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

Bellow fans won't be surprised by the detailsof Bellow's life, many of which are familiar from his novels andessays: 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, andalimony struggles; big-shot brothers who disparage intellectuals; andof course, his beloved city of Chicago. Atlas, himself a Chicagonative from the generation behind Bellow, covers all of this withpatience and considerable authority, balancing Bellow's lively,fictionalized accounts with a helpful amount of historicalbackground.

Atlas is also very good at establishing parallelsbetween the tone of Bellow's novels and his mood at the time ofwriting them. Often the two are so closely intertwined it's not clearwhich came first: the freewheeling style of The Adventures of AugieMarch, for example, or the exhilarating period in Bellow'slife that accompanied it. ("The book just came to me," Bellowwrote. "All I had to do was be there with buckets to catch it.") Similar parallels include the Flaubertian perfectionism of the earlynovels, the cuckold's outrage that inspired Herzog, the fame andloss that pervade Humboldt's Gift, thedespair of The Dean'sDecember, and the senescent recollection of The Actual and Ravelstein.

In apreface, Atlas, who is also the editor of the Penguin Lives biographyseries, describes the most discerning biographies as those "imbuedwith a profound sympathy for their subject's foibles andfailings--imbued, to put it plainly, with love." One suspects thatAtlas began this biographer-subject marriage with more love thanremained when he finished; his disappointment with Bellow's characterflaws (such as Bellow's tendency to portray himself as a blamelessvictim and his stubbornly anachronistic attitude toward women) ispalpable. But his criticism of Bellow the man is always measured, andit has the nice effect of placing some of the more unsavory elementsof Bellow's fiction in a kind of context. Bellow might notinspire a complete rethinking of Bellow's work, but it's a compellingreminder of its many pleasures. --John Ponyicsanyi ... 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

Customer Reviews (1)

Bellow's three seminal novels
//Mr. Sammler's Planet// (1970), //Humboldt's Gift// (1975), and //The Dean's December// (1982) are unified here in one cohesive volume for the first time. Saul Bellow is a Nobel Prize winner and if you don't own all three of these novels this book belongs in your library. The Library of America, a nonprofit publisher, is dedicated to preserving America's best and most significant writing in handsome editions (I love each author's photograph on the cover against the black backdrop).

//Mr. Sammler's Planet// , Bellow's favorite of his novels, tells the absurd story of Artur Sammler, a highly cultured man of seventy-plus, a Holocaust survivor, living out his latter days in the 1960's Manhattan. //Humboldt's Gift// chronicles the intense friendship of successful writer Charlie Citrine and haunted poet Von Humboldt Fleisher. //The Deans' December// describers the cold war/Iron Curtain firsthand when Albert Corde travels to Bucharest to visit his dying mother. These novels are the epitome of Bellow's vision of art as a vision of the human in the universe.

Reviewed by Phil Semler ... Read more

Product Description
Published in 1964 by Viking Press, First Hardcover edition. Best Selling Author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Not Saul Bellow's Best Book
If you have not read anything by Saul Bellow, don't start with this book.It is pedantic and involves characters about whom it is difficult to care very much.

interesting book
Fascinating insight of a dark time in the Eastern European history- communist dictatorship seen first hand by an american

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. ... Read more

Product 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 (4)

Saul Bellow meets Woody Allen
A comedy on modern life and love with a plot that allows Bellow to explore his favourite themes on the role of higher culture in a world that worships the base;are we what we see or how we see the world?
It helps to know the plot a little beforehand,I re read after my first reading to fully re enjoy.
Ken is a Woody Allen type;the one when you're never sure if he'sneurotic or the world around him is.He idolises his Uncle Benn,a genius in the world of fauna but a hopeless innocent outside it. Ken sees it as his role to protect his Uncle. Benn was cheated out of millions in a real estate deal by his Uncle Vilitzer, a powerful political figure,something that doesn't interest Benn until he marries in haste (without consulting Ken) into the grasping Layamon family who urge Benn to get his share as Vilitzer is on the way down in the political game.
Bear the above in mind and you'll enjoy this first rate tragi-comedy.
'More die...' is perhaps more for veteran Bellow readers-at times you feel the editor should have pointed out to Bellow that the rest of us are 10 leagues below his intellect and he might be getting a bit esoteric, but one of the things I've always loved about books by Saul Bellow is the way he makes you thirst to know what he knows;read what he's read.First timers may not get the full kick out of this great book or want to re read after taking in the complex and wonderful plot.

