Superlative US novel about an academic's touch with madness, 27 Sep 2008
Stunning novel about a middle aged academic almost driven insane by various personal and ideological crises, but who eventually manages to find some peace after experiencing events that finally seem to connect him with reality. I absolutely adored the quality of style and character, and although the plot is incredibly thin, you don't care because it is constructed so brilliantly to allow all those fascinating, perfectly described reminiscences. Definitely I was generally having that feeling of sickening jealousy for the sheer ability demonstrated, albieit in quite a showy way. There are many incredible lines, either simply involving profound observations on life, or via the wonderful eye for character details that Bellow has. The use of letters as a kind of stream of consciousness device works fantastically. Herzog's character is one of the most stunningly rich and real I've ever come across in literature, and the peripheral characters also feel very real and vivid. This novel seems incredibly autobiographical, in fact, and many of the details probably were taken from Bellow's life. The only slight criticism I have is that in one or two places it felt a little contrived. Ramona is obviously set up as the "healthy" choice and feels slightly thin for it. And why oh why would Herzog keep his gun in his pocket when visiting his daughter? This to me seemed totally unbelievable, and merely a silly device. But these tiny quibbles aside, this is definitely one of the best American novels I've ever read.

A brilliant, gripping study of value, intellect and breakdown, 10 Jun 2008
This novel starts with a ferociously strong image, then moves us into the mind of Moses Herzog. Herzog is a failing professor with an unfaithful second wife, a treacherous best friend, unwritten books and theses which remind him of his failings. Also, in a bizarrely wonderful twist, we find that Herzog writes letters avidly, even compulsively. These are largely to dead people, either relatives or historical figures he has never met. Also mathematicians - he writes to Euclid and points out why his theories don't add up.

The novel also contains a profound and bitter sense of betrayal, Herzog's as his marriage fails and his child whisked from him, Bellow's as similar events in his life mirrored the plot.

This is Bellow's most autobiographical work, including his bizarre childhood and the way he sees an exiled, crushed class (and race) adjust to their new lives, while he with his fabulously realised child's eyes sees only the surface, but sees things an adult would consider sinister.

This book is either a masterpiece or so close it makes no difference. Check it out when you're prepared to be tantalised and confused.



Memorable portrait of a troubled man who thinks too much, 02 Aug 2001
Moses Herzog is a Jewish academic living in New York in the early Sixties. Following the disastrous break-up of his second marriage, he begins writing letters - first, to practically everybody he has ever met, and then to a varity of public and cultural figures living and dead. It doesn't take the reader long to realise that Herzog is having something of a crisis: his behaviour is erratic and his mind distracted as he remembers in vivid detail key scenes in his life. Perhaps we can make allowances, though - he is trying to make sense of what it means to be alive in the Western world in the second half of the twentieth century, after all. The book is not exactly big on plot, but a certain suspense does build as to whether he's going to get through it with his mind and body intact. The novel is also very well written, and at times dazzlingly so. As a character, Herzog is brilliantly realised - unquestionably an intellectual, he is entirely believable as betrayed husband, doting father, rebellious son, hesitant lover and more besides. The book is a modern classic which captures its time, and still has a lot to say to us about our lives as part of a society too advanced for easy comprehension.

A real grower!, 08 Jun 2001
The inner-workings of the mind of an aged American intellectual? Possibly not the most enticing prospect for an enjoyable read, but Bellow's skill in capturing *humanity* in all its variations pulls this off magnificently. Herzog is reminiscent of one of those displaced characters Nabokov created - trapped in an age that doesn't quite accept him, or vice versa. This relationship is even more interesting against the backdrop of the brief fetish of intellectualism in the Kennedy era. However, the real attraction of this book is Bellow's superlative ability to capture the essence of Herzog's increasingly fractured mind, taking the reader on a ride into his own personal world.

An excellent piece of classic American literature., 05 Sep 2000
Of all the contemporary American authors, Saul Bellow ranks as one of the best. He has a wonderful control of the English language and a fine sense of humour. "Herzog" is one of his funniest, most touching books. It is abounding with energy and character. Meet Moses E. Herzog, a man who, at middle age, is looking back on his life by writing letters that are not to be sent, to his two ex wives, friends and collegues. Out of all Saul Bellow's books, this one ranks as my favorite so, if you're looking for a book that will both move you and make you smile, look no further than "Herzog".

Superlative US novel about an academic's touch with madness, 27 Sep 2008
Stunning novel about a middle aged academic almost driven insane by various personal and ideological crises, but who eventually manages to find some peace after experiencing events that finally seem to connect him with reality. I absolutely adored the quality of style and character, and although the plot is incredibly thin, you don't care because it is constructed so brilliantly to allow all those fascinating, perfectly described reminiscences. Definitely I was generally having that feeling of sickening jealousy for the sheer ability demonstrated, albieit in quite a showy way. There are many incredible lines, either simply involving profound observations on life, or via the wonderful eye for character details that Bellow has. The use of letters as a kind of stream of consciousness device works fantastically. Herzog's character is one of the most stunningly rich and real I've ever come across in literature, and the peripheral characters also feel very real and vivid. This novel seems incredibly autobiographical, in fact, and many of the details probably were taken from Bellow's life. The only slight criticism I have is that in one or two places it felt a little contrived. Ramona is obviously set up as the "healthy" choice and feels slightly thin for it. And why oh why would Herzog keep his gun in his pocket when visiting his daughter? This to me seemed totally unbelievable, and merely a silly device. But these tiny quibbles aside, this is definitely one of the best American novels I've ever read.

A brilliant, gripping study of value, intellect and breakdown, 10 Jun 2008
This novel starts with a ferociously strong image, then moves us into the mind of Moses Herzog. Herzog is a failing professor with an unfaithful second wife, a treacherous best friend, unwritten books and theses which remind him of his failings. Also, in a bizarrely wonderful twist, we find that Herzog writes letters avidly, even compulsively. These are largely to dead people, either relatives or historical figures he has never met. Also mathematicians - he writes to Euclid and points out why his theories don't add up.

The novel also contains a profound and bitter sense of betrayal, Herzog's as his marriage fails and his child whisked from him, Bellow's as similar events in his life mirrored the plot.

This is Bellow's most autobiographical work, including his bizarre childhood and the way he sees an exiled, crushed class (and race) adjust to their new lives, while he with his fabulously realised child's eyes sees only the surface, but sees things an adult would consider sinister.

This book is either a masterpiece or so close it makes no difference. Check it out when you're prepared to be tantalised and confused.



Memorable portrait of a troubled man who thinks too much, 02 Aug 2001
Moses Herzog is a Jewish academic living in New York in the early Sixties. Following the disastrous break-up of his second marriage, he begins writing letters - first, to practically everybody he has ever met, and then to a varity of public and cultural figures living and dead. It doesn't take the reader long to realise that Herzog is having something of a crisis: his behaviour is erratic and his mind distracted as he remembers in vivid detail key scenes in his life. Perhaps we can make allowances, though - he is trying to make sense of what it means to be alive in the Western world in the second half of the twentieth century, after all. The book is not exactly big on plot, but a certain suspense does build as to whether he's going to get through it with his mind and body intact. The novel is also very well written, and at times dazzlingly so. As a character, Herzog is brilliantly realised - unquestionably an intellectual, he is entirely believable as betrayed husband, doting father, rebellious son, hesitant lover and more besides. The book is a modern classic which captures its time, and still has a lot to say to us about our lives as part of a society too advanced for easy comprehension.

A real grower!, 08 Jun 2001
The inner-workings of the mind of an aged American intellectual? Possibly not the most enticing prospect for an enjoyable read, but Bellow's skill in capturing *humanity* in all its variations pulls this off magnificently. Herzog is reminiscent of one of those displaced characters Nabokov created - trapped in an age that doesn't quite accept him, or vice versa. This relationship is even more interesting against the backdrop of the brief fetish of intellectualism in the Kennedy era. However, the real attraction of this book is Bellow's superlative ability to capture the essence of Herzog's increasingly fractured mind, taking the reader on a ride into his own personal world.

An excellent piece of classic American literature., 05 Sep 2000
Of all the contemporary American authors, Saul Bellow ranks as one of the best. He has a wonderful control of the English language and a fine sense of humour. "Herzog" is one of his funniest, most touching books. It is abounding with energy and character. Meet Moses E. Herzog, a man who, at middle age, is looking back on his life by writing letters that are not to be sent, to his two ex wives, friends and collegues. Out of all Saul Bellow's books, this one ranks as my favorite so, if you're looking for a book that will both move you and make you smile, look no further than "Herzog".

A poor kid from Chicago wades through the 1930s questioning life, love and how he should live. , 04 Jun 2008
The recollections of the novel's narrator, Augie, take the reader on a lengthy but engaging journey through the America of the Great Depression and, towards the end of the novel, the Second World War. Throughout the novel Augie fails to decide on a specific vocation. Whilst intelligent and well read, he lacks the specialist skills and certainty required to pursue a conventional career. Consequently, he finds employment in a number of multifarious, mostly menial, roles. Willing to turn his hand to anything, Augie finds himself, amongst other things, hitching rides across states on freezing-cold freight trains, stealing books for wealthy university students and helping to train an eagle with his then girlfriend in Mexico. The realist style of Bellow's writing makes for a lengthy but very enjoyable, engaging and, apart from the occasional references to the Old Testament and Classical Mythology, accessible novel. The introduction by Christopher Hitchens is also definitely worth reading after, or before if you want the plot spoiled further, you've finished the novel itself.


A verbal feast, 29 Dec 2006
Saul Bellow uses Augie March's fairly extraordinary saga to allow us all, and probably himself too, to muse our ways through a succession of reflections on the human predicament. I would be surprised if most readers did not discover from time to time in these pages something of themselves; of their fears, hopes, dismay, despair, and perhaps resilience. It's a very rewarding read. Not that it's not difficult sometimes. In fact, either he, S.B., simply ratchets up his verbal dexterity beyond my reach from time to time, or could it be that his determination to find ever more complicated verbal chords actually sometimes produces combinations that don't really work. Certainly sometimes they don't work for me. But there are also passages of breathtaking effect which leave one to wonder how words can be crafted with such skill to describe with such extraordinary clarity our previously unvoiced (because by us un-voicable, if not un-thinkable) feelings and reactions to so many situations, some common enough. A master at work.


Bellow resurrects the idea of adventure in an urban setting., 31 Dec 2001
A brilliant portrayal of a young man trying to learn to live within his world. The experiences and encounters of Augie are vivid and richly colored. There is a wonderful freshness, almost vivaciousness, imparted to a tired and economically depressed Chicago. The very idea of adventure in an urban setting seems almost puerile perhaps to many, but Bellow perceives the existence of challenge and life in the run-down and dilapadated. It is perhaps old-fashioned to be inspired by a book but if such a thing can still exist it can be found in 'The Adventures of Augie March'

Augie March- the all-american kid, 15 Jun 2001
In the Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow gives us an insight into the reality of the life of the all american kid. March is a jewish kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks during depression time Chicago. He strives to do his best by all around him whilst also trying to get a grip on the american dream. The two tier american society of the very rich and the also rans is exposed for possibly the first time in 20th century literatue. March tries to work both within the system and from without, with varying degrees of success. He flirts with education, crime, marriage and travel, all with startling results. The Adventures of Augie March is as accuarte a portrayal of the difficulties of growing up underprivliged in the US today as it was sixty years ago. An excellent read and a brilliant introduction to the fine prose of Bellow.

A genuine life-enricher, 23 Mar 2001
I had never read any Bellow before I opened this book, but it blew me away, and I can't wait to read more. It is the story of Augie March, a poor kid brought up by his overbearing grandmother and downtrodden mother in 1930s Chicago. As he grows into maturity, he starts to make ends meet on the very edge of the law, doing odd jobs, working for a series of well-meaning but self-important grandees who try to make him into a big success. But Augie has "opposition", and though he is smart and handsome, finds his ambitions unsatisfied by the big bucks that his brother begins to amass. Again and again he rejects other people's plans to make something of him, until he falls wildly in love with the beautiful, rich and free-spirited Thea, who carries him off to Mexico to hunt iguanas with an eagle. Bellow's language is sometimes difficult, but always exuberant and expansive, full of detailed description and colour, bursting with throwaway ideas. The novel has an abundance of hilarious minor characters, who appear and reappear as Augie muddles his way through his Bohemian and vaguely Bolshevik circles, making a buck here and there, more or less legally, and observing everything with a wry sense of humour, dauntless optimism and quiet integrity. I have not enjoyed a novel this much for a long time. It starts slowly, building up characters gradually, but pretty soon it is unput-downable. The ending is a bit weak, like so many of these rites-of-passage novels, and it becomes a bit glib and conceptual. But the first 350 pages represent some of the finest twentieth-century writing in English that I have read. It is a novel about the limits of the soul and the growth of a mind, about the trade-offs between adventure and pain, happiness and security, and the search for fulfilment in a time of global depression, when the world was doing everything it could to dampen the human spirit.

Superlative US novel about an academic's touch with madness, 27 Sep 2008
Stunning novel about a middle aged academic almost driven insane by various personal and ideological crises, but who eventually manages to find some peace after experiencing events that finally seem to connect him with reality. I absolutely adored the quality of style and character, and although the plot is incredibly thin, you don't care because it is constructed so brilliantly to allow all those fascinating, perfectly described reminiscences. Definitely I was generally having that feeling of sickening jealousy for the sheer ability demonstrated, albieit in quite a showy way. There are many incredible lines, either simply involving profound observations on life, or via the wonderful eye for character details that Bellow has. The use of letters as a kind of stream of consciousness device works fantastically. Herzog's character is one of the most stunningly rich and real I've ever come across in literature, and the peripheral characters also feel very real and vivid. This novel seems incredibly autobiographical, in fact, and many of the details probably were taken from Bellow's life. The only slight criticism I have is that in one or two places it felt a little contrived. Ramona is obviously set up as the "healthy" choice and feels slightly thin for it. And why oh why would Herzog keep his gun in his pocket when visiting his daughter? This to me seemed totally unbelievable, and merely a silly device. But these tiny quibbles aside, this is definitely one of the best American novels I've ever read.

A brilliant, gripping study of value, intellect and breakdown, 10 Jun 2008
This novel starts with a ferociously strong image, then moves us into the mind of Moses Herzog. Herzog is a failing professor with an unfaithful second wife, a treacherous best friend, unwritten books and theses which remind him of his failings. Also, in a bizarrely wonderful twist, we find that Herzog writes letters avidly, even compulsively. These are largely to dead people, either relatives or historical figures he has never met. Also mathematicians - he writes to Euclid and points out why his theories don't add up.

The novel also contains a profound and bitter sense of betrayal, Herzog's as his marriage fails and his child whisked from him, Bellow's as similar events in his life mirrored the plot.

This is Bellow's most autobiographical work, including his bizarre childhood and the way he sees an exiled, crushed class (and race) adjust to their new lives, while he with his fabulously realised child's eyes sees only the surface, but sees things an adult would consider sinister.

This book is either a masterpiece or so close it makes no difference. Check it out when you're prepared to be tantalised and confused.



Memorable portrait of a troubled man who thinks too much, 02 Aug 2001
Moses Herzog is a Jewish academic living in New York in the early Sixties. Following the disastrous break-up of his second marriage, he begins writing letters - first, to practically everybody he has ever met, and then to a varity of public and cultural figures living and dead. It doesn't take the reader long to realise that Herzog is having something of a crisis: his behaviour is erratic and his mind distracted as he remembers in vivid detail key scenes in his life. Perhaps we can make allowances, though - he is trying to make sense of what it means to be alive in the Western world in the second half of the twentieth century, after all. The book is not exactly big on plot, but a certain suspense does build as to whether he's going to get through it with his mind and body intact. The novel is also very well written, and at times dazzlingly so. As a character, Herzog is brilliantly realised - unquestionably an intellectual, he is entirely believable as betrayed husband, doting father, rebellious son, hesitant lover and more besides. The book is a modern classic which captures its time, and still has a lot to say to us about our lives as part of a society too advanced for easy comprehension.

A real grower!, 08 Jun 2001
The inner-workings of the mind of an aged American intellectual? Possibly not the most enticing prospect for an enjoyable read, but Bellow's skill in capturing *humanity* in all its variations pulls this off magnificently. Herzog is reminiscent of one of those displaced characters Nabokov created - trapped in an age that doesn't quite accept him, or vice versa. This relationship is even more interesting against the backdrop of the brief fetish of intellectualism in the Kennedy era. However, the real attraction of this book is Bellow's superlative ability to capture the essence of Herzog's increasingly fractured mind, taking the reader on a ride into his own personal world.

An excellent piece of classic American literature., 05 Sep 2000
Of all the contemporary American authors, Saul Bellow ranks as one of the best. He has a wonderful control of the English language and a fine sense of humour. "Herzog" is one of his funniest, most touching books. It is abounding with energy and character. Meet Moses E. Herzog, a man who, at middle age, is looking back on his life by writing letters that are not to be sent, to his two ex wives, friends and collegues. Out of all Saul Bellow's books, this one ranks as my favorite so, if you're looking for a book that will both move you and make you smile, look no further than "Herzog".

A poor kid from Chicago wades through the 1930s questioning life, love and how he should live. , 04 Jun 2008
The recollections of the novel's narrator, Augie, take the reader on a lengthy but engaging journey through the America of the Great Depression and, towards the end of the novel, the Second World War. Throughout the novel Augie fails to decide on a specific vocation. Whilst intelligent and well read, he lacks the specialist skills and certainty required to pursue a conventional career. Consequently, he finds employment in a number of multifarious, mostly menial, roles. Willing to turn his hand to anything, Augie finds himself, amongst other things, hitching rides across states on freezing-cold freight trains, stealing books for wealthy university students and helping to train an eagle with his then girlfriend in Mexico. The realist style of Bellow's writing makes for a lengthy but very enjoyable, engaging and, apart from the occasional references to the Old Testament and Classical Mythology, accessible novel. The introduction by Christopher Hitchens is also definitely worth reading after, or before if you want the plot spoiled further, you've finished the novel itself.


A verbal feast, 29 Dec 2006
Saul Bellow uses Augie March's fairly extraordinary saga to allow us all, and probably himself too, to muse our ways through a succession of reflections on the human predicament. I would be surprised if most readers did not discover from time to time in these pages something of themselves; of their fears, hopes, dismay, despair, and perhaps resilience. It's a very rewarding read. Not that it's not difficult sometimes. In fact, either he, S.B., simply ratchets up his verbal dexterity beyond my reach from time to time, or could it be that his determination to find ever more complicated verbal chords actually sometimes produces combinations that don't really work. Certainly sometimes they don't work for me. But there are also passages of breathtaking effect which leave one to wonder how words can be crafted with such skill to describe with such extraordinary clarity our previously unvoiced (because by us un-voicable, if not un-thinkable) feelings and reactions to so many situations, some common enough. A master at work.


