BELLOW, SAUL 1915-

Writer

Themes

During his years at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University in the 1930s, young Saul Bellow knew instinctively the academic life was not for him. He felt it was too narrow, too dictatorial; only as a writer could he find the freedom and independence he craved to explore his imagination and interpret the world. Bellow was well-read, and his attachment to books led to employment writing book notices in New York. He soon turned to fiction writing and achieved some attention with his first novel, Dangling Man (1943). The book established what was to become typical in Bellow's work over the years: a sensitive protagonist who feels he does not belong or is out of step with the world, searching for some sense of personal destiny or self-realization. This theme paralleled the author's own struggle during his long career for such understanding. The Victim (1947) established Bellow as a Jewish writer, a label he often resented as limiting and insulting. Bellow maintained that his characters and their quest for transcendence were more universal than specifically ethnic.

Attention

Bellow's 1953 novel The Adventures of Augie March received the National Book Award and brought him serious attention as an important postwar novelist. Drawing from his Chicago upbringing, Bellow explored the choices facing a young man who seeks a fate worthy of his own sense of "special destiny." His painful self-exploration leads him to a common Bellow conclusion: Augie finally must reject the search altogether, turn his back on intellect and reason, in favor of the simple joys of life, of love, and of commonplace experience. Bellow's style—long, dense sentences, deluges of detail and allusions, jumps in time, and multiplicity of memory—allowed the author to explore his characters' (and his own) complex thoughts and emphasized their subjective take on reality. Seize the Day (1956) continues the theme with a loser hero who realizes that only his reconnection to others in the world around him can resurrect his deadened spirit. Bellow had come to feel that writers and critics, like his fictional heroes, also must become attuned to human frailty and nuance. The mixed reviews of Augie March and Seize the Day led to his stinging attacks on critics, who he now saw as rigid and unimaginative in their insistence on literary tradition.

Defiance

With his next novel, Henderson the Rain King (1959), Bellow sought to defy every traditional tenet of writing. Its protagonist deserts his dull married life to pursue the desires of his heart and learns, after a series of African adventures, that his simple existence back home was more important than his insistence on a planned destiny. Bellow had less luck with his own life; The Noble Savage, a literary journal he cofounded with his friend Jack Ludwig, fizzled after five issues when Ludwig had an affair with Bellow's wife. The pain of this betrayal was the source and inspiration for Bellow's next—and, many feel, best—novel, Herzog (1964). The narrator, Moses Herzog, pours out simultaneously his personal anguish and his frustration with the deplorable state of civilization in the form of letters addressed to everyone he can think of, from his mother to the president to God. Again, the character seeks freedom in truth and learns that, ultimately, one can only be healed and find meaning through the acceptance of self and others as they are, and in sharing one's fate and suffering with the rest of humanity. This time the critics raved. Herzog was on The New York Times best-seller list for a year and received the National Book Award. Bellow had found acceptance.

Maturity

Or had he? When Bellow's 1968 short-story collection was greeted less than favorably, he again railed at the narrow hypocrisy of critics, this time in lecture appearances. Some of his anger and frustration emerged in his next novel, Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970). Imagining himself as an elderly curmudgeon, alienated and embittered by the modern world, Bellow for the first time seemed to reject the possibility of transcendence or even hope. Sammler's one remaining purpose before his death is simply to reexamine his life so as to square himself with God and accept the truth of his own failure. Over the course of two days he does so and is left only with the small dignity of his attempt, finally, to measure up. Despite the book's mature content it received mixed reviews, but Bellow again won the National Book Award in 1971. His next work found a slightly more appreciative audience. In Humboldt's Gift (1976) Bellow again intermingled past and present events as the narrator, Charlie Citrine, reviews his life. This time his character admits that he was more betrayed by himself than by others and condemns himself for his losses. Citrine confronts the memory of his mentor and friend Von Humboldt Fleischer, whose ultimate gift is the opportunity for the narrator to make peace with himself in the face of death—to transcend his past and his failings by simply being. Humboldt's Gift was, of all Bellow's novels, the truest examination of the author's life, imagination, and frustration. Despite its typically mixed critical response, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer. He subsequently won the Nobel Prize for literature.

Seeker

Despite a generally favorable reception for To Jerusalem and Back (1976), his observation of modern Israel and the history of Islam, Bellow again used lectures to air his diatribes against the dehumanization of the United States and critics as intellectual tyrants. This was ironic given the shift of late-1970s critics, especially younger reviewers, toward a new appreciation of Bellow as a serious artist. Bellow struggled on in his search for spiritual truth with The Dean's December (1982), a fictionalized meditation on the author's life and career and an indictment of presentday Chicago. For the first time in his fiction, Bellow tempered criticism of the world with solutions and action for its problems. If reviewers were displeased with the book's sterility and pessimism, the bitterness of More Die of Heartbreak (1987) was more alarming. By now Bellow's protagonist had become trapped by his own memory and recognized that he had failed himself utterly. The Bellarosa Connection (1989) marked a return to Bellow's best form, revealing a spirit still very much alive, still searching for truth and transcendence.

Source:

Ruth Miller, Saul Bellow: A Biography of the Imagination (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991).

Saul Bellow

An American author of fiction, essays, and drama, Saul Bellow (born 1915) reached the first rank of contemporary fiction with his picaresque novel The Adventures of Augie March.

Saul Bellow, born of Russian immigrant parents in Lachine, Quebec, on July 10, 1915, grew up in Montreal, where he learned Hebrew, Yiddish, and French as well as English. When he was nine his family moved to Chicago, and to this city Bellow remained deeply devoted. After two years at the University of Chicago, Bellow transferred to Northwestern University and obtained a bachelor of science degree in 1937. Four months after enrolling as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, he fled formal education forever.

During the next decade Bellow held a variety of jobs— with the WPA Writers Project, the editorial department of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College, and the Merchant Marine. More importantly, he published two novels, both with autobiographical overtones. Dangling Man (1944), in the form of a journal, concerns a young Chicagoan waiting to be drafted into military service. The Victim (1947), a more ambitious work, describes the frustrations of a New Yorker seeking to discover and preserve his own identity against the background of domestic and religious (Gentile versus Jewish) conflicts. Neither novel was heralded as exceptional by contemporary critics.

After World War II Bellow joined the University of Minnesota English Department, spent a year in Paris and Rome as a Guggenheim fellow, and taught briefly at New York University, Princeton University, and Bard College. Above all, however, he concentrated on writing fiction. With the publication of The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Bellow won his first National Book Award. A lengthy, free-form liberating story of a young Chicago Jew growing up absurd, Augie March combines comic zest and a narrative virtuosity rare in any decade. Bellow followed it in 1956 with Seize the Day, which is a collection of three short stories, a one-act play, and the novella that gives the title to the volume—a tautly written description of one day in the life of a middle-aged New Yorker facing a major domestic crisis. Some critics feel that Bellow never surpassed this novella.

Devotees of Henderson the Rain King (1959) enjoyed Bellow's return to a more free-flowing manner in describing an American millionaire's search to understand the human condition in his flight from a tangled marital arrangement and his adventures in Africa. His next novel, Herzog (1964), won him a second National Book Award and an international reputation. Doubtlessly based on personal sources, it portrays Moses Herzog, a middle-aged university professor, and his battles with his faithless wife Madeline, his friend Valentine Gersbach, and his own alienated self. Through a series of unposted letters, many of them highly comic, Herzog finally resolves his struggles, not in marital reconciliation but in rational acceptance and self-control.

In 1962 Bellow became a professor at the University of Chicago, a post which allowed him to continue writing fiction and plays. The Last Analysis had a brief run on Broadway in 1964. Six short stories, collected in Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories (1968), and his sixth novel, Mr. Sammler's Planet (1969), elevated Bellow's reputation to the point where one critic wrote that if Bellow was not the most important American novelist, then whoever was had better announce himself quickly. Some critics called him the successor of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.

Humboldt's Gift (1975) added the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bellow's list of awards and led Frank McConnell to observe that his books "form a consistent, carefully nurtured oeuvre not often encountered in the works of American writers." In her glowing review of his short story collection, Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984), Cynthia Ozick declared: "these five ravishing stories honor and augment his genius."

Bellow's later novels have not received the same unequivocal praise. The Dean's December (1982) and More Die of Heartbreak (1987) retained his distinctive style but some believed the cynicism of the characters signaled a lessening of Bellow's own trademark humanism.

Since 1987, Bellow has released a number of novellas: A Theft (1989), The Bellarosa Connection (1989), Something to Remember Me By (1991), and The Actual (1997). These works have met with similarly mixed reviews.

Despite the recent coolness towards his work, Bellow's place in American literature seems secure, most notably for his ability to combine social commentary with sharply drawn characters. His best fiction has been compared to the Russian masters, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

Robert Penn Warren's review of Augie March in The New Republic in 1953 seems to sum up subsequent reaction to his work: "It is, in a way, a tribute, though a backhanded one, to point out the faults of Saul Bellow's novel, for the faults merely make the virtues more impressive."

Further Reading

Full-length studies of Saul Bellow include Keith Michael Opdahl, The Novels of Saul Bellow: An Introduction (1967); John Jacob Clayton, Saul Bellow: In Defense of Man (1968); and Irving Malin, Saul Bellow's Fiction (1969). Useful introductory essays are Tony Tanner, Saul Bellow (1965); Earl Rovit, Saul Bellow (1967); and Robert Detweiler, Saul Bellow: A Critical Essay (1967). Irving Malin edited a collection of 12 essays, Saul Bellow and the Critics (1967). Another essay collection, edited by Harold Bloom, is Saul Bellow (1986). □

Saul Bellow

Born: July 10, 1915
Lachine, Quebec, Canada
Canadian-born American author, essayist, and dramatist

An American author of fiction, essays, and drama, Saul Bellow became famous in 1953 with his novel The Adventures of Augie March. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976.

Early life

Saul Bellow was born of Russian immigrant parents in Lachine, Quebec, Canada, on July 10, 1915. He learned to speak Hebrew, Yiddish, and French as well as English. When he was nine his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, and to this city Bellow remained deeply devoted. He was raised in a strict Jewish household, and his mother, who died when he was fifteen, wanted him to become a rabbi (a Jewish master or teacher). After her death he drifted away from religious study and began to read a wide variety of books. He quickly decided he wanted to be a writer.

After two years at the University of Chicago, Bellow transferred to Northwestern University and obtained a bachelor's degree in anthropology (the study of the origins and behavior of human beings) in 1937. He had wanted to study English literature but was warned that many universities would not hire Jewish professors to teach the subject. Four months after enrolling as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, he quit school forever.

During the next decade Bellow held a variety of writing jobs—with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Writers' Project, the editorial department of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College, and the Merchant Marine. His first story was published in 1941, and he published two novels. Dangling Man (1944), in the form of a journal, concerns a young Chicagoan waiting to be drafted into military service. The Victim (1947), a more ambitious work, describes a New Yorker struggling with domestic and religious conflicts. Both novels received mixed reviews.

Writing career

After World War II (1939–45) Bellow joined the University of Minnesota English Department, spent a year in Paris, France, and Rome, Italy, and taught briefly at New York University, Princeton University, and Bard College. Above all, however, he concentrated on writing fiction. With the publication of The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Bellow won his first National Book Award. Bellow followed it in 1956 with Seize the Day, a collection of three short stories, a one-act play, and a novella (a short novel or long short story). The novella, the title of which is also the title of the volume, is about one day in the life of a middle-aged New Yorker facing a major domestic crisis. Some critics feel that this collection was Bellow's finest work.

In Henderson the Rain King (1959) Bellow described an American millionaire's flight from a tangled marriage and his adventures in Africa. His next novel, Herzog (1964), won him a second National Book Award and international fame. It portrays Moses Herzog, a middle-aged university professor, and his battles with his faithless wife, his friend, and himself. Through a series of unmailed letters, many of them highly comic, Herzog finally resolves his struggles by achieving self-control.

In 1962 Bellow became a professor at the University of Chicago, a post that allowed him to continue writing fiction and plays. The Last Analysis had a brief run on Broadway in 1964. Six short stories, collected in Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories (1968), and his sixth novel, Mr. Sammler's Planet (1969), elevated Bellow's reputation. Humboldt's Gift (1975) added the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bellow's list of awards.

Later years

Bellow's later novels did not receive the same praise. The Dean's December (1982) and More Die of Heartbreak (1987) retained his style, but some disliked the bitter tone that had never shown up in previous Bellow works. After 1987 Bellow released a number of novellas that met with similarly mixed reviews. Despite the coolness toward his later work, Bellow's best fiction has been compared to the Russian masters, Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) and Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881). Robert Penn Warren's review of Augie March in The New Republic in 1953 sums up reaction to his work: "It is, in a way, a tribute … to point out the faults of Saul Bellow's novel, for the faults merely make the virtues more impressive."

In 1995 Bellow nearly died after eating poisonous fish in the Caribbean. After a long, slow recovery, he wrote Ravelstein, a novel, which was released in 2000. Also in the year 2000 he was recognized with a lifetime achievement award from the New Yorker, and he became a father for the fourth time, at age eighty-four, when his fifth wife gave birth to a daughter.

