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3 unusual facts about The Dream Life of Balso Snell


The Dream Life of Balso Snell

West's first novel, it presents a young man's immature and cynical search for meaning in a series of dreamlike encounters inside the entrails of the Trojan Horse.

After West became famous (years after his death) for Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, Balso Snell was reprinted in a single volume edition of his complete novels, as well as in the Library of America edition of West's collected works.

Balso, the protagonist, comes across the Trojan Horse in the tall grass around Troy and promptly seeks a way to get in: “the mouth was beyond his reach, the navel provided a cul-de-sac, and so, forgetting his dignity, he approached the last. O Anus Mirabilis!”



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