A great work, witty and compassionate
`He wanted a statement about the radiation level increasing. Also dioxin and other harmful waste. It's terribly serious, of course, but I think more people die of heartbreak than of radiation.' Such is the premise of Saul Bellow's masterpiece, written at the probable height of his creative power and on a par with Herzog and The Dean's December.

In a refined and richly substantiated extemporisation, Bellow takes a sounding of the place of romance in contemporary life and makes the case that it remains of central if problematic concern. More Die of Heartbreak remains hugely current, and relevant. Modern fears and distractions continue to lay siege to the arguably paramount realms of sentimental and private fulfilment. Our world is even more so one of technicians and specialists, isolated in mutually inaccessible spheres. For this is what Bellow portrays: the difficulty of love when surrounded with the complexities of professional specialisation, money, sex, cultural doubt, moral and social flux. Also just the difficulty of love.

Benn Crader, a botanist, and his nephew Kenneth, another academic, struggle to reconcile intellectual achievement with unsatisfactory love and marital lives. The uncle marries the glamorous social climber Matilda Layamon in a second wedding, to find himself forced into a financial suit that will destroy his ties to his own family. Kenneth strives to fill the gap left by a painful break-up. Nothing much more happens in this ironic, rambling portrayal of floundering individuals who philosophise as they go. And to be fair, this is not for fans of action or quick-paced plots. But if you like reading Kundera or Philip Roth (who is a later writer and seems to me to owe much to Bellow), you will enjoy this novel. Bellow is impressively erudite but never pedantic and always entertaining and matter-of-fact. He tends to divagate, here from the dangers of bad skin to the morals of Hitchcock movies and to court politics, but he is extremely well informed and invariably interesting. There is also a point to his constant asides, namely to put the question of the adequacy of culture to real life.

And it is all told with an effective, deadpan humour. (`Benn was a botanist of a "high level of distinction"... They're relatively inexpensive too. It costs more to keep two convicts in Statesville than one botanist in his chair. But convicts offer more in the way of excitement - riot and arson in the prisons, garrotting a guard, driving a stake through the warden's head.' Or `Mother joined a group of medical volunteers stationed near Djibouti, where the famine victims died by the thousands, daily. She wore chino skirts, cheap cotton twill, as close to sackcloth as she could get.') Perhaps a little sarcastic, but who wants polite, deferential blandness?

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
In this superb work of fiction, Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow writes comically and wisely about the tenacious claims of first love. Harry Trellman, an aging, astute businessman, has never belonged anywhere and is as awkward in his human attachments as he is gifted in observing the people around him. But Harry's observational talents have not gone unnoticed by "trillionaire" Sigmund Adletsky, who retains Harry as his advisor. Soon the old man discovers Harry's intense forty-year passion for a twice-divorced interior designer, Amy Wustrin. At the exhumation and reburial of her husband, Harry is provided, thanks to Sigmund, perhaps the final means for disclosing feelings amassed over a lifetime. Written late in Bellow's career, The Actual is a maestro's dissection of the affairs of the heart. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

Actually...not very good
In this novella by Pulitzer Prize- and Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow, obsession and denial are key ideas that inhabit a story without much forward momentum or plot. Harry Trellman, the first-person narrator, is Jewish but looks Chinese - a detail of his appearance that is revisited again and again for no truly discernable reason other than to illustrate how much of an outsider Harry is to everyone around him, including himself. In fact, physical appearance takes up much of the non-dialogue description, with every one of the sparse number of characters identified repititiously by similar, if not exactly replicated, specifics of physiognomy. It happens so frequently, in a barely-hundred-page book, that it seems Bellow must be after some deeper meaning, must have some compelling reason to continuously describe his spare cast. Whatever the reason, I think I missed it, so instead of striking my reader's eye as profound, the technique became distracting, and finally irritating at a certain point.

