Customer Reviews (10)

the deepest of the comparisons of the US and the Communist Eastern Europe- and more.
After receiving the Nobel Prize in literature, Saul Bellow produced "Dean's December", another extraordinary masterpiece. Probably the most insightful of the wave of novels which appeared in the West after some of the writers managed to travel behind the Iron Curtain, this is the story of Albert Corde, the University Dean and journalist from Chicago, who travels with his Romanian wife, Minna, to Bucharest when Minna's mother, Valeria, is at the hospital in critical condition after a stroke.

Dean Corde, as an America in the Communist Romania (annoyingly called Rumania which I believe was common in English several decades ago, although incorrect), is protected by his wife's family, not advised to left the house by himself, and alienated by the language barrier, effectively being left alone, with scarce contacts with Minna's family (despite his strong feelings for them and his will to help). Staying alone in his wife's childhood room at Valeria's apartment, which is occupied also by an elderly aunt, Tanti Gigi, the Dean cannot even read books, being essentially a benevolent prisoner; so he immerses himself in thoughts, disturbing and worrying, his problems remaining unsolved and new problems appearing during this cold December. The professional matters, left in Chicago, mingle with the personal in Bucharest, and each has an element of another in it. Although the narrative is in the third person, it is clear that most of it is told from Albert's point of view and is, essentially, a stream of his thoughts, a monologue (with a phone conversation, a discussion with Minna, or some letters here and there).

Albert has left Chicago in the middle of being involved in the trial of the death of one of his students, where the two accused are a pair of black inhabitants of the city - a prostitute and a man whose actions are dubious, but who is a friend of Albert's nephew, Mason. Mason tries to convince Albert that his friend could not kill the student, and uses clever arguments, which - Albert admits to himself - are better than he is able to rebuke.
Because the Dean caused some stirrup with his articles (after all, he is not a true academic, as he reminds the reader quite often - he is a journalist) about the structure of the Chicago society, he feels he cannot count on the University authorities and feels a bit lost in the whole affair while he is in Romania.

In Bucharest, he tries to be helpful to his wife, who is not permitted to see her mother dying in the hospital for the privileged (as she was both a well-established doctor and married to one, in spite of her leaving the party and being condemned and then rehabilitated, but never fully accepted by the regime, she was allowed this last favor), and summons all the diplomatic help he can get - he negotiates with the Ambassador and meets his childhood friend, Dawey Spangler, now an acclaimed political journalists, who also promises to do anything for help.

Valerie's death on Christmas Eve provides an anti-climax, because it really does not provide relief, does not solve any of the trouble on either side, and although the Dean and Minna can return to Chicago, they are as disturbed as back in Romania.

The novel is a slow thought-provoking read, written in dense and intelligent prose. The Dean is another impersonation of Bellow's intellectual, expressing the author's thoughts. And I can see why Bellow likes so much this type of main character (maybe aside from being close to such people in reality?). An intellectual, an academic, is a good model protagonist whose philosophizing, and constant literary associations can be excused, and who gives in exchange a background of knowledge, insightful and perturbed mind, and idealistic attitude which can be used for the best presentation of the views the author wishes to show here. The story is a tale of two cities, very different - one a place under the oppression of the dictatorial Communist system, the other the American dream not without political and social trouble of its own. And the question, which immediately comes to mind: what makes people, the core of any society, better? The freedom, or at least apparent freedom, and material well being, or the lack of it all, forcing people to stick together and help each other in any possible way, and to appreciate even the smallest bits of cultural and economical normality.
In the other aspect, this novel, although clearly an attempt at objectivism from Albert's point of view, is a personal account, by definition not objective. Albert's perceptions and opinions are not ideal, his mental portraits of people, even the closest relatives, like Minna or his sister Elfrida, seem to be far from reality (he sees Minna, a professor of astronomy, as completely removed from the world, whereas she seems to be more down to earth than he is - maybe his view is blurred by love?), and his actions, although well intended and thought through, quite often miss the point.

"Dean's December" is a great novel, a treatise on universal matters and a record of a fragment of our history, valuable both to American and international readers, There is nothing shallow, trivial or negligible, and nothing that could be easily forgotten of become obsolete.

Man against time
The Dean's December tells the story of Albert Corde, one of Bellow's memorably depicted intellectual characters, a Chicagoan of 'pullman car' gentility, a college dean and sometime journalist, who waits for a dying mother in law in chilly Romania, behind the Iron Curtain, and also for the result of a trial of two blacks accused of murdering a white student,A trial on which he has commented.

Corde is perfectly placed in his predicament for Bellow to explore the great themes that were brewing and swelling within his colossal mind at the time, some of them current and political, some of them the great eternal issues of life and existence. All are mixed in here. Corde reflects on the value of his intellectual life, surrounded by poverty and struggle in Romania, on the essence of virtue in ruthless capitalist societies where poetry and art are trampled by the one dimensional value axis of money versus poverty. Corde is a patrician intellectual, someone who escaped from the blocks fast in life, publishing an influential article on the Potsdame conference while still in his early twenties, but has stagnated along the way, in a similar manner to his precursor character Tommy Wilhelm in 'Sieze the Day'. Others, most notably the high flying political commentator Dewey Spengler have played the scales of life more practically, accepting society for what it is, eschewing old fashioned romanticism - their shared childhood reading of Shakespeare in Lincoln Park, and has played life as a political game. Corde, the philosopher, becomes trapped, and ponderous, much like Hamlet, and is denounced and outflanked by Spengler in a splendid denoument at the end of the novel.

Not all of the Dean's December is sublime. There are many passages displaying Bellow's worst fault - the pretentious, intellectual name dropping - Freud, Marx, existentialism, you name it, sprayed about the pages for show. But at its best, all Bellow's intellectual influenes combine to produce great mind grabs of paragraphs, astonishing stretches of prose that capture with great perceptive, aesthetic and stylish depth just what it is to be human. There is an incident at the beginning of the book (a famous incident, much commented on by the likes of Amis, McEwan and Rushdie) where a dog in Bucharest barks out against the limits of dog experience (for God's sake, open the universe a little more!). Bellow did just that. That is why he was so great.

Cold December
In this somewhat rambling novel Saul Bellow contrasts the life in communist Romania with that in Chicago. Basically it's an indictment of much in American society. Dean Albert Corde is in Romania with his wife Minna where her mother is dying in a hospital. Bureaucratic red tape makes it impossible for Minna to visit her mother, though finally she's permitted just one visit. Meanwhile, Corde is contemplating the fallout of some controversial articles he's written for "Harper's" on Afro-Americans and the underclass. Romanian society is depicted as cold (it's no accident the story takes place in winter) and distant, while America is shown to be disorderly and confused, especially in the inner cities. Some of Bellow's observations are acute, but too much of the novel is sacrificed to the dissection of ideas by means of seemingly endless conversations. The novel almost talks itself to death despite all the pertinent analyses of public issues, from prisons to public housing, that Bellow examines. Interestingly, Corde solves his problem as Dean by resigning, but the reader wonders what will be next for him: "I'm quiet enough as a rule," he says. "I don't like controversy." Somehow it's hard to believe Bellow would be satisfied with that self-assessment from the hero of this novel.