Bellow resurrects the idea of adventure in an urban setting., 31 Dec 2001
A brilliant portrayal of a young man trying to learn to live within his world. The experiences and encounters of Augie are vivid and richly colored. There is a wonderful freshness, almost vivaciousness, imparted to a tired and economically depressed Chicago. The very idea of adventure in an urban setting seems almost puerile perhaps to many, but Bellow perceives the existence of challenge and life in the run-down and dilapadated. It is perhaps old-fashioned to be inspired by a book but if such a thing can still exist it can be found in 'The Adventures of Augie March'

Augie March- the all-american kid, 15 Jun 2001
In the Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow gives us an insight into the reality of the life of the all american kid. March is a jewish kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks during depression time Chicago. He strives to do his best by all around him whilst also trying to get a grip on the american dream. The two tier american society of the very rich and the also rans is exposed for possibly the first time in 20th century literatue. March tries to work both within the system and from without, with varying degrees of success. He flirts with education, crime, marriage and travel, all with startling results. The Adventures of Augie March is as accuarte a portrayal of the difficulties of growing up underprivliged in the US today as it was sixty years ago. An excellent read and a brilliant introduction to the fine prose of Bellow.

A genuine life-enricher, 23 Mar 2001
I had never read any Bellow before I opened this book, but it blew me away, and I can't wait to read more. It is the story of Augie March, a poor kid brought up by his overbearing grandmother and downtrodden mother in 1930s Chicago. As he grows into maturity, he starts to make ends meet on the very edge of the law, doing odd jobs, working for a series of well-meaning but self-important grandees who try to make him into a big success. But Augie has "opposition", and though he is smart and handsome, finds his ambitions unsatisfied by the big bucks that his brother begins to amass. Again and again he rejects other people's plans to make something of him, until he falls wildly in love with the beautiful, rich and free-spirited Thea, who carries him off to Mexico to hunt iguanas with an eagle. Bellow's language is sometimes difficult, but always exuberant and expansive, full of detailed description and colour, bursting with throwaway ideas. The novel has an abundance of hilarious minor characters, who appear and reappear as Augie muddles his way through his Bohemian and vaguely Bolshevik circles, making a buck here and there, more or less legally, and observing everything with a wry sense of humour, dauntless optimism and quiet integrity. I have not enjoyed a novel this much for a long time. It starts slowly, building up characters gradually, but pretty soon it is unput-downable. The ending is a bit weak, like so many of these rites-of-passage novels, and it becomes a bit glib and conceptual. But the first 350 pages represent some of the finest twentieth-century writing in English that I have read. It is a novel about the limits of the soul and the growth of a mind, about the trade-offs between adventure and pain, happiness and security, and the search for fulfilment in a time of global depression, when the world was doing everything it could to dampen the human spirit.

A note of caution..., 16 Jul 2008
This is a great book, but beware prospective purchasers! I bought this edition specifically because it is advertised as having an introduction by Martin Amis, who is my favourite writer and Saul Bellow's greatest fan, but in fact this edition does not have an introduction of any sort. A little more work by amazon to get their facts right would be nice.

A Classic Worthy of the Name, 29 Aug 2006
Around the time Bellow received the Nobel for this novel, he was the subject of my college dissertation. It was to be almost thirty years before I revisited Humboldt's Gift again as my inflight reading on a trip to the US, and when I did the experience was somewhat different.

First I noted the humour. I remembered its being an amusing book, but never as hilarious as I found it so many years on. I reflected on whether I had truly understood some of the references, and on how much more I identified with the book having travelled to some of the places mentioned - Texas, Chicago, New York, Madrid. The whole thing was so much less abstract, so I felt more able to immerse myself in the characterisation, without the need to expend energy trying to imagine what these places looked like.

It was the characterisation that really stood out, from the outwardly bullish but inwardly sheepish Charlie Citrine, and his scheming girlfriend Renata and her conspiratorial mother; the minor hoodlum Cantabile and his academic girlfriend Polly; and on to the tragic Humboldt himself, long deceased by the time of the book's opening but a constant, spectral presence throughout. Finally, the roguish Thaxter, Citrine's "business partner", a man who may well have inspired the leadership of Enron.

In addition, some of the vocabulary surprised me. For example, "leveraged". Had I registered the word back in the seventies? I guessed not. It's a word I'd associated with management consultants, financial derivatives and the eighties.

Much of the book is a study in pain, from Citrine's guilt at avoiding the down-and-out, soon-to-die Humboldt on the street in New York, his anguish over his vandalised Mercedes, the wrangles with his ex-wife and his abandonment in Madrid with Renata's son, as she stays in Chicago to marry Citrine's rival in love, Flonzaley the undertaker. However, although it is easy to empathise with the suffering, and the abandonment in particular left me feeling trapped, claustrophobic and betrayed on Citrine's behalf, he himself sustains an air of detachment throughout, even going so far as to observe that he could probably put a stop to Cantabile's nonsense immediately, but just can't be bothered.

Cantabile himself is the low-life's low-life. From the incident where he insists Citrine shares the cubicle with him while he takes a crap, through to his offer of a threesome with Polly, there is plenty to dislike about him.

But still there is the humour - even the abandonment has its comic moments - just in case we should take things too seriously. Thaxter's fascination with Cantabile, for instance, which not only leads to rather more contact with the guttersnipe than Citrine cares for but also ultimately to his arrest as Cantabile presents him as a hitman at a meeting which turns out to be a sting set up by the cops.

As with other Bellow works, the erudition is stupendous, with references to a galaxy of writers, politicians, philosophers and World Historical Figures. Their lives and works are constantly analysed by the inner dialogue continually raging in Citrine's head - it's no surprise to learn Bellow was heavily influenced by Joyce, though to get a better flavour of that read Bellow's earlier novel, Herzog.

However, sad to say that, contrary to other reviews, there is no sinister Master, and no plot in the White House; nor does Dr Who make an appearance at any point in the book.

Humboldt's Gift seems to get by all right without these essentials, nevertheless. As with any classic literature, it has stood the test of time, so although the setting is now a few decades past, the dilemmas and responses of the characters are as relevant now as they were then.


The book Ravelstein fails to be, 06 Feb 2002
With all its chronological twists and vivid character this book is Saul's best, though it takes a tardis to navigate to it's dark soul. It is semi-autobiographical, set in Chicago, and draws heavily on the real life experiences of the great American poet, Peter Ustinov. The parallels are deep. Like Humboldt, Peter's life ended in despair, madness and prostitution. Saul was instrumental in resurrecting his work to greatness, but this book isn't only about that hallowed man. It is a journey through love, friendship and time. Charlie Citrine is befriended by a Chicago gangster called Cantible (based on the true life NY hoodlum and children's presenter Andy Crane) and introduces him to a sinister man known only as the Master. It is never quite clear what the Master is looking for, but Citrine knows that Humboldt's poetry holds the key. As he begins deciphering he uncovers a fantastic plot that leads to the White House, the mysterious Dr Who, and the U.N. and ends in a nail-biting parody of Sophocles staged in Madame Tussaurds...brilliant!!

A novel to read more than once, 27 Jun 2001
I've just finished reading this novel tonight (in a flimsy library copy) and feel that there is so much I could say about it, about Charlie Citrine, the narrator and Humboldt his friend, and their wide-ranging thoughts on love and death, poetry and philosophy, art and life. But I won't do that; I'll just record that my immediate thought was, "I want to have this book in hardback!" Not only to read again, but to dip into and find those oh-so quotable lines once more. Charlie's topic may often be death, but it's a real Book of Life.

The limitations of the reader experience.., 03 Dec 2000
Bellow at his best and probably most accessible. He demonstrates with ease his sharp humour, usual dazzling use of language, immense learning...It seems to me that almost every sentence of this book is quotable. I have a good mind to try memorise the bloody book. Buy it, read it, reread it.

Superlative US novel about an academic's touch with madness, 27 Sep 2008
Stunning novel about a middle aged academic almost driven insane by various personal and ideological crises, but who eventually manages to find some peace after experiencing events that finally seem to connect him with reality. I absolutely adored the quality of style and character, and although the plot is incredibly thin, you don't care because it is constructed so brilliantly to allow all those fascinating, perfectly described reminiscences. Definitely I was generally having that feeling of sickening jealousy for the sheer ability demonstrated, albieit in quite a showy way. There are many incredible lines, either simply involving profound observations on life, or via the wonderful eye for character details that Bellow has. The use of letters as a kind of stream of consciousness device works fantastically. Herzog's character is one of the most stunningly rich and real I've ever come across in literature, and the peripheral characters also feel very real and vivid. This novel seems incredibly autobiographical, in fact, and many of the details probably were taken from Bellow's life. The only slight criticism I have is that in one or two places it felt a little contrived. Ramona is obviously set up as the "healthy" choice and feels slightly thin for it. And why oh why would Herzog keep his gun in his pocket when visiting his daughter? This to me seemed totally unbelievable, and merely a silly device. But these tiny quibbles aside, this is definitely one of the best American novels I've ever read.

A brilliant, gripping study of value, intellect and breakdown, 10 Jun 2008
This novel starts with a ferociously strong image, then moves us into the mind of Moses Herzog. Herzog is a failing professor with an unfaithful second wife, a treacherous best friend, unwritten books and theses which remind him of his failings. Also, in a bizarrely wonderful twist, we find that Herzog writes letters avidly, even compulsively. These are largely to dead people, either relatives or historical figures he has never met. Also mathematicians - he writes to Euclid and points out why his theories don't add up.

The novel also contains a profound and bitter sense of betrayal, Herzog's as his marriage fails and his child whisked from him, Bellow's as similar events in his life mirrored the plot.

This is Bellow's most autobiographical work, including his bizarre childhood and the way he sees an exiled, crushed class (and race) adjust to their new lives, while he with his fabulously realised child's eyes sees only the surface, but sees things an adult would consider sinister.

This book is either a masterpiece or so close it makes no difference. Check it out when you're prepared to be tantalised and confused.



Memorable portrait of a troubled man who thinks too much, 02 Aug 2001
Moses Herzog is a Jewish academic living in New York in the early Sixties. Following the disastrous break-up of his second marriage, he begins writing letters - first, to practically everybody he has ever met, and then to a varity of public and cultural figures living and dead. It doesn't take the reader long to realise that Herzog is having something of a crisis: his behaviour is erratic and his mind distracted as he remembers in vivid detail key scenes in his life. Perhaps we can make allowances, though - he is trying to make sense of what it means to be alive in the Western world in the second half of the twentieth century, after all. The book is not exactly big on plot, but a certain suspense does build as to whether he's going to get through it with his mind and body intact. The novel is also very well written, and at times dazzlingly so. As a character, Herzog is brilliantly realised - unquestionably an intellectual, he is entirely believable as betrayed husband, doting father, rebellious son, hesitant lover and more besides. The book is a modern classic which captures its time, and still has a lot to say to us about our lives as part of a society too advanced for easy comprehension.

A real grower!, 08 Jun 2001
The inner-workings of the mind of an aged American intellectual? Possibly not the most enticing prospect for an enjoyable read, but Bellow's skill in capturing *humanity* in all its variations pulls this off magnificently. Herzog is reminiscent of one of those displaced characters Nabokov created - trapped in an age that doesn't quite accept him, or vice versa. This relationship is even more interesting against the backdrop of the brief fetish of intellectualism in the Kennedy era. However, the real attraction of this book is Bellow's superlative ability to capture the essence of Herzog's increasingly fractured mind, taking the reader on a ride into his own personal world.

An excellent piece of classic American literature., 05 Sep 2000
Of all the contemporary American authors, Saul Bellow ranks as one of the best. He has a wonderful control of the English language and a fine sense of humour. "Herzog" is one of his funniest, most touching books. It is abounding with energy and character. Meet Moses E. Herzog, a man who, at middle age, is looking back on his life by writing letters that are not to be sent, to his two ex wives, friends and collegues. Out of all Saul Bellow's books, this one ranks as my favorite so, if you're looking for a book that will both move you and make you smile, look no further than "Herzog".

A poor kid from Chicago wades through the 1930s questioning life, love and how he should live. , 04 Jun 2008
The recollections of the novel's narrator, Augie, take the reader on a lengthy but engaging journey through the America of the Great Depression and, towards the end of the novel, the Second World War. Throughout the novel Augie fails to decide on a specific vocation. Whilst intelligent and well read, he lacks the specialist skills and certainty required to pursue a conventional career. Consequently, he finds employment in a number of multifarious, mostly menial, roles. Willing to turn his hand to anything, Augie finds himself, amongst other things, hitching rides across states on freezing-cold freight trains, stealing books for wealthy university students and helping to train an eagle with his then girlfriend in Mexico. The realist style of Bellow's writing makes for a lengthy but very enjoyable, engaging and, apart from the occasional references to the Old Testament and Classical Mythology, accessible novel. The introduction by Christopher Hitchens is also definitely worth reading after, or before if you want the plot spoiled further, you've finished the novel itself.


A verbal feast, 29 Dec 2006
Saul Bellow uses Augie March's fairly extraordinary saga to allow us all, and probably himself too, to muse our ways through a succession of reflections on the human predicament. I would be surprised if most readers did not discover from time to time in these pages something of themselves; of their fears, hopes, dismay, despair, and perhaps resilience. It's a very rewarding read. Not that it's not difficult sometimes. In fact, either he, S.B., simply ratchets up his verbal dexterity beyond my reach from time to time, or could it be that his determination to find ever more complicated verbal chords actually sometimes produces combinations that don't really work. Certainly sometimes they don't work for me. But there are also passages of breathtaking effect which leave one to wonder how words can be crafted with such skill to describe with such extraordinary clarity our previously unvoiced (because by us un-voicable, if not un-thinkable) feelings and reactions to so many situations, some common enough. A master at work.


Bellow resurrects the idea of adventure in an urban setting., 31 Dec 2001
A brilliant portrayal of a young man trying to learn to live within his world. The experiences and encounters of Augie are vivid and richly colored. There is a wonderful freshness, almost vivaciousness, imparted to a tired and economically depressed Chicago. The very idea of adventure in an urban setting seems almost puerile perhaps to many, but Bellow perceives the existence of challenge and life in the run-down and dilapadated. It is perhaps old-fashioned to be inspired by a book but if such a thing can still exist it can be found in 'The Adventures of Augie March'

Augie March- the all-american kid, 15 Jun 2001
In the Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow gives us an insight into the reality of the life of the all american kid. March is a jewish kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks during depression time Chicago. He strives to do his best by all around him whilst also trying to get a grip on the american dream. The two tier american society of the very rich and the also rans is exposed for possibly the first time in 20th century literatue. March tries to work both within the system and from without, with varying degrees of success. He flirts with education, crime, marriage and travel, all with startling results. The Adventures of Augie March is as accuarte a portrayal of the difficulties of growing up underprivliged in the US today as it was sixty years ago. An excellent read and a brilliant introduction to the fine prose of Bellow.

A genuine life-enricher, 23 Mar 2001
I had never read any Bellow before I opened this book, but it blew me away, and I can't wait to read more. It is the story of Augie March, a poor kid brought up by his overbearing grandmother and downtrodden mother in 1930s Chicago. As he grows into maturity, he starts to make ends meet on the very edge of the law, doing odd jobs, working for a series of well-meaning but self-important grandees who try to make him into a big success. But Augie has "opposition", and though he is smart and handsome, finds his ambitions unsatisfied by the big bucks that his brother begins to amass. Again and again he rejects other people's plans to make something of him, until he falls wildly in love with the beautiful, rich and free-spirited Thea, who carries him off to Mexico to hunt iguanas with an eagle. Bellow's language is sometimes difficult, but always exuberant and expansive, full of detailed description and colour, bursting with throwaway ideas. The novel has an abundance of hilarious minor characters, who appear and reappear as Augie muddles his way through his Bohemian and vaguely Bolshevik circles, making a buck here and there, more or less legally, and observing everything with a wry sense of humour, dauntless optimism and quiet integrity. I have not enjoyed a novel this much for a long time. It starts slowly, building up characters gradually, but pretty soon it is unput-downable. The ending is a bit weak, like so many of these rites-of-passage novels, and it becomes a bit glib and conceptual. But the first 350 pages represent some of the finest twentieth-century writing in English that I have read. It is a novel about the limits of the soul and the growth of a mind, about the trade-offs between adventure and pain, happiness and security, and the search for fulfilment in a time of global depression, when the world was doing everything it could to dampen the human spirit.

A note of caution..., 16 Jul 2008
This is a great book, but beware prospective purchasers! I bought this edition specifically because it is advertised as having an introduction by Martin Amis, who is my favourite writer and Saul Bellow's greatest fan, but in fact this edition does not have an introduction of any sort. A little more work by amazon to get their facts right would be nice.

A Classic Worthy of the Name, 29 Aug 2006
Around the time Bellow received the Nobel for this novel, he was the subject of my college dissertation. It was to be almost thirty years before I revisited Humboldt's Gift again as my inflight reading on a trip to the US, and when I did the experience was somewhat different.

First I noted the humour. I remembered its being an amusing book, but never as hilarious as I found it so many years on. I reflected on whether I had truly understood some of the references, and on how much more I identified with the book having travelled to some of the places mentioned - Texas, Chicago, New York, Madrid. The whole thing was so much less abstract, so I felt more able to immerse myself in the characterisation, without the need to expend energy trying to imagine what these places looked like.

It was the characterisation that really stood out, from the outwardly bullish but inwardly sheepish Charlie Citrine, and his scheming girlfriend Renata and her conspiratorial mother; the minor hoodlum Cantabile and his academic girlfriend Polly; and on to the tragic Humboldt himself, long deceased by the time of the book's opening but a constant, spectral presence throughout. Finally, the roguish Thaxter, Citrine's "business partner", a man who may well have inspired the leadership of Enron.

In addition, some of the vocabulary surprised me. For example, "leveraged". Had I registered the word back in the seventies? I guessed not. It's a word I'd associated with management consultants, financial derivatives and the eighties.

Much of the book is a study in pain, from Citrine's guilt at avoiding the down-and-out, soon-to-die Humboldt on the street in New York, his anguish over his vandalised Mercedes, the wrangles with his ex-wife and his abandonment in Madrid with Renata's son, as she stays in Chicago to marry Citrine's rival in love, Flonzaley the undertaker. However, although it is easy to empathise with the suffering, and the abandonment in particular left me feeling trapped, claustrophobic and betrayed on Citrine's behalf, he himself sustains an air of detachment throughout, even going so far as to observe that he could probably put a stop to Cantabile's nonsense immediately, but just can't be bothered.

Cantabile himself is the low-life's low-life. From the incident where he insists Citrine shares the cubicle with him while he takes a crap, through to his offer of a threesome with Polly, there is plenty to dislike about him.

But still there is the humour - even the abandonment has its comic moments - just in case we should take things too seriously. Thaxter's fascination with Cantabile, for instance, which not only leads to rather more contact with the guttersnipe than Citrine cares for but also ultimately to his arrest as Cantabile presents him as a hitman at a meeting which turns out to be a sting set up by the cops.

As with other Bellow works, the erudition is stupendous, with references to a galaxy of writers, politicians, philosophers and World Historical Figures. Their lives and works are constantly analysed by the inner dialogue continually raging in Citrine's head - it's no surprise to learn Bellow was heavily influenced by Joyce, though to get a better flavour of that read Bellow's earlier novel, Herzog.

However, sad to say that, contrary to other reviews, there is no sinister Master, and no plot in the White House; nor does Dr Who make an appearance at any point in the book.

Humboldt's Gift seems to get by all right without these essentials, nevertheless. As with any classic literature, it has stood the test of time, so although the setting is now a few decades past, the dilemmas and responses of the characters are as relevant now as they were then.


The book Ravelstein fails to be, 06 Feb 2002
With all its chronological twists and vivid character this book is Saul's best, though it takes a tardis to navigate to it's dark soul. It is semi-autobiographical, set in Chicago, and draws heavily on the real life experiences of the great American poet, Peter Ustinov. The parallels are deep. Like Humboldt, Peter's life ended in despair, madness and prostitution. Saul was instrumental in resurrecting his work to greatness, but this book isn't only about that hallowed man. It is a journey through love, friendship and time. Charlie Citrine is befriended by a Chicago gangster called Cantible (based on the true life NY hoodlum and children's presenter Andy Crane) and introduces him to a sinister man known only as the Master. It is never quite clear what the Master is looking for, but Citrine knows that Humboldt's poetry holds the key. As he begins deciphering he uncovers a fantastic plot that leads to the White House, the mysterious Dr Who, and the U.N. and ends in a nail-biting parody of Sophocles staged in Madame Tussaurds...brilliant!!

A novel to read more than once, 27 Jun 2001
I've just finished reading this novel tonight (in a flimsy library copy) and feel that there is so much I could say about it, about Charlie Citrine, the narrator and Humboldt his friend, and their wide-ranging thoughts on love and death, poetry and philosophy, art and life. But I won't do that; I'll just record that my immediate thought was, "I want to have this book in hardback!" Not only to read again, but to dip into and find those oh-so quotable lines once more. Charlie's topic may often be death, but it's a real Book of Life.

The limitations of the reader experience.., 03 Dec 2000
Bellow at his best and probably most accessible. He demonstrates with ease his sharp humour, usual dazzling use of language, immense learning...It seems to me that almost every sentence of this book is quotable. I have a good mind to try memorise the bloody book. Buy it, read it, reread it.

A poetic, introspective view of a man who believes himself a failure, 10 Jun 2008
This astounding novella pounces on your attention from the first lines. It used a language of alienated introspection, with a self deluded failure of a man, bitter about everything and harbouring a particular grudge against his father.

As Tommy Wilheim's story unfolds, we begin to see the parts of him that put him in this position. He is a proud dreamer of a man, too fond of good intentions to get much done. The book follows his defeats and defiances, seeing him fall helpless from one mess to another. Its ending is a poignant comment on the man's state of mind, and had a lasting effect on me when I first read it. 12 years later I read it again, and even though I knew what was coming I felt the same thing.

An astounding book, please check it out.


A remarkable small novel, 28 Oct 2007
The main character in Saul Bellow's novel is Tommy Wilhelm. He now lives with his father at the Gloriana Hotel in New York. Everything he has ever undertaken has gone wrong. He never managed to complete his studies. He was dragged to Hollywood by an old friend, Maurice Venice, who promised him a career as a film star with Kaskia Films. But then it turned out that Venice was simply a pimp and Wilhelm ended up by working in a restaurant in California. Later he married Margaret, he had two sons Paulie and Tommy and found a job with a company called Rojax Corporation. When he was dismissed his marriage broke up and Wilhelm's father's wrath reached the point when he refused to give his son a single penny.
When Wilhelm meets psychologist Dr Tamkin, he is drawn into speculation in commodities at one of the branches of a good Wall Street house. Wilhelm clings to the hope that his luck is about to turn - he has given the last of his money to Dr Tamkin. Is Tamkin ripping Wilhelm off or is he offering him one last chance to make it out of his mess?
A moving portrait of a man with sensitive feelings, a soft heart, a brooding nature and a tendency to be confused under the many pressures of life.


A Jewish loser in a world of financial vultures, some cannibals, 20 Mar 2007
An interesting film adapted from Saul Bellow, the famous Nobel Prize winner. Here the character, a middle-age Jewish man, is accumulating all kinds of difficulties: he is fired, he is separated from his wife who hassles him for money, he is rejected financially and emotionally by his own father, he is fooled by a fake finance wizard who practically robs him of his money, and I should say etc and so on. The character is perfectly hysterical in an absolutely paranoid direction and we can see him going down little by little and it all ends up on a total dead end blind alley impasse. In other words a perfect loser in the Jewish culture who ends up crying on his own fate in the funeral of some other guy he does not know at all among people who don't know him nor he them. That is pure Saul Bellow who dedicated his whole writing career to such losers and total misfits in the world of making money not only to survive, not even to live, but to exist. In other words he is self immolating himself at the social stake of financial failure. Brilliant.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne


Seize this Book- my puns amuse me greatly., 25 Jul 2006
I read this one at about the same time as The Outsider, found many similarities and actually enjoyed this more. It's short, it's a shock, it's worth it for the ending.

A short novel, representative of Bellow's work, 23 Nov 2005
"Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow" is what Horace wrote at the end of his first book of Odes a couple of thousand years ago. And ever since, youth has been urged to make hay while the sun shines since the bird of time is on the wing--to toss in a couple more homilies. But what Saul Bellow has in mind here is entirely ironic since his sad protagonist, Tommy Wilhelm Adler has never seized the day at all, much to his unfeeling father's disgust.

This then is a tale of failure (one of Bellow's recurring themes) and the shame and self-loathing that failure may bring; and yet there is a sense, or at least a hint--not of redemption of course--but of acceptance and understanding at the end of this short existential novel by the Nobel Prize winner.

The way that Bellow's drowning, existential man experiences the funeral as this novel ends is the way we should all experience a funeral, that is, with the certain knowledge that the man lying dead in the coffin is, or will be, us.

And we should cry copious tears and a great shudder should seize us and we should sob as before God with the full realization that our day too will come, and sooner than we think--which is what big, blond-haired, handsome Jewish "Wilkie" Adler does. And in that realization we know that he has seen the truth and we along with him. An existential truth of course.

The structure of the novel, like James Joyce's Ulysses, begins and ends in the same day. Through flashbacks from Adler's nagging consciousness, the failures and disappointments of his life are recalled. When he was just a young man he foolishly thought because of his good looks and the assurance of a bogus talent scout that he might become a Hollywood star; and so he spurned college and instead went to the boulevard of broken dreams as it runs toward Santa Monica.

And so began the failure and dissolution of his life. As Bellow tells it, Wilhelm has slipped and fallen into something like a watery abyss. He can't catch his breath. He is drowning. He reaches out to his father, who turns away from him. He reaches out to Dr. Tamkin, the mysterious stranger, the clever fox of a man who swindles him and then disappears into the crowd of the great metropolis. He reaches out to his wife, who will also not extend a helping hand. Meanwhile, the waters about him have grown, and he is lost.

We are all lost, more or less, except those who delude themselves, who have their various schemes and delusions to distract them, is what Bellow seems to be saying. Those of us who have not seized the day, a day that is fleeting and subtle, indefinite and hard to grasp, become so much water-logged driftwood.

With resemblances to Albert Camus' The Stranger and Arthur Miller's Willy Loman, Bellow's Wilhelm is the essence of the anti-hero, literature's dominate strain of the mid-twentieth century. Such men have no firm or deep beliefs. They exist for the day, like butterflies, tossed about by circumstance all the while wondering why, but without any ability to rise above their predicament, a predicament that is so ordinary, so banal, so patently unheroic to be that of Everyman.

And what is the answer? For Bellow and Camus and Miller, the answer is the finality of death. A man lives, goes about craving--"I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want"--and for what and because of what? Like the tentmaker, Omar Khayyam, we wander willy-nilly without a clue, and then become so much dust in the wind.

For life IS a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying in the end, nothing. All our labors are like those of Sisyphus pushing the stone up the hill only to watch it roll back down again.

We cannot help but feel in reading this novel both a sense of empathy for the man who has failed, but at the same time, we might feel like his father and want to give him a kick and say, "Wilkie, get a grip on yourself. Quit making the same mistakes over and over again."

But we know that for Wilhelm it is already too late. He cannot change his nature anymore than the leopard can change its spots. We sense the great hand of fate upon him, and we shudder. For in some respects--different respects of course--we could be him. And we straighten up our frame, we return to our duties and responsibilities, to our work and the rhythms of our lives secure in the knowledge that we are stronger that Wilhelm, that although the waves may toss us about, we will not sink. At least not yet.

In reading this for the first time now half a century after it was written, I am struck with how different the zeitgeist is today. We have wildly successful heroes and larger-than-life murderous villains, and nowhere is there the existential man.

This short work is a splendid representative of one of my favorite genres, the short, sharply focused American novel from the early or middle 20th century. Other--widely differing--examples are John O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra, Nathanael West's Miss Lonely Hearts, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, to name a few.

Superlative US novel about an academic's touch with madness, 27 Sep 2008
Stunning novel about a middle aged academic almost driven insane by various personal and ideological crises, but who eventually manages to find some peace after experiencing events that finally seem to connect him with reality. I absolutely adored the quality of style and character, and although the plot is incredibly thin, you don't care because it is constructed so brilliantly to allow all those fascinating, perfectly described reminiscences. Definitely I was generally having that feeling of sickening jealousy for the sheer ability demonstrated, albieit in quite a showy way. There are many incredible lines, either simply involving profound observations on life, or via the wonderful eye for character details that Bellow has. The use of letters as a kind of stream of consciousness device works fantastically. Herzog's character is one of the most stunningly rich and real I've ever come across in literature, and the peripheral characters also feel very real and vivid. This novel seems incredibly autobiographical, in fact, and many of the details probably were taken from Bellow's life. The only slight criticism I have is that in one or two places it felt a little contrived. Ramona is obviously set up as the "healthy" choice and feels slightly thin for it. And why oh why would Herzog keep his gun in his pocket when visiting his daughter? This to me seemed totally unbelievable, and merely a silly device. But these tiny quibbles aside, this is definitely one of the best American novels I've ever read.

A brilliant, gripping study of value, intellect and breakdown, 10 Jun 2008
This novel starts with a ferociously strong image, then moves us into the mind of Moses Herzog. Herzog is a failing professor with an unfaithful second wife, a treacherous best friend, unwritten books and theses which remind him of his failings. Also, in a bizarrely wonderful twist, we find that Herzog writes letters avidly, even compulsively. These are largely to dead people, either relatives or historical figures he has never met. Also mathematicians - he writes to Euclid and points out why his theories don't add up.

The novel also contains a profound and bitter sense of betrayal, Herzog's as his marriage fails and his child whisked from him, Bellow's as similar events in his life mirrored the plot.

This is Bellow's most autobiographical work, including his bizarre childhood and the way he sees an exiled, crushed class (and race) adjust to their new lives, while he with his fabulously realised child's eyes sees only the surface, but sees things an adult would consider sinister.

This book is either a masterpiece or so close it makes no difference. Check it out when you're prepared to be tantalised and confused.



Memorable portrait of a troubled man who thinks too much, 02 Aug 2001
Moses Herzog is a Jewish academic living in New York in the early Sixties. Following the disastrous break-up of his second marriage, he begins writing letters - first, to practically everybody he has ever met, and then to a varity of public and cultural figures living and dead. It doesn't take the reader long to realise that Herzog is having something of a crisis: his behaviour is erratic and his mind distracted as he remembers in vivid detail key scenes in his life. Perhaps we can make allowances, though - he is trying to make sense of what it means to be alive in the Western world in the second half of the twentieth century, after all. The book is not exactly big on plot, but a certain suspense does build as to whether he's going to get through it with his mind and body intact. The novel is also very well written, and at times dazzlingly so. As a character, Herzog is brilliantly realised - unquestionably an intellectual, he is entirely believable as betrayed husband, doting father, rebellious son, hesitant lover and more besides. The book is a modern classic which captures its time, and still has a lot to say to us about our lives as part of a society too advanced for easy comprehension.

A real grower!, 08 Jun 2001
The inner-workings of the mind of an aged American intellectual? Possibly not the most enticing prospect for an enjoyable read, but Bellow's skill in capturing *humanity* in all its variations pulls this off magnificently. Herzog is reminiscent of one of those displaced characters Nabokov created - trapped in an age that doesn't quite accept him, or vice versa. This relationship is even more interesting against the backdrop of the brief fetish of intellectualism in the Kennedy era. However, the real attraction of this book is Bellow's superlative ability to capture the essence of Herzog's increasingly fractured mind, taking the reader on a ride into his own personal world.

An excellent piece of classic American literature., 05 Sep 2000
Of all the contemporary American authors, Saul Bellow ranks as one of the best. He has a wonderful control of the English language and a fine sense of humour. "Herzog" is one of his funniest, most touching books. It is abounding with energy and character. Meet Moses E. Herzog, a man who, at middle age, is looking back on his life by writing letters that are not to be sent, to his two ex wives, friends and collegues. Out of all Saul Bellow's books, this one ranks as my favorite so, if you're looking for a book that will both move you and make you smile, look no further than "Herzog".

A poor kid from Chicago wades through the 1930s questioning life, love and how he should live. , 04 Jun 2008
The recollections of the novel's narrator, Augie, take the reader on a lengthy but engaging journey through the America of the Great Depression and, towards the end of the novel, the Second World War. Throughout the novel Augie fails to decide on a specific vocation. Whilst intelligent and well read, he lacks the specialist skills and certainty required to pursue a conventional career. Consequently, he finds employment in a number of multifarious, mostly menial, roles. Willing to turn his hand to anything, Augie finds himself, amongst other things, hitching rides across states on freezing-cold freight trains, stealing books for wealthy university students and helping to train an eagle with his then girlfriend in Mexico. The realist style of Bellow's writing makes for a lengthy but very enjoyable, engaging and, apart from the occasional references to the Old Testament and Classical Mythology, accessible novel. The introduction by Christopher Hitchens is also definitely worth reading after, or before if you want the plot spoiled further, you've finished the novel itself.


A verbal feast, 29 Dec 2006
Saul Bellow uses Augie March's fairly extraordinary saga to allow us all, and probably himself too, to muse our ways through a succession of reflections on the human predicament. I would be surprised if most readers did not discover from time to time in these pages something of themselves; of their fears, hopes, dismay, despair, and perhaps resilience. It's a very rewarding read. Not that it's not difficult sometimes. In fact, either he, S.B., simply ratchets up his verbal dexterity beyond my reach from time to time, or could it be that his determination to find ever more complicated verbal chords actually sometimes produces combinations that don't really work. Certainly sometimes they don't work for me. But there are also passages of breathtaking effect which leave one to wonder how words can be crafted with such skill to describe with such extraordinary clarity our previously unvoiced (because by us un-voicable, if not un-thinkable) feelings and reactions to so many situations, some common enough. A master at work.


Bellow resurrects the idea of adventure in an urban setting., 31 Dec 2001
A brilliant portrayal of a young man trying to learn to live within his world. The experiences and encounters of Augie are vivid and richly colored. There is a wonderful freshness, almost vivaciousness, imparted to a tired and economically depressed Chicago. The very idea of adventure in an urban setting seems almost puerile perhaps to many, but Bellow perceives the existence of challenge and life in the run-down and dilapadated. It is perhaps old-fashioned to be inspired by a book but if such a thing can still exist it can be found in 'The Adventures of Augie March'

Augie March- the all-american kid, 15 Jun 2001
In the Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow gives us an insight into the reality of the life of the all american kid. March is a jewish kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks during depression time Chicago. He strives to do his best by all around him whilst also trying to get a grip on the american dream. The two tier american society of the very rich and the also rans is exposed for possibly the first time in 20th century literatue. March tries to work both within the system and from without, with varying degrees of success. He flirts with education, crime, marriage and travel, all with startling results. The Adventures of Augie March is as accuarte a portrayal of the difficulties of growing up underprivliged in the US today as it was sixty years ago. An excellent read and a brilliant introduction to the fine prose of Bellow.

A genuine life-enricher, 23 Mar 2001
I had never read any Bellow before I opened this book, but it blew me away, and I can't wait to read more. It is the story of Augie March, a poor kid brought up by his overbearing grandmother and downtrodden mother in 1930s Chicago. As he grows into maturity, he starts to make ends meet on the very edge of the law, doing odd jobs, working for a series of well-meaning but self-important grandees who try to make him into a big success. But Augie has "opposition", and though he is smart and handsome, finds his ambitions unsatisfied by the big bucks that his brother begins to amass. Again and again he rejects other people's plans to make something of him, until he falls wildly in love with the beautiful, rich and free-spirited Thea, who carries him off to Mexico to hunt iguanas with an eagle. Bellow's language is sometimes difficult, but always exuberant and expansive, full of detailed description and colour, bursting with throwaway ideas. The novel has an abundance of hilarious minor characters, who appear and reappear as Augie muddles his way through his Bohemian and vaguely Bolshevik circles, making a buck here and there, more or less legally, and observing everything with a wry sense of humour, dauntless optimism and quiet integrity. I have not enjoyed a novel this much for a long time. It starts slowly, building up characters gradually, but pretty soon it is unput-downable. The ending is a bit weak, like so many of these rites-of-passage novels, and it becomes a bit glib and conceptual. But the first 350 pages represent some of the finest twentieth-century writing in English that I have read. It is a novel about the limits of the soul and the growth of a mind, about the trade-offs between adventure and pain, happiness and security, and the search for fulfilment in a time of global depression, when the world was doing everything it could to dampen the human spirit.

A note of caution..., 16 Jul 2008
This is a great book, but beware prospective purchasers! I bought this edition specifically because it is advertised as having an introduction by Martin Amis, who is my favourite writer and Saul Bellow's greatest fan, but in fact this edition does not have an introduction of any sort. A little more work by amazon to get their facts right would be nice.

A Classic Worthy of the Name, 29 Aug 2006
Around the time Bellow received the Nobel for this novel, he was the subject of my college dissertation. It was to be almost thirty years before I revisited Humboldt's Gift again as my inflight reading on a trip to the US, and when I did the experience was somewhat different.

First I noted the humour. I remembered its being an amusing book, but never as hilarious as I found it so many years on. I reflected on whether I had truly understood some of the references, and on how much more I identified with the book having travelled to some of the places mentioned - Texas, Chicago, New York, Madrid. The whole thing was so much less abstract, so I felt more able to immerse myself in the characterisation, without the need to expend energy trying to imagine what these places looked like.

It was the characterisation that really stood out, from the outwardly bullish but inwardly sheepish Charlie Citrine, and his scheming girlfriend Renata and her conspiratorial mother; the minor hoodlum Cantabile and his academic girlfriend Polly; and on to the tragic Humboldt himself, long deceased by the time of the book's opening but a constant, spectral presence throughout. Finally, the roguish Thaxter, Citrine's "business partner", a man who may well have inspired the leadership of Enron.

In addition, some of the vocabulary surprised me. For example, "leveraged". Had I registered the word back in the seventies? I guessed not. It's a word I'd associated with management consultants, financial derivatives and the eighties.

Much of the book is a study in pain, from Citrine's guilt at avoiding the down-and-out, soon-to-die Humboldt on the street in New York, his anguish over his vandalised Mercedes, the wrangles with his ex-wife and his abandonment in Madrid with Renata's son, as she stays in Chicago to marry Citrine's rival in love, Flonzaley the undertaker. However, although it is easy to empathise with the suffering, and the abandonment in particular left me feeling trapped, claustrophobic and betrayed on Citrine's behalf, he himself sustains an air of detachment throughout, even going so far as to observe that he could probably put a stop to Cantabile's nonsense immediately, but just can't be bothered.

Cantabile himself is the low-life's low-life. From the incident where he insists Citrine shares the cubicle with him while he takes a crap, through to his offer of a threesome with Polly, there is plenty to dislike about him.

But still there is the humour - even the abandonment has its comic moments - just in case we should take things too seriously. Thaxter's fascination with Cantabile, for instance, which not only leads to rather more contact with the guttersnipe than Citrine cares for but also ultimately to his arrest as Cantabile presents him as a hitman at a meeting which turns out to be a sting set up by the cops.