The book starts out strongly, introducing a fairly enigmatic character in Harry, and even pretends for a moment to have an intriguing story at the point the narrator meets billionaire Sigmund Adletsky for a wary, suspicion-bent tete-a-tete. But by page seventeen, Harry's association with the old moneybags is done and the focus shifts to Amy Wustrin, whose story carries practically the next third of the novel. She is an old flame of Harry's, a woman he has never forgotten and who he continues to pine over, to the point of creating daily conversations with her in his much-too-sharp, currently-unchallenged mind. The obsession slant is nice, but it never really develops further than fantasy and backstory, with a scene of confession that comes late and fails to deliver anything dramatic or climactic.

In all, there is nothing very exciting or tantalizing in the book, despite attempts to delve into Philip Roth-style, s#xually-graphic-prose territory that ultimately comes off as feeble and unimaginative. This is the first book of Bellow's that I have read -- and I do plan to read more, despite my extremely lukewarm reaction to this short work -- and far be it from me to slam a multiple-award winner, but the book as a whole struck me as a dud. The shift from Harry's p.o.v. to a sloppily constructed, and ill-advised narrative avenue into Amy's mind was Bellow's first misstep, followed by his abandonment of Harry's direct relationship with Adletsky's "brain trust" and finally, the excessive, mind-numbing attention paid to Amy's ex-husband's burial arrangements. The book takes off like a well-crafted and perfectly aimed bullet, careens into blunt storytelling practices, then ricochets irresponsibly off poorly constructed firmaments, managing to completely shred the narrative terrain. The bullet does its damage, then loses momentum and wedges into an endless scene between Amy and Harry that curtails its projected force prematurely, all without ever managing to hit its intended target.

Bellow in miniature
The Actual is a short, supple book by Bellow, in the late period of his writing life. Though barely over 100 pages, the writing roils and heaves over a vast terrain of the inner consciousness. Harry Trellman is classic Bellow - mind constantly active, noticing the details of human character, individual lives all the while. The Bellow contempt for little lives comes out - a marvellous passage in which Harry admits that he finds some neighbours of his 'commonplace' people, products of mass democracy, fornicating and earning money. But Adeltsky, the multi millionaire, for whom Harry has a curious job as a 'brains trust' - an sort of intellectual confidant, a fellow man of brainpower magnitude, makes up for this with his large scale American raw capitalist mind.

The other main character, Amy, whom Harry has a long history with is presented well in the Bellovian female mould - wily, elusive, pungently attractive. The ending is a little pat and upbeat, but the novel satisfies as a smaller dose of how Bellow can move a reader and stimulate the synapses.

What a treat
Saul Bellow is no longer with us. And as he is a favorite writer of mine I always wish there were more of his work for me to read. I thought I had read all the novels, and so was pleasantly surprised when I came across 'The Actual'. I read it in a single sitting and it brought great pleasure.
There are many of the usual Bellow virtues displayed in this book. His descriptive genius, his feeling for the 'things' of this world, his capacity to create interesting characters, his philosophical analysis of human relations, his sense of the complexities and contradictions of the human soul, his bright and colorful always zesty language, his sense through the telling of the story of individuals of connecting us with larger worlds meanings problems, his mixture of intellectual and business types, his vast worldliness and worldly knowledge, his great feeling for the nuances of American and modern civilization.
This tale is told by another of Bellow's middle- aged Jewish alter egos. And involves another of his love stories, this one having begun in adolescence and kept alive in imagination through many years comes to a surprising somewhat happy ending. The minor characters are also brilliantly drawn.
Perhaps the impression is mistaken but after reading Bellow I somehow feel I know more about life, understand something I did not before.
A great read.