Surprisingly, One Of His Better Novels, But More Somber Than Most
I am a Bellow fan and have read most of his novels. After a while his books become like old friends. This is an excellent novel, but a bit slow and somber.

In case you are new to Bellow, his novels reflect his life, his writings, and his five marriages during his five active decades of writing. He hit his peak as a writer around the time of "Augie March" in 1953 and continued through to the Pulitzer novel "Humbolt's Gift" in 1973. He wrote from the early 1940s through to 2000. His novels are written in a narrative form, and the main character is a Jewish male, usually a writer but not always, and he is living in either in New York or Chicago. Bellow wrote approximately 13 novels and other works. The present novel - we can assume - reflects his own personal experiences of travelling to Romania in 1978, to attend the funeral of his mother-in-law, a former minister of health - similar to the story details of the book.

Bellow's style progressed a long way as a writer over the five decades. The early novels "Dangling Man" and "The Victim" were written 25 years before his peak. Those were heavy slow reads. "Dangling Man" is often boring, and Bellow was in search of his writing style in that period of the 1940s. Some compare his style in "Dangling Man" with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground." Having read both I would say that "Notes" is brilliant while "Dangling Man" is at best average and sometimes a bit boring. The book is well written and compact and many like that first book, but it was never a big seller.

His style changes with time, and the novels became more colorful such as "Augie March" or "Henderson the Rain King,"or in fact brilliant as in "Herzog" or expansive and entertaing such as in "Humbolt's Gift." In "Humbolt's Gift" the narrator Charlie Citrine, again a writer, tells us a bit about his philosophy of writing and the need to entertain. Some of these novels have a warmth and charm, and have a certain tongue in cheek approach in describing the trials and tribulations of the narrator. The humour is mixed inwith the meaning of life and the future of our souls. Along the way there are a few diversions such as "Mr. Sammler's Planet" where we see a much more serious individual but again there is a bit of humour with the character Sammler.

That bring us to the present book, written by an older Bellow, one perhaps a step past his prime. But that did not stop Bellow nor does it detract in any way from the book. In fact, as we see in "Ravelstein" a few decades later, Bellow does not lose his touch, but the novels continue to change and evolve. The present book is serious, almost completely lacking in humour, and there are no side stories about former wives, or criminals, etc.

Without giving away the plot - such as it is and it is weak like most Bellow novels - the book has two parallel stories but perhaps just one complicated theme. The parallel stories involve the visit by the narrator, Dean Albert Corde, and his wife Minna to Bucharest to visit Minna's dying mother in an ICU in a Soviet style hospital. Corde is the Dean of Journalism at a fictional Chicago university. That sets a rather grim and humourless cold war era tone. In Bucharest he meets up with an old friend, and now a famous journalist, Dewey Splanger. Unknown to Corde, Dewey is preparing a piece to be published on Corde and on their upbringings in Chicago four decades earlier. The second of the two parallel stories is the life of Corde as a Dean and the subject of his writings and life in general in urban Chicago. These events all seem to come together and converge in Bucharest in a wintry December. The general theme is the way Corde views of urban Chicago; the theme reflects his writings on urban affairs, and the impact of the university on society.

The book is a bit slow to start, average in length about 300 pages long, but once underway is a complelling but not a brisk read. It does not have those Bellow touches that we see in some other novels. But still, it is Bellow, and as in other novels he makes literary tangent after tangent off of the main subject describing every character in great detail, and sometimes time shifting back many decades. He paints a stark contrast bewteen the grey communist Bucharest and the colorful and the complex Chicago, run by the political machine.

In a later book, "Ravelstein," Bellow uses Allan Bloom as a character and I thought that there were touches of Bloom in the Corde character, especially in setting the theme and how Corde viewed Chicago: "Bloom was a professor of social thought and a noted translator of Plato and Rousseau." Bloom became famous and wealthy following his book "The Closing of the American Mind", about American values and the role of Higher Education. Bellow and Bloom taught together and Bellow wrote the forward for Bloom's most famous book.

From a biographical description of Bloom I have copied this note: "Bloom blamed high technology, the sexual revolution, and the introduction of cultural diversity into the curriculum at the expense of the classics, which in turn produced students without wisdom or values. According to Bloom, American democracy has unwittingly played host to vulgarized continental ideas of nihilism and despair, and of relativism disguised as tolerance."

Some of those themes are present in the current novel, as Bellow describes the disillusionment of Corde with the crime and poverty of urban Chicago and the role in society of his own Chicago university.

This novel was a lot better than I had expected, but it lacks the warmth and charm of some of his other works.

Recommend. 5 stars.

White Heat
The downside of being pugnacious and feisty is that people stop taking you seriously next time you jump into a scrap.This seems to be what happened to this undeservedly neglected book by a great and feisty American writer.

Known for bringing artistic beauty, dimensionality, and a golden aura of wisdom to his tough Chicago turf, Bellow here took the gloves off.His University of Chicago Dean hero struggles with injustice and cynicism at its rawest, when he becomes engaged with the cavalier Chicago criminal justice system and its disgustingly casual response to the murder of a student.Counterpoint is meaningfully provided by the death of an old relative behind the iron curtain, whom the Dean visits.As in Lear, the subplot is no relief at all, merely stokes the flames of the main plot and brings Bellow's fury with the modern world to a white heat.Thus we are denied mere sociological or political excuses for our modern mayhem; the focus is what has gone wrong with our hearts the world over.Never has Bellow been more engaged or convincing.Indeed Bellow sacrifices something of his usual high gloss artistic finish to this product in the process, perhaps intentionally and savagely.

Yeah, he wants to stick it in your face and it shows.This is doubtless what offends some readers.Nevertheless it is a worthy response to having just received the Nobel Prize.Most writers, American and otherwise, react by self-inflating to sanctimoniously gracious gas bags.Saul knew who he was, however, and never let anyone fool him on that score.

I cannot recommend the real life portraiture and painting that shines through this text highly enough.It is entirely genuine, real, perfect,matchlessly true.I frankly know of no better Chicago novel.

To be fair, however, I must warn you that the 2 respected readers I know, who read this one cover to cover, were almost viscerally angry afterwards for having done so.Ultimately the experience only underscored to me the difficulties of succeeding in fiction, of making it that real.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (66)

A good read but lust lacking something
I am a Saul Bellow fan, and whilst I enjoyed Henderson the Rain King, it seemed to lack something.The story is about Gene Henderson a loud and obnoxious American millionaire who one day decides to go to Africa to satisfy some inner need. The first third of the book is very amusing culminating in his extermination of the frog plague and unfortunately also tribes water supply.However when Henderson gets to the second tribe what starts out as an interesting story gets bogged down in metaphysical discussions with the king, Dahfu.Ultimately Henderson returns home, no longer the cynical person he was at the beginning, but rather a person who rejoices and celebrates life. However the connection between his experiences and his transformation are not very clear, leaving us to ask what brought about the change in his outlook.

"Is it any wonder I had to go to Africa?"
What do Saul Bellow, Joni Mitchell, Sonic Youth, Counting Crows, and the X-Files all have in common?In his novel, Henderson the Rain King (1959), Bellow (1915-2005) blends philosophy and comic adventure to tell the story of 55-year-old Eugene Henderson who, despite his wealth, is unhappy with "the disorderly rush" of his life."All is grief," he says, "my parents, my wives, my girls, my children, my farm, my animals, my habits, my money, my music lessons, my drunkeness, my prejudices, my brutality, my teeth, my face, my soul" (p. 3).He asks, "is it any wonder I had to go to Africa?"In an attempt to escape his troubled existence and the voice in his heart saying, "I want, I want, I want," Henderson sets off for Africa.Upon his arrival, he hires a native guide (Romilayu), who leads him to the village of the Arnewi, where the village water supply is plagued by frogs. After traveling to another village (Wariri), the natives mistake Henderson for the Wariri Rain King, and he becomes friends with the village's western-educated king (King Dahfu), who teaches him how to fill his spiritual void.Transformed from The King of Pain to The King of Rain by his African experience, Henderson returns to America claiming to see life from both sides now, to "dream both upward and downward.""We are the first generation to see the clouds from both sides," he says."What a privilege!First people dreamed upward.Now they dream both upward and downward.This is bound to change something, somewhere" (p. 280).Bellow's novel was not only the inspiration for Joni Mitchell's 1967 song, "Both Sides Now," it was also the inspiration for Sonic Youth's song, "Rain King," (on the Daydream Nation cd), for the Counting Crows' song, "Rain King," (on the August and Everything After cd), and for the X-Files' episode, "Rain King," in which agents Mulder and Scully investigate a man who claims to control the weather.

Henderson's mid-life search for meaning is a prominent theme in Bellow's novels. It resurfaces, for instance, in his Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, Humboldt's Gift (Penguin Classics) (1975), where Bellow's middle-aged protagonist, Charlie Citrine, observes "how sad about all this human nonsense which keeps us from the large truth."Among Bellow's novels, critics consider Henderson the Rain King either his best or worst work, but Bellow reportedly considered it his personal favorite. It is ranks at 21 on Modern Library's list of The 100 Best Novels.

G. Merritt

I didn't like it...
The blurbs on the book cover promised laughs. There weren't any. This book made the MLA 100. I'm mystified why. It is competently written, I admit, but Henderson is an unlikable jerk, and the dialogue given him by Bellow is ridiculous. I didn't care if Henderson lived or died; I didn't care what Henderson thought; I didn't care about the book. I wanted to hurry up and finish the damned thing, already.

Absurd but engaging Africa, a great writer.
First of all who am I to review a Pulitzer prize winner?Anyhow, this book was very highly recommended to me by my friend, an English college professor.He knew I had lived for two years in Africa and enjoyed good writing.

The verdict: Bellow is undoubtably a great writer.This book is an unusual vehicle to showcase his talent.I had a hard time liking Henderson, the main character, too much of an ugly american but with a subtle side with some charitable nature.The Africa detailed here is too fantastic, a tribal fantasy but it is a clever way to bring the adverturesome Henderson into contact with King Dahfu.King Dahfu is the highly educated African caught between the western world and his traditional home.Some of the best writing in the book comes in the dialogue between Henderson and Dahfu as they encounter Dahfu's captured deadly lioness in the dungeon. Somehow they wage wits over man's stuggle for meaning while dodging the circling lioness.There were additional sections that had me laughing out loud at Henderson's predicaments.

There are brilliant lines in this book, lines that make you pause to savor them, scenes vividly painted and strong emotion, enough here that makes me want to read more from Bellow even if it isn't about Africa.

A LARGE MAN, A SPECIAL FRIEND AND A LION CUB
This is such an entertaining novel.Henderson is a colorful and honest narrator and his story becomes surprising real to the reader.It has been over a week since I finished Henderson the Rain King and it is still vivid in my memory.I started my Saul Bellow collection with the Adventures of Augie March and I did not find Augie to be a likeable hero.Henderson is a very flawed man, but is touching in his struggles.This book is a brilliant reminder of the powers of friendship. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

the deepest of the comparisons of the US and the Communist Eastern Europe- and more.
After receiving the Nobel Prize in literature, Saul Bellow produced "Dean's December", another extraordinary masterpiece. Probably the most insightful of the wave of novels which appeared in the West after some of the writers managed to travel behind the Iron Curtain, this is the story of Albert Corde, the University Dean and journalist from Chicago, who travels with his Romanian wife, Minna, to Bucharest when Minna's mother, Valeria, is at the hospital in critical condition after a stroke.

Dean Corde, as an America in the Communist Romania (annoyingly called Rumania which I believe was common in English several decades ago, although incorrect), is protected by his wife's family, not advised to left the house by himself, and alienated by the language barrier, effectively being left alone, with scarce contacts with Minna's family (despite his strong feelings for them and his will to help). Staying alone in his wife's childhood room at Valeria's apartment, which is occupied also by an elderly aunt, Tanti Gigi, the Dean cannot even read books, being essentially a benevolent prisoner; so he immerses himself in thoughts, disturbing and worrying, his problems remaining unsolved and new problems appearing during this cold December. The professional matters, left in Chicago, mingle with the personal in Bucharest, and each has an element of another in it. Although the narrative is in the third person, it is clear that most of it is told from Albert's point of view and is, essentially, a stream of his thoughts, a monologue (with a phone conversation, a discussion with Minna, or some letters here and there).

Albert has left Chicago in the middle of being involved in the trial of the death of one of his students, where the two accused are a pair of black inhabitants of the city - a prostitute and a man whose actions are dubious, but who is a friend of Albert's nephew, Mason. Mason tries to convince Albert that his friend could not kill the student, and uses clever arguments, which - Albert admits to himself - are better than he is able to rebuke.
Because the Dean caused some stirrup with his articles (after all, he is not a true academic, as he reminds the reader quite often - he is a journalist) about the structure of the Chicago society, he feels he cannot count on the University authorities and feels a bit lost in the whole affair while he is in Romania.

In Bucharest, he tries to be helpful to his wife, who is not permitted to see her mother dying in the hospital for the privileged (as she was both a well-established doctor and married to one, in spite of her leaving the party and being condemned and then rehabilitated, but never fully accepted by the regime, she was allowed this last favor), and summons all the diplomatic help he can get - he negotiates with the Ambassador and meets his childhood friend, Dawey Spangler, now an acclaimed political journalists, who also promises to do anything for help.

Valerie's death on Christmas Eve provides an anti-climax, because it really does not provide relief, does not solve any of the trouble on either side, and although the Dean and Minna can return to Chicago, they are as disturbed as back in Romania.

The novel is a slow thought-provoking read, written in dense and intelligent prose. The Dean is another impersonation of Bellow's intellectual, expressing the author's thoughts. And I can see why Bellow likes so much this type of main character (maybe aside from being close to such people in reality?). An intellectual, an academic, is a good model protagonist whose philosophizing, and constant literary associations can be excused, and who gives in exchange a background of knowledge, insightful and perturbed mind, and idealistic attitude which can be used for the best presentation of the views the author wishes to show here. The story is a tale of two cities, very different - one a place under the oppression of the dictatorial Communist system, the other the American dream not without political and social trouble of its own. And the question, which immediately comes to mind: what makes people, the core of any society, better? The freedom, or at least apparent freedom, and material well being, or the lack of it all, forcing people to stick together and help each other in any possible way, and to appreciate even the smallest bits of cultural and economical normality.
In the other aspect, this novel, although clearly an attempt at objectivism from Albert's point of view, is a personal account, by definition not objective. Albert's perceptions and opinions are not ideal, his mental portraits of people, even the closest relatives, like Minna or his sister Elfrida, seem to be far from reality (he sees Minna, a professor of astronomy, as completely removed from the world, whereas she seems to be more down to earth than he is - maybe his view is blurred by love?), and his actions, although well intended and thought through, quite often miss the point.

"Dean's December" is a great novel, a treatise on universal matters and a record of a fragment of our history, valuable both to American and international readers, There is nothing shallow, trivial or negligible, and nothing that could be easily forgotten of become obsolete.

Man against time
The Dean's December tells the story of Albert Corde, one of Bellow's memorably depicted intellectual characters, a Chicagoan of 'pullman car' gentility, a college dean and sometime journalist, who waits for a dying mother in law in chilly Romania, behind the Iron Curtain, and also for the result of a trial of two blacks accused of murdering a white student,A trial on which he has commented.

Corde is perfectly placed in his predicament for Bellow to explore the great themes that were brewing and swelling within his colossal mind at the time, some of them current and political, some of them the great eternal issues of life and existence. All are mixed in here. Corde reflects on the value of his intellectual life, surrounded by poverty and struggle in Romania, on the essence of virtue in ruthless capitalist societies where poetry and art are trampled by the one dimensional value axis of money versus poverty. Corde is a patrician intellectual, someone who escaped from the blocks fast in life, publishing an influential article on the Potsdame conference while still in his early twenties, but has stagnated along the way, in a similar manner to his precursor character Tommy Wilhelm in 'Sieze the Day'. Others, most notably the high flying political commentator Dewey Spengler have played the scales of life more practically, accepting society for what it is, eschewing old fashioned romanticism - their shared childhood reading of Shakespeare in Lincoln Park, and has played life as a political game. Corde, the philosopher, becomes trapped, and ponderous, much like Hamlet, and is denounced and outflanked by Spengler in a splendid denoument at the end of the novel.

Not all of the Dean's December is sublime. There are many passages displaying Bellow's worst fault - the pretentious, intellectual name dropping - Freud, Marx, existentialism, you name it, sprayed about the pages for show. But at its best, all Bellow's intellectual influenes combine to produce great mind grabs of paragraphs, astonishing stretches of prose that capture with great perceptive, aesthetic and stylish depth just what it is to be human. There is an incident at the beginning of the book (a famous incident, much commented on by the likes of Amis, McEwan and Rushdie) where a dog in Bucharest barks out against the limits of dog experience (for God's sake, open the universe a little more!). Bellow did just that. That is why he was so great.

Cold December
In this somewhat rambling novel Saul Bellow contrasts the life in communist Romania with that in Chicago. Basically it's an indictment of much in American society. Dean Albert Corde is in Romania with his wife Minna where her mother is dying in a hospital. Bureaucratic red tape makes it impossible for Minna to visit her mother, though finally she's permitted just one visit. Meanwhile, Corde is contemplating the fallout of some controversial articles he's written for "Harper's" on Afro-Americans and the underclass. Romanian society is depicted as cold (it's no accident the story takes place in winter) and distant, while America is shown to be disorderly and confused, especially in the inner cities. Some of Bellow's observations are acute, but too much of the novel is sacrificed to the dissection of ideas by means of seemingly endless conversations. The novel almost talks itself to death despite all the pertinent analyses of public issues, from prisons to public housing, that Bellow examines. Interestingly, Corde solves his problem as Dean by resigning, but the reader wonders what will be next for him: "I'm quiet enough as a rule," he says. "I don't like controversy." Somehow it's hard to believe Bellow would be satisfied with that self-assessment from the hero of this novel.

Surprisingly, One Of His Better Novels, But More Somber Than Most
I am a Bellow fan and have read most of his novels. After a while his books become like old friends. This is an excellent novel, but a bit slow and somber.

In case you are new to Bellow, his novels reflect his life, his writings, and his five marriages during his five active decades of writing. He hit his peak as a writer around the time of "Augie March" in 1953 and continued through to the Pulitzer novel "Humbolt's Gift" in 1973. He wrote from the early 1940s through to 2000. His novels are written in a narrative form, and the main character is a Jewish male, usually a writer but not always, and he is living in either in New York or Chicago. Bellow wrote approximately 13 novels and other works. The present novel - we can assume - reflects his own personal experiences of travelling to Romania in 1978, to attend the funeral of his mother-in-law, a former minister of health - similar to the story details of the book.

Bellow's style progressed a long way as a writer over the five decades. The early novels "Dangling Man" and "The Victim" were written 25 years before his peak. Those were heavy slow reads. "Dangling Man" is often boring, and Bellow was in search of his writing style in that period of the 1940s. Some compare his style in "Dangling Man" with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground." Having read both I would say that "Notes" is brilliant while "Dangling Man" is at best average and sometimes a bit boring. The book is well written and compact and many like that first book, but it was never a big seller.

His style changes with time, and the novels became more colorful such as "Augie March" or "Henderson the Rain King,"or in fact brilliant as in "Herzog" or expansive and entertaing such as in "Humbolt's Gift." In "Humbolt's Gift" the narrator Charlie Citrine, again a writer, tells us a bit about his philosophy of writing and the need to entertain. Some of these novels have a warmth and charm, and have a certain tongue in cheek approach in describing the trials and tribulations of the narrator. The humour is mixed inwith the meaning of life and the future of our souls. Along the way there are a few diversions such as "Mr. Sammler's Planet" where we see a much more serious individual but again there is a bit of humour with the character Sammler.

That bring us to the present book, written by an older Bellow, one perhaps a step past his prime. But that did not stop Bellow nor does it detract in any way from the book. In fact, as we see in "Ravelstein" a few decades later, Bellow does not lose his touch, but the novels continue to change and evolve. The present book is serious, almost completely lacking in humour, and there are no side stories about former wives, or criminals, etc.