As with other Bellow works, the erudition is stupendous, with references to a galaxy of writers, politicians, philosophers and World Historical Figures. Their lives and works are constantly analysed by the inner dialogue continually raging in Citrine's head - it's no surprise to learn Bellow was heavily influenced by Joyce, though to get a better flavour of that read Bellow's earlier novel, Herzog.

However, sad to say that, contrary to other reviews, there is no sinister Master, and no plot in the White House; nor does Dr Who make an appearance at any point in the book.

Humboldt's Gift seems to get by all right without these essentials, nevertheless. As with any classic literature, it has stood the test of time, so although the setting is now a few decades past, the dilemmas and responses of the characters are as relevant now as they were then.


The book Ravelstein fails to be, 06 Feb 2002
With all its chronological twists and vivid character this book is Saul's best, though it takes a tardis to navigate to it's dark soul. It is semi-autobiographical, set in Chicago, and draws heavily on the real life experiences of the great American poet, Peter Ustinov. The parallels are deep. Like Humboldt, Peter's life ended in despair, madness and prostitution. Saul was instrumental in resurrecting his work to greatness, but this book isn't only about that hallowed man. It is a journey through love, friendship and time. Charlie Citrine is befriended by a Chicago gangster called Cantible (based on the true life NY hoodlum and children's presenter Andy Crane) and introduces him to a sinister man known only as the Master. It is never quite clear what the Master is looking for, but Citrine knows that Humboldt's poetry holds the key. As he begins deciphering he uncovers a fantastic plot that leads to the White House, the mysterious Dr Who, and the U.N. and ends in a nail-biting parody of Sophocles staged in Madame Tussaurds...brilliant!!

A novel to read more than once, 27 Jun 2001
I've just finished reading this novel tonight (in a flimsy library copy) and feel that there is so much I could say about it, about Charlie Citrine, the narrator and Humboldt his friend, and their wide-ranging thoughts on love and death, poetry and philosophy, art and life. But I won't do that; I'll just record that my immediate thought was, "I want to have this book in hardback!" Not only to read again, but to dip into and find those oh-so quotable lines once more. Charlie's topic may often be death, but it's a real Book of Life.

The limitations of the reader experience.., 03 Dec 2000
Bellow at his best and probably most accessible. He demonstrates with ease his sharp humour, usual dazzling use of language, immense learning...It seems to me that almost every sentence of this book is quotable. I have a good mind to try memorise the bloody book. Buy it, read it, reread it.

A poetic, introspective view of a man who believes himself a failure, 10 Jun 2008
This astounding novella pounces on your attention from the first lines. It used a language of alienated introspection, with a self deluded failure of a man, bitter about everything and harbouring a particular grudge against his father.

As Tommy Wilheim's story unfolds, we begin to see the parts of him that put him in this position. He is a proud dreamer of a man, too fond of good intentions to get much done. The book follows his defeats and defiances, seeing him fall helpless from one mess to another. Its ending is a poignant comment on the man's state of mind, and had a lasting effect on me when I first read it. 12 years later I read it again, and even though I knew what was coming I felt the same thing.

An astounding book, please check it out.


A remarkable small novel, 28 Oct 2007
The main character in Saul Bellow's novel is Tommy Wilhelm. He now lives with his father at the Gloriana Hotel in New York. Everything he has ever undertaken has gone wrong. He never managed to complete his studies. He was dragged to Hollywood by an old friend, Maurice Venice, who promised him a career as a film star with Kaskia Films. But then it turned out that Venice was simply a pimp and Wilhelm ended up by working in a restaurant in California. Later he married Margaret, he had two sons Paulie and Tommy and found a job with a company called Rojax Corporation. When he was dismissed his marriage broke up and Wilhelm's father's wrath reached the point when he refused to give his son a single penny.
When Wilhelm meets psychologist Dr Tamkin, he is drawn into speculation in commodities at one of the branches of a good Wall Street house. Wilhelm clings to the hope that his luck is about to turn - he has given the last of his money to Dr Tamkin. Is Tamkin ripping Wilhelm off or is he offering him one last chance to make it out of his mess?
A moving portrait of a man with sensitive feelings, a soft heart, a brooding nature and a tendency to be confused under the many pressures of life.


A Jewish loser in a world of financial vultures, some cannibals, 20 Mar 2007
An interesting film adapted from Saul Bellow, the famous Nobel Prize winner. Here the character, a middle-age Jewish man, is accumulating all kinds of difficulties: he is fired, he is separated from his wife who hassles him for money, he is rejected financially and emotionally by his own father, he is fooled by a fake finance wizard who practically robs him of his money, and I should say etc and so on. The character is perfectly hysterical in an absolutely paranoid direction and we can see him going down little by little and it all ends up on a total dead end blind alley impasse. In other words a perfect loser in the Jewish culture who ends up crying on his own fate in the funeral of some other guy he does not know at all among people who don't know him nor he them. That is pure Saul Bellow who dedicated his whole writing career to such losers and total misfits in the world of making money not only to survive, not even to live, but to exist. In other words he is self immolating himself at the social stake of financial failure. Brilliant.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne


Seize this Book- my puns amuse me greatly., 25 Jul 2006
I read this one at about the same time as The Outsider, found many similarities and actually enjoyed this more. It's short, it's a shock, it's worth it for the ending.

A short novel, representative of Bellow's work, 23 Nov 2005
"Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow" is what Horace wrote at the end of his first book of Odes a couple of thousand years ago. And ever since, youth has been urged to make hay while the sun shines since the bird of time is on the wing--to toss in a couple more homilies. But what Saul Bellow has in mind here is entirely ironic since his sad protagonist, Tommy Wilhelm Adler has never seized the day at all, much to his unfeeling father's disgust.

This then is a tale of failure (one of Bellow's recurring themes) and the shame and self-loathing that failure may bring; and yet there is a sense, or at least a hint--not of redemption of course--but of acceptance and understanding at the end of this short existential novel by the Nobel Prize winner.

The way that Bellow's drowning, existential man experiences the funeral as this novel ends is the way we should all experience a funeral, that is, with the certain knowledge that the man lying dead in the coffin is, or will be, us.

And we should cry copious tears and a great shudder should seize us and we should sob as before God with the full realization that our day too will come, and sooner than we think--which is what big, blond-haired, handsome Jewish "Wilkie" Adler does. And in that realization we know that he has seen the truth and we along with him. An existential truth of course.

The structure of the novel, like James Joyce's Ulysses, begins and ends in the same day. Through flashbacks from Adler's nagging consciousness, the failures and disappointments of his life are recalled. When he was just a young man he foolishly thought because of his good looks and the assurance of a bogus talent scout that he might become a Hollywood star; and so he spurned college and instead went to the boulevard of broken dreams as it runs toward Santa Monica.

And so began the failure and dissolution of his life. As Bellow tells it, Wilhelm has slipped and fallen into something like a watery abyss. He can't catch his breath. He is drowning. He reaches out to his father, who turns away from him. He reaches out to Dr. Tamkin, the mysterious stranger, the clever fox of a man who swindles him and then disappears into the crowd of the great metropolis. He reaches out to his wife, who will also not extend a helping hand. Meanwhile, the waters about him have grown, and he is lost.

We are all lost, more or less, except those who delude themselves, who have their various schemes and delusions to distract them, is what Bellow seems to be saying. Those of us who have not seized the day, a day that is fleeting and subtle, indefinite and hard to grasp, become so much water-logged driftwood.

With resemblances to Albert Camus' The Stranger and Arthur Miller's Willy Loman, Bellow's Wilhelm is the essence of the anti-hero, literature's dominate strain of the mid-twentieth century. Such men have no firm or deep beliefs. They exist for the day, like butterflies, tossed about by circumstance all the while wondering why, but without any ability to rise above their predicament, a predicament that is so ordinary, so banal, so patently unheroic to be that of Everyman.

And what is the answer? For Bellow and Camus and Miller, the answer is the finality of death. A man lives, goes about craving--"I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want"--and for what and because of what? Like the tentmaker, Omar Khayyam, we wander willy-nilly without a clue, and then become so much dust in the wind.

For life IS a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying in the end, nothing. All our labors are like those of Sisyphus pushing the stone up the hill only to watch it roll back down again.

We cannot help but feel in reading this novel both a sense of empathy for the man who has failed, but at the same time, we might feel like his father and want to give him a kick and say, "Wilkie, get a grip on yourself. Quit making the same mistakes over and over again."

But we know that for Wilhelm it is already too late. He cannot change his nature anymore than the leopard can change its spots. We sense the great hand of fate upon him, and we shudder. For in some respects--different respects of course--we could be him. And we straighten up our frame, we return to our duties and responsibilities, to our work and the rhythms of our lives secure in the knowledge that we are stronger that Wilhelm, that although the waves may toss us about, we will not sink. At least not yet.

In reading this for the first time now half a century after it was written, I am struck with how different the zeitgeist is today. We have wildly successful heroes and larger-than-life murderous villains, and nowhere is there the existential man.

This short work is a splendid representative of one of my favorite genres, the short, sharply focused American novel from the early or middle 20th century. Other--widely differing--examples are John O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra, Nathanael West's Miss Lonely Hearts, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, to name a few.

The emperor's new clothes.., 25 Jul 2005
A case of... methinks?
Occasionally genuinely amusing and unique in its approach, but more often than not obtuse and vague in its intentions. A real struggle to finish. Has dated greatly in comparison to the Roths and Updikes of the same period.