Saul Bellow, what more is there to say?
Like other later short works, this is a little gem.Bellows account of an old and futile love is full of the kinds of regrets and second guessing that goes with old age.Well worth a read and fully satisfying.

Good, but definitely not great
This novella, to me, was very hilly in that every 7 pages or so, Bellow would write anything between a line and a page that were perfectly brilliant, but the pages in between seemed to just go on and on about the lives of socialites and rich Chicago Jewish families.
This wasn't particularly enthralling, and I suppose that I had higher expectations for the actual prose used in the novella, but overall I felt that the story, if somewhat delayed, was satisfying and altogether not a bad read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Saul Bellow's Real Smart - Really
There's something to be said for the relationship between the narrator and his uncle (portrayed by Corey Haim and Wink Martindale, disrespectfully), but most of the profundities spewed throughout this novel are just that - spew.This reads as a bucket of rationalizations for a dithering human to woo a woman, marry her, and then say, "Whoops!Eff it."When it all comes down, this sage of an uncle is a jerk.In him dwells something so human, so beautiful that he can seduce a beautiful woman into marriage (not that she's so nonaware that he holds some status), and then be so right darn right about dumping her on their honeymoon that he's abjectly blameless.Though this reeks of faux complexity, it holds a false stench just the same.The uncle's an idiot outside of his profession, the narrator's a pugilist to the extent he can whip up on a bathroom, and any semblance of a female lead is so stereotyped in effort to not be such that they have to become midgets or broad-shouldered broads. But Bellow does have thoughts coming out his head that you might not ever happen upon on your own.

I became interested in this novel at about the time I was going to put this down.My first instinct was best.This did become somewhat interesting, but it's hard to believe that Bellow wasn't stroking his own digressions, and the ending was as anti-climactic as what you would expect from any other mediocre novel.

Why don't more people read J. P. Donleavy?

Another Bellow Surprise: Turning the Tables Men vs Women
Just when you think that you understand Bellow, this book comes along. By the way, do night buy this book, there is a newer version from Penguin in 2003 with a better introduction: ISBN 0142437743

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. 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.

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. There is a bit of laziness evident that 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.

Not the best Bellow- but every Bellow has something good
I felt a certain tiredness in this work, a certain contrivance of a kind I did not feel in the most gripping Bellow works, Herzog, Seize the Day, Henderson the Rain King. But I also felt that old Bellow gift for inspired insight into life, a kind of reflectiveness on the everyday which makes a poetry of ' seeing'. The story here of the aging botanist in disappointed love as told by his botanist nephew does not in my judgment touch us in the deepest way .It's not the greatest Bellow but every Bellow has much to give.

Did I read the same book as the previous reveiwers?
The only thing that impressed me was the number of sentences, paragraphs--pages, even--that this guy wrote without saying anything at all.

Brilliant start, the rest is boring
This is the story of the relationships of a young faculty in a midwestern university with his uncle, a professor at the same university, with a sort of an ex-girlfriend, with whom he has a child, and with his parents, who live in Paris (where he grew up).

The first 70 pages or so of this novel are brilliant. Saul Bellow's gift for telling stories is depicted in them in both - plot and structure. He uses the English language and grammar as a musician uses notes to compose a beautiful and flowing piece of music.
Only after the first 70 pages the book becomes boring. The story is dragged and the beautiful usage of English turns into a demonstration of technique that doesn't really serve anything.

The verdict: Read the brilliant first 70 pages and then move to your next book... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

An Inconclusive Experiment
This book tells a fine story, but HOW it tells it is unsatisfying.

Some of the principal characters are unconvincing.Clara, the protagonist, was supposed to have a bit of country rube in her, but I never saw it come through.Ithiel, Clara's great love, was supposed to be the greatest political analyst of the century, which I also never saw come through.