Without giving away the plot - such as it is and it is weak like most Bellow novels - the book has two parallel stories but perhaps just one complicated theme. The parallel stories involve the visit by the narrator, Dean Albert Corde, and his wife Minna to Bucharest to visit Minna's dying mother in an ICU in a Soviet style hospital. Corde is the Dean of Journalism at a fictional Chicago university. That sets a rather grim and humourless cold war era tone. In Bucharest he meets up with an old friend, and now a famous journalist, Dewey Splanger. Unknown to Corde, Dewey is preparing a piece to be published on Corde and on their upbringings in Chicago four decades earlier. The second of the two parallel stories is the life of Corde as a Dean and the subject of his writings and life in general in urban Chicago. These events all seem to come together and converge in Bucharest in a wintry December. The general theme is the way Corde views of urban Chicago; the theme reflects his writings on urban affairs, and the impact of the university on society.

The book is a bit slow to start, average in length about 300 pages long, but once underway is a complelling but not a brisk read. It does not have those Bellow touches that we see in some other novels. But still, it is Bellow, and as in other novels he makes literary tangent after tangent off of the main subject describing every character in great detail, and sometimes time shifting back many decades. He paints a stark contrast bewteen the grey communist Bucharest and the colorful and the complex Chicago, run by the political machine.

In a later book, "Ravelstein," Bellow uses Allan Bloom as a character and I thought that there were touches of Bloom in the Corde character, especially in setting the theme and how Corde viewed Chicago: "Bloom was a professor of social thought and a noted translator of Plato and Rousseau." Bloom became famous and wealthy following his book "The Closing of the American Mind", about American values and the role of Higher Education. Bellow and Bloom taught together and Bellow wrote the forward for Bloom's most famous book.

From a biographical description of Bloom I have copied this note: "Bloom blamed high technology, the sexual revolution, and the introduction of cultural diversity into the curriculum at the expense of the classics, which in turn produced students without wisdom or values. According to Bloom, American democracy has unwittingly played host to vulgarized continental ideas of nihilism and despair, and of relativism disguised as tolerance."

Some of those themes are present in the current novel, as Bellow describes the disillusionment of Corde with the crime and poverty of urban Chicago and the role in society of his own Chicago university.

This novel was a lot better than I had expected, but it lacks the warmth and charm of some of his other works.

Recommend. 5 stars.

White Heat
The downside of being pugnacious and feisty is that people stop taking you seriously next time you jump into a scrap.This seems to be what happened to this undeservedly neglected book by a great and feisty American writer.

Known for bringing artistic beauty, dimensionality, and a golden aura of wisdom to his tough Chicago turf, Bellow here took the gloves off.His University of Chicago Dean hero struggles with injustice and cynicism at its rawest, when he becomes engaged with the cavalier Chicago criminal justice system and its disgustingly casual response to the murder of a student.Counterpoint is meaningfully provided by the death of an old relative behind the iron curtain, whom the Dean visits.As in Lear, the subplot is no relief at all, merely stokes the flames of the main plot and brings Bellow's fury with the modern world to a white heat.Thus we are denied mere sociological or political excuses for our modern mayhem; the focus is what has gone wrong with our hearts the world over.Never has Bellow been more engaged or convincing.Indeed Bellow sacrifices something of his usual high gloss artistic finish to this product in the process, perhaps intentionally and savagely.

Yeah, he wants to stick it in your face and it shows.This is doubtless what offends some readers.Nevertheless it is a worthy response to having just received the Nobel Prize.Most writers, American and otherwise, react by self-inflating to sanctimoniously gracious gas bags.Saul knew who he was, however, and never let anyone fool him on that score.

I cannot recommend the real life portraiture and painting that shines through this text highly enough.It is entirely genuine, real, perfect,matchlessly true.I frankly know of no better Chicago novel.

To be fair, however, I must warn you that the 2 respected readers I know, who read this one cover to cover, were almost viscerally angry afterwards for having done so.Ultimately the experience only underscored to me the difficulties of succeeding in fiction, of making it that real.

... Read more

Amazon.com
James Atlas is a little self-conscious about having spent 10 years writing Bellow: A Biography, but it's hard to imagine how the job could have been done any more quickly. Clearly Bellow, in addition to being one of the 20th century's most acclaimed and prolific novelists, was also one of the most peripatetic. Not the least of his maneuvers were his efforts to dodge biographers, though Atlas's determination eventually wore him down ("He realized that you weren't going away," Bellow's son tells Atlas). The result is a full-scale biography in the tradition of Richard Ellmann's James Joyce--in other words, the biography that a writer and cultural figure as important as Saul Bellow deserves.

Bellow fans won't be surprised by the details of Bellow's life, many of which are familiar from his novels and essays: youthful Trotsky clubs; waiting to be called up into WWII; lifelong enthusiasm for anthropology, philosophy, European literature, and other Great Books; sarcastic wit that verges on the malicious; friendships and rivalries with Delmore Schwartz, Isaac Rosenfeld, Edward Shils, Allan Bloom, Ralph Ellison, and other literati; innumerable wives, lovers, divorce lawyers, child-custody battles, and alimony struggles; big-shot brothers who disparage intellectuals; and of course, his beloved city of Chicago. Atlas, himself a Chicago native from the generation behind Bellow, covers all of this with patience and considerable authority, balancing Bellow's lively, fictionalized accounts with a helpful amount of historical background.

Atlas is also very good at establishing parallels between the tone of Bellow's novels and his mood at the time of writing them. Often the two are so closely intertwined it's not clear which came first: the freewheeling style of The Adventures of Augie March, for example, or the exhilarating period in Bellow's life that accompanied it. ("The book just came to me," Bellow wrote. "All I had to do was be there with buckets to catch it.")Similar parallels include the Flaubertian perfectionism of the early novels, the cuckold's outrage that inspired Herzog, the fame and loss that pervade Humboldt's Gift, the despair of The Dean's December, and the senescent recollection of The Actual and Ravelstein.

In a preface, Atlas, who is also the editor of the Penguin Lives biography series, describes the most discerning biographies as those "imbued with a profound sympathy for their subject's foibles and failings--imbued, to put it plainly, with love." One suspects that Atlas began this biographer-subject marriage with more love than remained when he finished; his disappointment with Bellow's character flaws (such as Bellow's tendency to portray himself as a blameless victim and his stubbornly anachronistic attitude toward women) is palpable. But his criticism of Bellow the man is always measured, and it has the nice effect of placing some of the more unsavory elements of Bellow's fiction in a kind of context. Bellow might not inspire a complete rethinking of Bellow's work, but it's a compelling reminder of its many pleasures. --John Ponyicsanyi Book Description
With this masterly and original work, Bellow: A Biography, National Book Award nominee James Atlas gives the first definitive account of the Nobel Prize–winning author’s turbulent personal and professional life, as it unfolded against the background of twentieth-century events—the Depression, World War II, the upheavals of the sixties—and amid all the complexities of the Jewish-immigrant experience in America, which generated a vibrant new literature.

