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The rest is Commentary...
Every month, Commentary explores a key Jewish thinker or writer, with a brief biography, an introduction to their major works, and suggestions for further reading. Enjoy!
Author of the Month for April
| Saul Bellow was an extraordinarily gifted and prolific American novelist whose characterizations of modern urban man, disaffected by society but not destroyed in spirit, earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. Brought up in a Jewish household and fluent in Yiddish, which influenced his energetic English style, he was foremost of the Jewish-American writers whose works became central to American literature after World War II. Born in Quebec in 1915, raised in Montreal and Chicago, he received a trilingual heritage of Yiddish, English, and French. Trained as an anthropologist at |
Saul
Bellow |
| Northwestern and Chicago universities, he taught creative writing at Princeton before being appointed to the Committee on Social Thought at the University of
Chicago. served in the Merchant Marine during World War II. During the 1967 Arab-lsraeli conflict, he served as a war correspondent for Newsday.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. He contunied to write well into his eighties, producing a daughter (his fourth child) at the age of 84. Reading Saul Bellow is an education into the mysteries of the universe, taught by a fellow Jew, whose vision of the possibility of human greatness and the penchant for human failure is singularly distinct and penetratingly clear. |
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Essential Reading
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Herzog
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Who would have thought that solitude would be so creative, so inspiring? Herzog is alone, now that Madeleine has left him for his best friend. Solitary, in a crumbling house which he shares with rats, he is buffeted by a whirlwind of mental activity. People rumoured that his mind had collapsed. But was it true? Locked for days in the custody of his rambling memories, Herzog scrawls frantic letters which he never mails. His mind buzzes with conundrums and polemics, writing in a spectacular intellectual labyrinth. Is he crazy, or is he a genius? A bravura display of beautiful writing, startling characters and arresting imagery
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Augie March is a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Great Depression. A 'born recruit', he latches on to a wild succession of occupations, then proudly rejects each one as too limiting. Not until he tangles with the glamorous Thea, a huntress with a trained eagle, is his independence seriously threatened. He goes on to recruit himself to even more outlandish projects, but always ducks out in time to continue improvising his unconventional career. Augie March is the star performer in a richly observed human variety show, a modern-day Columbus in search of reality and fulfilment. hymn to bellow's home town of Chicago, the novel fuses the rich tradition of Bashevis Singer and Sholem Aleichem with the ringing Americn prose of Whitman.
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Sieze
the Day |
America's (much shorter!)
answer to Joyce's Ulysses, Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm is one of
literature's most well-realised characters. He has reached his day of reckoning and is
terrified. In his 40s, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of havoc. In the course of one climatic day, he he reviews his past mistakes and spiritual malaise,
in the journey of lifetime.
Henderson
the Rain King A Joyous, Rabelaisian romp, this
novel revisits Conrad's Heart of Darkness to comic effect. Henderson has come to Africa on a spiritual safari, a quest for "the truth." His feats of strength, his passion for life, and, most importantly, his inadvertant "success" in bringing rain have made him a god-like figure among the tribes. Collected
Stories
This is the definitive collection of short stories by Saul Bellow. Abundant, precise, various, rich and exuberant, the stories display the stylistic and emotional brilliance which characterises this master of prose. Some stories recount the events of a single day, some are contained in a wider frame; each story is a characteristic combination of observation and a celebration of humanity. This volume contains a preface by his wife, Janis Bellow, and an introduction by James Wood. It is an essential collection. Previous
Authors of the Month
£7.99
£8.99
Abraham Joshua Heschel