I am the rain king, 21 Feb 2001
The words 'I am the rain king' were the reason that I picked up this book. The lead singer of Counting Crows, Adam Duritz, made me read this book. He did this by simply comparing Henderson to himself in the song 'Rain King'. This made me realise what a wonderful book it must be. When I read it I was not disapointed. It holds a world of thoughts and feelings that can be taken from the words and felt by the reader. "He's a figure of excess. He wants more than he has; he thinks he deserves more than he's got. Joyously and pathetically, he pours all over everyone like a big open wound. In one sense, he's great because he's actually living -- but in another, he's a mess, and he's heading for a very dark place" - Adam Duritz, on Henderson the Rain King.

Leaving the existance of becoming for existance., 14 Jan 1999
One of my personal favorites. An inspiring novel that will strike a chord in the heart of anyone who has felt in need of something greater in their lives than themselves, Henderson the Rain King is a hectic journey of one man through not only the world, but life and, perhaps most importantly, his own soul. Henderson is constantly in a process of becoming in his own mind, and in his fervor to try and metamorphasize into a type of finished being, he fails to notice that through his evolution he is achieving his goal of simply existing. He is lovably egocentric; existing as the sun of his own universe while striving to gain an orbit of his own. He uses his wives to try to fill some empty spot in his existance, professing over and over again his love for his current wife, with little notice or mention of any real depth or desire that she may possess, speaking only of her beauty and creating a view of the female gender that smacks of Hemingway. Henderson's deficiency is one of the soul, and enlightenment is the only path which will bring him peace. He possesses a jaded love of life, in so much as he has experienced enough horror in the world that he cannot look upon it in wide-eyed wonder, but is struck profoundly by the sights and moments in life which are filled with rough hewn and genuine beauty which do inspire in him a sense of awe. It is these moments and spaces of depth within his soul which make his dark optimism for life so endearing. He is, as he himself says, a creature constantly becoming, yet it is through this constant evolution that he reaches his goal, finds peace, and fulfills the "I want"s. He is a man not of thought but of action, and it is only from within himself that he may realize that it is only through perpetual becoming that Henderson the Rain King may exist.

A Great Book that's Fun to Read, 23 Jul 1998
This book proves that great writing can be readable. I read this novel for the first time over twenty years ago, several times in between, and it was just as wonderful last week. You laugh, you cry, you empathize. If you're tired of beach books, but also weary of pseudointellectual book snobs who tell you that prose must be labyrinthine to be literature, and that laughable isn't laudable, take this book on vacation and share it with a friend.

And it is hilarious!, 11 Jul 1998
Not only does Eugene Henderson's journey of discovery touch and teach the reader, but he is an unbelievable buffoon. This is one of the funniest books -- period. Bellow makes Henderson so self-centered, he can't be bothered by details... such as which of his children are in the custody of his ex-wife. She's got one of them, well fine, she can have it, God bless the both of them (or something like that)! Really, Henderson is capable of something great (including great suffering) because he's human, only honest -- plus a few pounds and nose-size. The Counting Crows' _August and Everything After_ includes songs based on this book.

Superlative US novel about an academic's touch with madness, 27 Sep 2008
Stunning novel about a middle aged academic almost driven insane by various personal and ideological crises, but who eventually manages to find some peace after experiencing events that finally seem to connect him with reality. I absolutely adored the quality of style and character, and although the plot is incredibly thin, you don't care because it is constructed so brilliantly to allow all those fascinating, perfectly described reminiscences. Definitely I was generally having that feeling of sickening jealousy for the sheer ability demonstrated, albieit in quite a showy way. There are many incredible lines, either simply involving profound observations on life, or via the wonderful eye for character details that Bellow has. The use of letters as a kind of stream of consciousness device works fantastically. Herzog's character is one of the most stunningly rich and real I've ever come across in literature, and the peripheral characters also feel very real and vivid. This novel seems incredibly autobiographical, in fact, and many of the details probably were taken from Bellow's life. The only slight criticism I have is that in one or two places it felt a little contrived. Ramona is obviously set up as the "healthy" choice and feels slightly thin for it. And why oh why would Herzog keep his gun in his pocket when visiting his daughter? This to me seemed totally unbelievable, and merely a silly device. But these tiny quibbles aside, this is definitely one of the best American novels I've ever read.

A brilliant, gripping study of value, intellect and breakdown, 10 Jun 2008
This novel starts with a ferociously strong image, then moves us into the mind of Moses Herzog. Herzog is a failing professor with an unfaithful second wife, a treacherous best friend, unwritten books and theses which remind him of his failings. Also, in a bizarrely wonderful twist, we find that Herzog writes letters avidly, even compulsively. These are largely to dead people, either relatives or historical figures he has never met. Also mathematicians - he writes to Euclid and points out why his theories don't add up.

The novel also contains a profound and bitter sense of betrayal, Herzog's as his marriage fails and his child whisked from him, Bellow's as similar events in his life mirrored the plot.

This is Bellow's most autobiographical work, including his bizarre childhood and the way he sees an exiled, crushed class (and race) adjust to their new lives, while he with his fabulously realised child's eyes sees only the surface, but sees things an adult would consider sinister.

This book is either a masterpiece or so close it makes no difference. Check it out when you're prepared to be tantalised and confused.



Memorable portrait of a troubled man who thinks too much, 02 Aug 2001
Moses Herzog is a Jewish academic living in New York in the early Sixties. Following the disastrous break-up of his second marriage, he begins writing letters - first, to practically everybody he has ever met, and then to a varity of public and cultural figures living and dead. It doesn't take the reader long to realise that Herzog is having something of a crisis: his behaviour is erratic and his mind distracted as he remembers in vivid detail key scenes in his life. Perhaps we can make allowances, though - he is trying to make sense of what it means to be alive in the Western world in the second half of the twentieth century, after all. The book is not exactly big on plot, but a certain suspense does build as to whether he's going to get through it with his mind and body intact. The novel is also very well written, and at times dazzlingly so. As a character, Herzog is brilliantly realised - unquestionably an intellectual, he is entirely believable as betrayed husband, doting father, rebellious son, hesitant lover and more besides. The book is a modern classic which captures its time, and still has a lot to say to us about our lives as part of a society too advanced for easy comprehension.

A real grower!, 08 Jun 2001
The inner-workings of the mind of an aged American intellectual? Possibly not the most enticing prospect for an enjoyable read, but Bellow's skill in capturing *humanity* in all its variations pulls this off magnificently. Herzog is reminiscent of one of those displaced characters Nabokov created - trapped in an age that doesn't quite accept him, or vice versa. This relationship is even more interesting against the backdrop of the brief fetish of intellectualism in the Kennedy era. However, the real attraction of this book is Bellow's superlative ability to capture the essence of Herzog's increasingly fractured mind, taking the reader on a ride into his own personal world.

An excellent piece of classic American literature., 05 Sep 2000
Of all the contemporary American authors, Saul Bellow ranks as one of the best. He has a wonderful control of the English language and a fine sense of humour. "Herzog" is one of his funniest, most touching books. It is abounding with energy and character. Meet Moses E. Herzog, a man who, at middle age, is looking back on his life by writing letters that are not to be sent, to his two ex wives, friends and collegues. Out of all Saul Bellow's books, this one ranks as my favorite so, if you're looking for a book that will both move you and make you smile, look no further than "Herzog".

A poor kid from Chicago wades through the 1930s questioning life, love and how he should live. , 04 Jun 2008
The recollections of the novel's narrator, Augie, take the reader on a lengthy but engaging journey through the America of the Great Depression and, towards the end of the novel, the Second World War. Throughout the novel Augie fails to decide on a specific vocation. Whilst intelligent and well read, he lacks the specialist skills and certainty required to pursue a conventional career. Consequently, he finds employment in a number of multifarious, mostly menial, roles. Willing to turn his hand to anything, Augie finds himself, amongst other things, hitching rides across states on freezing-cold freight trains, stealing books for wealthy university students and helping to train an eagle with his then girlfriend in Mexico. The realist style of Bellow's writing makes for a lengthy but very enjoyable, engaging and, apart from the occasional references to the Old Testament and Classical Mythology, accessible novel. The introduction by Christopher Hitchens is also definitely worth reading after, or before if you want the plot spoiled further, you've finished the novel itself.


A verbal feast, 29 Dec 2006
Saul Bellow uses Augie March's fairly extraordinary saga to allow us all, and probably himself too, to muse our ways through a succession of reflections on the human predicament. I would be surprised if most readers did not discover from time to time in these pages something of themselves; of their fears, hopes, dismay, despair, and perhaps resilience. It's a very rewarding read. Not that it's not difficult sometimes. In fact, either he, S.B., simply ratchets up his verbal dexterity beyond my reach from time to time, or could it be that his determination to find ever more complicated verbal chords actually sometimes produces combinations that don't really work. Certainly sometimes they don't work for me. But there are also passages of breathtaking effect which leave one to wonder how words can be crafted with such skill to describe with such extraordinary clarity our previously unvoiced (because by us un-voicable, if not un-thinkable) feelings and reactions to so many situations, some common enough. A master at work.


Bellow resurrects the idea of adventure in an urban setting., 31 Dec 2001
A brilliant portrayal of a young man trying to learn to live within his world. The experiences and encounters of Augie are vivid and richly colored. There is a wonderful freshness, almost vivaciousness, imparted to a tired and economically depressed Chicago. The very idea of adventure in an urban setting seems almost puerile perhaps to many, but Bellow perceives the existence of challenge and life in the run-down and dilapadated. It is perhaps old-fashioned to be inspired by a book but if such a thing can still exist it can be found in 'The Adventures of Augie March'

Augie March- the all-american kid, 15 Jun 2001
In the Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow gives us an insight into the reality of the life of the all american kid. March is a jewish kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks during depression time Chicago. He strives to do his best by all around him whilst also trying to get a grip on the american dream. The two tier american society of the very rich and the also rans is exposed for possibly the first time in 20th century literatue. March tries to work both within the system and from without, with varying degrees of success. He flirts with education, crime, marriage and travel, all with startling results. The Adventures of Augie March is as accuarte a portrayal of the difficulties of grow