Drawing upon a vast body of original research, including Bellow’s extensive correspondence with Ralph Ellison, Delmore Schwartz, John Berryman, Robert Penn Warren, John Cheever, and many other luminaries of the twentieth-century literary community, Atlas weaves a rich and revealing portrait of one of the most talented and enigmatic figures in American intellectual history.

Detailing Bellow’s volatile marriages and numerous tempestuous relation-ships with women, publishers, and friends, Bellow: A Biography is a magnificent chronicle of one of the premier writers in the English language, whose prize-winning works include Herzog, The Adventures of Augie March, and, most recently, Ravelstein. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

A 600 page inferiority complex
Why on earth was this book published in the first place? It is clear from the off that James Atlas has a grudge against Saul Bellow - based on no other reason that he is bitterly jealous of his literary success - and he launches into a badly written and ill informed diatribe attempting to explain Saul Bellow's progression through life and understand his motives as those of a deeply insecure emotional coward. And the adjectives are a disgrace. Take this for an example, when Bellow is asked what his son will do on a sabbatical in Paris: ''F*ck' his brains out' said Bellow, dismissively', Atlas records. Dismissively! No way. Lovingly, perhaps, or enviously. But never dismissively.

James Atlas you should be ashamed of yourself. You know nothing of what made Bellow tick, this book is a cynical and parasitical attempt to cash in on his legacy.

Too much of a good thing
I thought that I would love this book because I love the work of Bellow,andlove literary biographies. But the book proved to be too much of a good thing. It is one thing to have the guilty pleasure of finding out the details of the personal life of one's hero but when that takes one through five marriages and numerous affairs the soul begins to weary. Atlas also whether he wanted to or not gives the sense of Bellow as a kind of narcissistic, selfish person who does not really show proper consideration of those closest to him. This image was for me in a way disappointing and there is the sense that the person who has created so much vibrant, and life- giving literature must essentially be better than this. One thing however the book certainly does underline and that is Bellow's determination as a writer, his devotion to his work, the sense of his own special destiny which he bore with him all the time.

bla bla bla
For some reason many of the authors we read are very interesting people, more interesting then the books they write. Dickens and Hemingway to name just a few. In this case Bellow's books are way more interesting then his bio. There could of been a lot more about his books and a lot less of the author tip toeing around what a terrible selfish egotistcal and boring person Saul Bellow is. That he pretty much used relationships to get writing material and feed that ego. Any way read his books, Bellow is a great writer, I think, and wait for Bellow to pass on to his just reward. Hopefuly someone then will write a good Bio.

First-rate Bio For the Selective Bellow Fan
I am a Bellow fan, and aware of the upset this book caused with some, but thought Atlas's critique was very often on the mark.Bellow's early, short, novels are tightly-written, well-constructed American classics of alieanation - Dangling Man, Seize the Day and The Victim, for example.But Atlas zeroes in on the problems of the later, longer books that too often make up the core of university teaching lists - these longer books start off brilliantly, then pad out with a hundred extra pages or so of name-dropping and bizarre philosophizing (some of which belongs in the Chariots of the Gods category), and I think Atlas is right when he says Bellow's early, impoverished immigrant background left him with a strong desire to show off intellectually later in life, to the detriment of his work.Perhaps in his early days Bellow was insecure in a different way, in the right way, not allowing himself any self-indulgence in his early work and thus pulling off the indisputable classics that Dangling Man, et al, are.

This is a slightly odd biography in the sense that it will really, I think, most appeal to readers who pick and choose their fiction based more on the quality of the individual work, rather than those who have invested terms or years studying or teaching a particular author-personality - the most committed Bellow's fans will not like it, but those more detached will find this a very enjoyable and enlightening read.Newcomers to Bellow may wish to read a couple of his early, short books, before deciding if the later, more controversial novels, or this biography, are for them.I thought it a great read.

A moralistic, hectoring, but indispensable work
Everyone who loves Bellow will need to read this book.It is breathtaking in its thoroughness.It is a very detailed, masterful description of Bellow's life and work, though perhaps a bit more "life" than "work". There is a question of whether quite as much life, especially love life, is really needed, but then the reader of this biography will get insights not only into Bellow's life but also into the life of our time.Atlas obviously has tremedous admiration for Bellow, and the reader ofthis biography -- THIS reader did-- will go away with a far greater appreciation of Bellow than he had before. And yet there is a problem in Atlkas's disapproval of aspects of Bellow's life.There are no doubt moments in Bellow's exhuberant public pronouncements where prudence would have required more tact and more taste, but Atlas surely goes too far when he accuses Bellow -- repeatedly ! -- of suchnon-PC lapses as "racism" and "misogyny".On the evidence, these accusations are unwarranted, in my opinion. ... Read more

Book Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Novels for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: plot summary; character analysis; author biography; an overview of the novel's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Novels For Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Thomson Gale--and "Novels for Students."Download Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Novels for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: plot summary; character analysis; author biography; an overview of the novel's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Novels For Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: The Gale Group--and "Novels for Students." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

20th century man.
Saul Bellow has limitless intellect,although he would deny he is an intellectual. To him,intellectuals get bogged down in the cul de sac of ideologies;attempting to sort out societies problems and the meaning of life via philosophies infected by the mood of the times;philosohies that ignore mans endless desires of individualism,curiosity and the need to be free.Ideologies that just add further to the mess. Bellow looks for what is human through art and literature,which is a refuge for our soul. All of this beams through Bellows essays.He transcends mere intellectualism and operates on a higher plain.He has no desire to 'do the good thing' or appear 'liberal' if it means having to lie to achieve it.His clash with Gunter Grass-who unbeknown to Bellow and the World at the time had a rather nasty skeleton in his closet-comes to mind. Grass in his politics and self righteous ranting is given the moral high ground by using deception-by doing the right thing;appearing liberal.But as people like Richard Wright found of the 'liberal' North,the attitude was all hot air.The blacks were no more accepted there than the South.They were 'accepted' as long as they stuck to the black belt areas.That truth would have destroyed many a liberal;many a do gooder,as it was a reality they knew of but hid from view.Bellow lives in this area of revelation.
His recollections of Roosevelt,the war,Yom Kippur,Paris....all wonderful. This is a wonderful insight into the greatest mind of the 20th century.

A vitality of ideas
Everything that Bellow writes has vitality. His fictional works are energized by ideas. His faith in literature and his devotion to his craft are unquestioning and are much evidenced in these essays. So are his great learning and committment to the world and life of the mind. I have always had trouble however understanding where Bellow 's overall view of the world really centers. My guess it is in the devotion to the writing life and not in any formal system of philosophical or religious thought, though I know he has been in some way connected with Rudolf Steiner's thought. In any case there is a richness of mind at work much insight in this work.

The Fundamental Things Apply
Reader's of Bellow's fiction, with its occasionally essayistic elements, will not be surprised by his interest in the history of ideas. This essay collection covers some of that interest during Bellow's 40 years or so of writing fiction, along with biographical and autobiographical sketches, interviews, and speeches such as his Nobel Lecture.

What are Bellow's philosophical interests? Often he returns to the difficulties and responsibilities of the writer in the modern world. He is particularly occupied by how art, which his fiction aspires to be, acts as a momentary stay against various contemporary discontents and distractions. "For some liberation (perhaps pseudoliberation) is the higher aim. Or the shattering of icons. Or restlessness without limits." For his part Bellow agrees with Joseph Conrad, another novelists who set high standards for his work, and who stated: "Art attempts to find in the universe, in matter as well as in the facts of life, what is fundamental, enduring, essential." These fundamentals are also sometimes referred to as "eternal verities" and the "permanent things."

Bellow contrasts what he is trying to achieve with what intellectuals, particularly in the academic world, are trying to achieve. He scorns the repeated attempts by professors and critics to politicize literature. For Bellow "activist" art is impossible because art by definition "leads to contemplative states, to wonderful and sacred states of the soul." In short, to a temporary surcease of "busyness." The passages in Bellow's novels that some readers have difficulty with -- the introspection, musing, and shuffling back and forth -- are philosophical, not political. One might contrast Bellow's philosophizing with John Irving's editorializing, such as the passage in Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany about the Iran-Contra hearings, in which Irving pontificates at great length on an irrelevant topic in what was otherwise a fine novel.

By contrast, moreover, I find the following statement by Bellow to be a measure of humility, from a man who has lived enough to earn it: "The world owes (the novelist) nothing, and he has no business to be indignant with it on behalf of the novel."

One might add, via Henry James that art, by definition, must be produced by a fine mind. Bellow's fine mind is quite evident here, searching, defining, delineating, reflecting, and eulogizing. Readers of Bellow's fiction will find their understanding deepened by these rare glimpses into the philosophical and biographical foundations of his work.

A very valuable collection of essays
It All Adds Up, a collection of essays, written with Saul Bellow's great human insight, literary qualities and dry wit. Of course for everybody whom have read Herzog, Humboldt's Gift, The Adventures of Augie March andHenderson the Rain King should just run and get hold of a copy of thisbook, but honestly: anyone enjoying quality literature and are curious onlife, art, politics and about how one of America's greatest authors shareof his reflections and anecdotes, will probably enjoy this book. The onlycollection of essays I can think of, that come near this, is HermannHesse's My Belief. It is just such a pleasure to know, that in addition toBellow's novels, there exist a book like It All Adds Up. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Philisophical search for meaning
I came across this old book on the shelves of my local public library "Books for Sale" area.From the moment I saw it, it was a novella that I wanted to read, since I have not read Saul Bellow's books for a while.What a pleasant suprise this book has been.Main character is middle aged Clara in her forties,executive in the NYC fashion magazine, woman in her fourth marriage that produced three daughters.It seems that Clara's successful professional life is in complete contrast with her personal life. All of her past husbands were either boring or self indulgent and the man she wanted most in her life is out of reach.Her only connection to him is the emerald ring he gave her 20 years ago in her forced attempt to get engaged to him; their enduring long distance friendship (he lives in Washington, DC while she is in NYC) and her sessions shared between a female friend confidante and a psychotherapist.As we observe Clara, we realize that she is detached from her reality -- we barely learn about her work; we know nothing about her relationship with her daughters since they are conveniently taken care of by the nannies and other house help.Clara's musings on her life dwell on her past and herself and she projects all of her intense feelings on the object of her desire -- the emerald ring.In the course of the novella this object gets lost twice.Each time, the object is found.In every one of these instances, Clara learns a little bit about herself that neither her long time friends, nor her psychiatrist manage to discover in the years that she has been sharing her intimate feelings with them.This is a multi-layered novella and the beauty of it is that in she short 100 pages, Bellow has managed to put so much in.The book will keep you thinking for a long, long time.Great read about one's relfection, alientation and meaning of life.

a good read
I enjoyed this novella and found it to be the easiest to read of Bellow's works.I loved the moral dilemma the protagonist faces at the end of the book when the stolen ring is less than "stolen".Some of the other people who wrote reviews said it was slow going, but in some way it's just a slow buildup of the elements and tension in a whodunit where you really have to get a good idea of what the people in the story are like before you can fully appreciate what the event really means in the characters' lives.
It reads very quickly and leaves you amused at the antics of these sophisticated (but maybe not so very sophisticated) Gothamites.

I Never Thought I Would Give Bellow Three Stars !
Born near Montreal in 1915, Bellow is thought of as a Chicago writer who wrote about life in urban America. His novels feature smooth flowing prose and he won a Nobel Prize in 1976. He hit his peak as a writer between "Augie March" in 1953 and the Pulitzer novel "Humbolt's Gift" in 1973. He wrote from the early 1940s through to 2000. I read 12 of his 13 novels, plus short stories plus this 109 page novella.

When he taught in 1938, he used a reading list which included: Lawrence, Dostoevsky, Dreiser, Joyce, and Flaubert. They were pioneers in realism. Realism became a feature of his novels, and that includes the way in which he treats subjects such as sex, life, death, and the search for self.

All of that is missing here and if anyone thinks this weak 109 page novella from 1989 is a good introduction to the master and Nobel Prize winner they are dead wrong. This is a slow starting novel. Overall it is a weak effort with not much of a finish after 109 pages. At best one is left scratching their head: what is it about? What was the point here? Did I miss something? I went back and read the last 10 pages twice. No you missed nothing. There is not much there.

As a point of reference compare it to The Actual, a similar novella by Bellow. The Actual, which itself is a weaker effort by Bellow, is at least twice as good as A Theft, i.e: it has a good story, interesting characters, some human emotion, etc.

No, this is not Bellow's best nor is it a good introduction to Bellow. It is weak, very, very weak. This book is not to be confused with the best of Saul Bellow or even his average works that he did decades earlier. For example, read Bellow's Herzog written 30 years before and be blown away by excellent writing, the time shifting, the overlays of plots, the multi-layered plot, the stunning prose, and innovation in literature, etc. There is no comparison.

The readers have given an average review rating here of only three stars, somewhat shocking for Bellow, and that pretty well is on the mark compared to his body of work. Neutral to negative recommendation: 3 stars.

For those new to Bellow try these: Humboldt's Gift (Penguin Classics) 1975 Pulitzer Prize, or Herzog (complicated), 1964 National Book Prize, or Ravelstein,for something written when he was older, or the novella The Actual, or his Collected Stories.

Maybe an editor could have turned this into a short story...
After wading through 30-40 pages of this...thing...I did not set it aside lightly; I threw it with great force. Granted, this was my first foray into Bellow, but I can't help but think that, if not for the name on the cover, this piece of self-indulgent crap would never have been published. Or maybe an editor would have had the guts to actually edit out the pages and pages and pages of Bellow being in love with the sound of his own voice.