What's more, the rest of the principal characters have no real presence.As the story unfolds, Clara's admirable au pair, Gina, gets caught up with an unsavory Harlemite, Frederic.Fred never speaks a line, and Clara speaks few lines of consequence until the last few pages.And thus the problem: the story, as told, gives us little reason to admire Gina and no reason to suspect Frederic of the titular Theft, except that Fred is poor and Haitian.(On the night of the theft, a number of crackheads whom Clara could never track down are also in the house, but, conveniently, the one person with a link to Clara and the one person Clara actually suspects turns out to have stolen the ring.)

All this weak characterization cripples the second half of the book, which consists mainly of Clara fretting over Gina's fate.Gina, you see, has taken up with Frederic in Harlem.It's never clear what makes it so special that a newcomer to NYC ends up in a run-down apartment in a poor neighborhood.The easy answer is that Gina is special *to Clara*, who is exceptionally devoted to her friends, but Clara's friendship with Gina is sketched so lightly that, beyond it being hard to believe in, there is nothing to believe.By the end, the happy outcome of Gina's slum romp seems to be that she has become a proper brusque New Yorker.

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The interesting thing about this book is that all the apparent weakness makes sense stylistically.Clara talks at people constantly; she is hugely disconnected from her child, husband, love, and friend.Much of the content of the book is Clara talking at her friend and at her psychologist, neither of whom say anything of substance in return.Clara tells herself how much she values her child Lucy, but Lucy never enters the action directly and never says anything.The book is written from Clara's perspective, and Clara's perspective is largely disconnected from those nominally "close" to her.

In this sense, the unsatisfying style of the book is fitting.When Gina derides Frederic as "lewd", an insult for which the reader has witnessed no evidence, it is not so much weak storytelling (explaining instead of showing) as the habit of a powerful, aged woman to object to what the young people are doing these days.Most of the apparently baseless feelings of Clara can be put down to the intuition of a character (like any other) with a subjective worldview.

I should also add that the book has a few points of brilliance.It treats identity and communication very insightfully.It delivers a useful criticism of psychotherapy, at least as the practice existed back then.Bellow's words flow beautifully, and he keeps us just as aware as we should be of time slipping back and forth in Clara's mind.Ultimately the book reminded me of The Club of Queer Trades by GK Chesterton, because both books are superficially unsatisfying as a result of their deep stylistic commitments.Unfortunately, with 'A Theft', the weak parts of the book become plausible in light of Clara's perspective, but they don't become compelling.In this book, many moments of drama caught me off guard, because I didn't realize I had been given anything to care about.I would recommend the book to other readers only if they want to read the story of a woman who can't tell the story of herself because she's stopped noticing it.If it makes sense to speak of a well told untold story, this is one.

cardboard cutout characters
Unfortunately, I chose this book as an introduction to Saul Bellow's writing.I can see from other reviews, by people who have read other Saul Bellow books, that I made a mistake.I thought the characters were 2 dimensional at best, and annoying at worst.I am not a fan of short stories, and maybe novellas fall into that category, too.I can, however, see that Mr. Bellow's insights and language are interesting and creative, and I will try to read him again, but this time I'll choose a full length novel, one that I've actually heard of, for example.

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. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

A quirky but interesting biography
This biography cannot be compared to the much more thorough, objective and authoritative biography by James Atlas. It is a quirky personal look by a former Bellow student, and close reader. She reveals certain not especially flattering personal details, but generally her approach is admiring and appreciative.
One of the works to be definitely skimmed thorugh by anyone interested in seeing how the 'life ' influences 'the work' of Bellow. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Moses Herzog is the quintessential protean man.
This is a great book--watch those changes from first to third person within the same paragraph! Check out Robert J. Lifton's "Protean Self" for a complete analysis of how Moses Herzog is the quintessential protean man.(Proteus was the Greek god who could change form to suit his circumstances.) ... Read more