For More Information

Atlas, James. Bellow: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2000.

Hyland, Peter. Saul Bellow. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.

Miller, Ruth. Saul Bellow: A Biography of the Imagination. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991.

Bellow, Saul (1915–2005), writer, teacher.A writer who grounded his work in the urban American experience, Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec, Canada, the fourth child of Russian Jewish parents. In 1924, the family moved to Chicago, the background for much of Bellow's fiction. A novelist of ideas, Bellow in his work work puts in comic perspective the split between personal ambition and the claims of the spirit.

His first published novel, Dangling Man (1944), whose protagonist is waiting to be drafted during World War II, explores the conflict between the real world of compromised action and the ideal one of thought and feeling. The Victim (1947) addresses the issue of anti‐Semitism and the nature of moral accountability. The Adventures of Augie March (1953) marked a breakthrough to a freewheeling style combining elevated philosophy, slang, and esoteric allusion that translates the American myth into contemporary linguistic and social possibilities. It received the National Book Award, as did the self‐lacerating Herzog (1964) and Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970). Other notable Bellow works are Henderson the Rain King (1959), Humboldt's Gift (1975), and the novella Seize the Day (1956), in all of which striving heroes, often aided by teachers in the guise of confidence men, come to recognize the obligations of love and the sustaining power of family. The Dean's December (1982) and More Die of Heartbreak (1987) moved away from the earlier exuberant comedy toward a more somber assessment of contemporary culture. He also published several collections of short fiction, including Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories (1968) and Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984), and three late novellas: The Bellarosa Connection (1989), A Theft (1989), and The Actual (1997). He returned to the full‐length novel form with Ravelstein (2000). It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future (1994) is a selection of his nonfiction. He taught at the University of Minnesota (1946–1949) and, beginning in 1963, at the University of Chicago. Saul Bellow received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1976.
See also Literature: Since World War I.

Bibliography

Stanley Trachtenberg, ed., Critical Essays on Saul Bellow, 1979.
Peter Hyland , Saul Bellow, 1992.

Stanley Trachtenberg

Saul Bellow 1915–2005, American novelist, b. Lachine, Que., as Solomon Bellow, grad. Northwestern Univ., 1937. Born of Russian-Jewish parents, he grew up in the slums of Montreal and Chicago. His fiction features uniquely telling characterizations and is frequently darkly comic. His novels typically deal with large philosophical issues: the search for meaning, the conflicts between moral anomie and the quest for a personal ethic, and the tensions between the imaginative individual and a sometimes indifferent, sometimes entangling world. One of the most distinguished novelists of the mid-20th cent., he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. His novels include Dangling Man (1944), The Adventures of Augie March (1953; National Book Award), Seize the Day (1956), Henderson the Rain King (1959), Herzog (1964; National Book Award), Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970; National Book Award), Humboldt's Gift (1975; Pulitzer Prize), The Dean's December (1982), and Ravelstein (2000). He also published four books of stories, Mosby's Memoirs (1968), Him with His Foot in His Mouth (1984), Something to Remember Me By (1991), and Collected Stories (2001); a novella, The Actual (1997); a memoir, To Jerusalem and Back (1976); a play, The Last Analysis (1964); and an essay collection, It All Adds Up (1994). Bellow taught at a number of universities, including Northwestern Univ., the Univ. of Chicago, and Boston Univ.

Bibliography: See G. L. Cronin and B. Siegel, ed., Conversations with Saul Bellow (1994); B. Taylor, ed., Letters (2010); biography by J. Atlas (2000); studies by I. Malin (1969), M. Harris (1980), D. Fuchs (1984), P. Hyland (1992), G. Bach, ed. (1995), G. Bach and G. L. Cronin, ed. (2000), and M. A. Quayum (2004); bibliography by G. L. Cronin and B. H. Hall (2d ed. 1987).

Bellow, Saul (1915– ) US novelist, b. Canada. His novels, usually set in Chicago, are concerned with the conflict between the private and the public, and the sense of alienation in 20th-century urban life. His debut novel was The Dangling Man (1944). Bellow won National Book awards for The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Herzog (1964), and Mr Sammler's Planet (1970). He won a Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt's Gift (1975). Other works include the novella Seize the Day (1956), The Dean's December (1982) and Something to Remember Me By (1993). He was awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in literature.