A Superb Intrigue
This 1989 work is a good introduction to the style of writing that Saul Bellow became famous for.It is a light-hearted story of intrigue mixed with heart-warming characters who are so vividly portrayed.For the uninitiated this is a good beginning for those who would dare to read more by Bellow.If you like this you will love Herzog and Humbolt's Gift.If not, it is my guess that neither of these works would be a satisfying read and even difficult to finish. ... Read more

Book Description
Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of More Die of Heartbreak, has left his native Paris for the Midwest. He has come to be near his beloved uncle, the world-renowned botanist Benn Crader, self-described “plant visionary.” While his studies take him around the world, Benn, a restless spirit, has not been able to satisfy his longings after his first marriage and lives from affair to affair and from “bliss to breakdown.” Imagining that a settled existence will end his anguish, Benn ties the knot again, opening the door to a flood of new torments. As Kenneth grapples with his own problems involving his unusual lady-friend Treckie, the two men try to figure out why gifted and intelligent people invariably find themselves “knee-deep in the garbage of a personal life.” ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Another Bellow Surprise: Turning the Tables Men vs Women
Just when you think that you understand Bellow, this book comes along. This is a new version with an interesting 17 page introduction by Martin Amis. It is based on a talk that he gave at a Bellow conference in Haifa, Israel.

I am a Bellow fan, read all of his novels, and wrote an Amazon guide: "A Guide to Reading Bellow." The present book is excellent. If I had to recommend just one, it would be "Herzog." but saying that, the present book is a surprise, like a breath of fresh air. Some of his novels have a warmth and charm, and have a certain tongue in cheek approach in describing the trials and tribulations of the narrator. The humour is mixed in with the meaning of our short lives, and the future of our souls. Bellow thought that the development of realism was the major event of modern literature. That includes how we view subjects such as sex, life and death, etc. Having said that, we see two changes here. One is that in most Bellow novels the men dominate the women, or they are equal. Yes, the women often divorce our hero in other works, but here the men are like putty in the hands of the women. The story is about their attempts to get married, each to quite a different type of woman. Also, instead of one narrator, the present narrator, Kenneth, is so close to his uncle Benn that it seems like the story about two people not one. There lives are interconnected by close communication.

In case you are new to Bellow, his novels reflect his life, his writings, and his five marriages during his five active decades of writing. He hit his peak as a writer around the time of "Augie March" in 1953 and continued through to the Pulitzer novel "Humbolt's Gift" in 1973. He wrote from the early 1940s through to 2000. His novels are written in a narrative form, and the main character is a Jewish male - usually a writer but not always - and he is living in either in New York or Chicago. Bellow wrote approximately 13 novels and a number of other works.

Bellow's style progressed over the five decades. The early novels "Dangling Man" and "The Victim" were written in the 1940s, 20 years before his peak. Some compare his style in "Dangling Man" with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground." Having read both I would say that "Notes" is brilliant while "Dangling Man" is at best average and sometimes a bit slow, but the prose is excellent. Changes could be seen in his second book "The Victim" in 1947. The first half is slow, but then the pace intensifies in the second half. This increase in tempo and lightness carries on in his next book "The Adventures of Augie March" - his breakthrough book in 1953 that won a National Book Prize. He changes his style in "Henderson the Rain LKing" in 1959, and then returns to the New York-Chicago theme after "Henderson." Bellow hits a new high with "Herzog" in 1964, and that book sets the tone for a number of novels that follow. The present books follows later and came out in 1987.

In interviews, and from reading the early works, Bellow said that it was difficult to make the transition to becoming "uninhibited" in his writings. That transition ended in 1953 with "Augie March" and it was refined with "Herzog." After that, there is a certain sameness to the novels. We see a bit of a break in the present novel. I will not give away the plot, but it is about two professors in the mid-west, uncle and nephew, probably in Indianapolis, not Chicago this time. There is a bit of laziness evident: he seems to use a number of quotations. But the plot is interesting, and he seems to take delight in exploring and reversing the role of man versus women. They women either ignore or try to manipulate the men, and at least one woman, Matilda, far out-classes our heroes (or as in Bellow novels, anti-heroes).

This is an interesting and unusual novel, and for myself, yes, Bellow is perhaps less brilliant, but this is still good stuff.

Not his best, but still remarkable
This isn't the one to choose if you've never read Bellow. Seize the Day (think brevity) is the place to start. From there, Henderson the Rain King, Humboldt's Gift, or Herzog make the best long reads. Augie March is the most renowned, but a good 200 pages too long if you ask me. After that, Mr. Sammler's Planet rounds out the best of Bellow. Dangling Man and The Victim are quite different from the rest, and are most interesting (I think) as points of reference to watch the evolution of a great mind.

More Die of Heartbreak ranks with The Dean's December and Ravelston as books to read only if you've already fallen for Bellow. Or, I suppose, if you're interested in reading what a Nobel Laureate thinks about sex.(For there is no book in which he tackles the topic more directly than this).There are times when the author seems to lose even himself in the mad confusion that spills from Ken Trachtenberg's head. This, I believe, would be enough to drive impatient readers away from Bellow.

But More Die of Heartbreak, like all of Bellow's work, lifts the reader above the mundane. Its force doesn't come from plot, but observation. His gift is to take the ordinary, the accepted, and acceptable and expose it for something extraordianry, corrupt, or even contemptible. His success, I think, comes from a steadfast and good-natured optimism in the face of Western decline.
... Read more

Product Description
The downside of being pugnacious and feisty is that people stop taking you seriously next time you jump into a scrap. This seems to be what happened to this undeservedly neglected book by a great and feisty American writer. Known for bringing artistic beauty, dimensionality, and a golden aura of wisdom to his tough Chicago turf, Bellow here took the gloves off. His University of Chicago Dean hero struggles with injustice and cynicism at its rawest, when he becomes engaged with the cavalier Chicago criminal justice system and its disgustingly casual response to the murder of a student. Counterpoint is meaningfully provided by the death of an old relative behind the iron curtain, whom the Dean visits. As in Lear, the subplot is no relief at all, merely stokes the flames of the main plot and brings Bellow's fury with the modern world to a white heat. Thus we are denied mere sociological or political excuses for our modern mayhem; the focus is what has gone wrong with our hearts the world over. Never has Bellow been more engaged or convincing. Indeed Bellow sacrifices something of his usual high gloss artistic finish to this product in the process, perhaps intentionally and savagely. Yeah, he wants to stick it in your face and it shows. This is doubtless what offends some readers. Nevertheless it is a worthy response to having just received the Nobel Prize. Most writers, American and otherwise, react by self-inflating to sanctimoniously gracious gas bags. Saul knew who he was, however, and never let anyone fool him on that score. As one who once dabbled in the halls of big Chicago justice and who knows the U of C campus well, I cannot recommend the real life portraiture and painting that shines through this text highly enough. It is entirely genuine, real, perfect, matchlessly true. I frankly know of no better Chicago novel. ... Read more

Book Description