Volume 22, Number 14 · September 18, 1975
A Higher Selfishness?
By Roger Shattuck
Humboldt's Gift
by Saul Bellow
Viking, 487 pp., $10.00
Saul Bellow has written repeatedly about overextended family men who fancy themselves solitaries and cranks. His first novel starts out like one by Kafka or Beckett with a man alone in his room, warding off doubts about his own existence. Ten pages later he is surrounded by a large cast of in-laws, relatives, and partying friends. Moses Herzog appears on the first page of Bellow's sixth novel, living alone in a big house in the Berkshires, eating 'Silvercup bread from the paper package, beans from the can.' Herzog's elected solitude can hold out for barely a dozen pages before he is navigating dizzily among ex-wives, old friends, loyal family, and a new girl friend toward a realignment of his social life. Even Seize the Day and Mr. Sammler's Planet, two of his finest books, conform after their fashion to this pattern. Now comes Bellow's eighth novel—ambitious, sardonic, vulnerable. In his first 'big book' since The Adventures of Augie March the solitude is becoming very real and leans toward self-absorption.
Review, 4438 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |