colonization of social life by commodification, foreshadowing the stance of the Situationists and Guy Debord in particular. Miss Lonelyhearts is unable to fulfill his role as advice giver in a world in which both people and advice (in the form of newspaper ads, for example) are mass-produced. People are machines for the sole purpose of laboring as far as the rest of society is concerned (thus Miss Lonelyhearts' name), and any advice for them is as mass-produced as a manual for a machine. Lonelyhearts is unable to find a personal solution to his problems because they have systemic causes. West, who worked in the newspaper business before writing Miss Lonelyhearts, is also an advice giver of a sort as a novelist. Miss Lonelyhearts is similar to a détournement because it uses a form to critique the same form. The novel also condemns itself by condemning art, which is repeatedly derided by Shrike and compared to religion as an opiate of the masses. Many of the problems described in Miss Lonelyhearts describe actual economic conditions in New York City during the Great Depression, although the novel carefully avoids questions of national politics. Moreover, the novel is particularly important due to its existential import. The characters seem to be living in an amoral world. Hence, they resort to heavy drinking, sex, and parties. Miss Lonelyhearts has a "Christ complex", which stands for his belief in religion as a solution to a world devoid of values. (wikipedia.org)
Bibliotech Press 2025-03-08 94 pages

The Angry Hills

Leon Uris
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Trinity, Topaz, and Exodus, comes a classic World War II thriller of Greek resistance during the German infiltration of Athens--based on the diaries of Leon Uris's uncle. Just as World War II threatens to break out, Mike Morrison arrives in Greece to collect his late wife's inheritance. Hoping to quickly finish his business and leave before German troops invade, Morrison's plans are derailed when he receives a letter listing the names of Greek patriots pretending to be German collaborators, a list Nazi strategists desperately need. With the outcome of the war hinging on Morrison's ability to protect the letter, he embarks on an adventure across Greece in an effort to evade Nazi troops and keep the letter from falling into enemy hands.
Blackstone Publishing 2022-10-25 376 pages

Curious George, tadpole trouble

Williams, Mark London
George is in charge of taking care of his friend's tadpoles, and he knows just what to do! He takes them out for some exercise in the pond, but what will he do when they don't return A perfect book for early readers on the concept of metamorphosis. Curious George's friend Bill has put him in charge of several tadpoles. George sends the tadpoles for a nice swim in the lagoon, but to his dismay, the tadpoles don't return! Each time he goes back to the lake he tries to find the tadpoles, but he finds only tadpole-like creatures without tails . . . and with legs. A trip to the museum teaches George about the development of tadpoles into frogs, and he and Bill are happy to make the acquaintance of their new froggy friends! The animated series Curious George is available to watch on Peacock, NBC Universal's streaming platform.
Houghton Mifflin 2007 24 pages

American World Policies

Walter E. Weyl
"[...]fact of war constitutes one of the gravest problems that we face to-day. Growing up in a peaceful environment we had imbibed the idea that war was a thing alien to us, monarchial, European. We had come to hold that a nation could avoid war by not desiring it, by not preparing for it, by minding its own business. We believed that what share in the world we had and wanted was what every reasonable nation would willingly concede us, and if certain powers proved refractory and unreasonable-a most improbable contingency-we could always send[...]".
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2015-02-24 256 pages