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Saul Bellow

lgideon

New Member
I'm just about to start reading Saul Bellow's novella The Actual. As this will be my first introduction to Bellow's works, will any of you enlighten me on his writing style? Also, what was your experience in reading The Actual? Are there distinct postmodern qualities laced throughout the text? All ideas welcomed.:) Thank you.
 
Igideon,

Discovering Saul Bellow is like discovering an entire new form of literature. I recently did so myself, in fact. I don't know if The Actual is the right place to start, as it is one of his last novels. I started off with his second novel The Victim and a couple of short stories. I've now bought most of his books and I look forward to reading them. There's a rythm in his writing, and a perfect balance between the intellectual and the day-to-day aspects of life. He's brilliant, humourous, unlike any other, and he is unrivalled. One of my favorite writers.

My introduction to Bellow actually came through Ian McEwan, whose beautiful tribute to the American writer you can read here:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1454512,00.html

Enjoy!
 
lgideon said:
I'm just about to start reading Saul Bellow's novella The Actual. As this will be my first introduction to Bellow's works, will any of you enlighten me on his writing style?

The Actual, last month, was my first reading of Saul Bellow. Despite its brevity at around 110 pages I couldn't finish it. After about fifty or sixty pages I was left bored with the narrative, with the fact that I didn't care for the characters, or the story.

Perhaps Bellow's work is better in his earlier days, since The Actual was one of his last works.

Did you bother to read it after all, or did you abandon it like I?
 
Just started Humbolt's Gift. Anybody read this? I need some encouragement. It was recommended by someone who's opinion I regard highly, but coming off The Night of the Triffids, this seems pretty dry and uneventful. Somebody, please. Now that he recommeded it to me (I called him by cell phone from Barnes and Noble for an on-the-spot recommendation) now I have to read this, and I'm having trouble right out of the gate.
 
Stewart said:
Have a look at the opinions on Saul Bellow and his work here.
Well, I read some of the thread. Groan... Does anybody like this author - other than the guy that recommended him to me, and Bellow himself?
That's what I get for asking for a recommendation from someone that only reads "real" books. I mean, this thing is so stuffy and high brow, I bet there is not one single instance of alien invasions, carnivorous plants, or even one single apocalypse! Now I have to finish this thing too - gloooooom.....
 
Are people here judging Bellow because some people from another forum disliked him?

Shame on you all.
 
Morty said:
Are people here judging Bellow because some people from another forum disliked him?

Shame on you all.
Oh, excuse me for asking people what they think about Bellow. I started a book of his, am finding it pretty dry, so I asked what other people thought. I had this delusion that the purpose of a forum was to exchange ideas and opinions - and this particular thread is about Saul Bellow. Stewart found some other people's views (this forum, some other forum, what's the difference?) so I read them. Now that you have pointed out how shameful such reprehensible behavior is, I am really mortified with myself that I would ever do such an evil thing.
 
Morty said:
Are people here judging Bellow because some people from another forum disliked him?

Some of those people on the other forum are people from this forum; but what does it matter? Since nobody here was commenting about Saul Bellow, other than you and I, it seemed sensible to point to other discussions on the topic to show that it's not just Libre that has problems with Saul Bellow.
 
OK, forget what anybody else might say about Bellow. This book (Humbolt's Gift) is terminally boring. I managed to endure 30 excruciating pages on the bus, with minimal brain atrophe so far, but I'm kind of hesitant to push my luck. I had to put the thing down berfore I turned into a total veg.
Compared to this, the signs on the bus telling people to give up their seat to the handicapped and elderly were spellbinding. Oh for the days of ketchup advertisements and cigarette ads. Now those were good reading!
 
Obviously you've all failed to understand what I was saying, and instead launch at me a load of sarcastic bull.

I was simply pointing out that people here seemed to be judging Bellow just because others were. Is that not the murder of individual thought?
 
Morty said:
I was simply pointing out that people here seemed to be judging Bellow just because others were. Is that not the murder of individual thought?

Actually, no. We've both said we found him to be a dull writer. I showed the link to the other forum to show we weren't alone in our opinions. At no point did anyone base our disappointment on Bellow on anyone else's opinion. Bellow helps us make that opinion by merit of his dull, dull pages.
 
Morty said:
Obviously you've all failed to understand what I was saying, and instead launch at me a load of sarcastic bull.

I was simply pointing out that people here seemed to be judging Bellow just because others were. Is that not the murder of individual thought?

I don't think that's true at all. I don't think people are like that on here on the whole.

I've tried him and found him difficult. But I've not given up, and have two of his novels in my tbr pile.
 
Morty said:
Are people here judging Bellow because some people from another forum disliked him?

Shame on you all.

Stewart was just adding a relevant link to a discussion, he shouldn't be criticized in any way for simply trying to help the conversation along(the conversation was dying anyways):rolleyes: It was nice of him to do so and a person can take from the link whatever they want. He has a right to post whatever he wants, especially since he's a long time member of this forum and is someone that everyone respects.

Personally, I hate Bellow. I bought Ravelstein and found it to be just a wandering, pointless, and dull impersonation of a great book. Perhaps that is why I see multiple copies of it at used book stores, people unload it because it's such a horrid read.
 
Morty - when you walk into a room, point your finger at the people having a nice conversation, and cluck your tongue and say "shame on you", don't expect your comments to be well received.
So far, everyone has based their comments of Bellow on their own reading, NOT on the opinions of others. So Stewart linked to a page where folks were writing their opinions about Bellow. What the hell is wrong with that? Why participate in a book forum, if you think that's so shameful?
By the way, have you ever read a book review? If so, well, shame on you.

The friend (actually my brother -in-law) that recommended Humbolt's Gift called me last night, and we had the conversation I'd been dreading. He asked me excitedly, "So, did you start it? What do you think?" My plan was to give him some middle-of-the-road, mealy mouthed answer, on the order of, "Well, I'm just getting into it, not sure yet, I'll let you know..." and then quickly change the subject. Instead, I just took my chances and said, "I put it down. I hated it."
He was very disappointed, crestfallen in fact - as I would be - and he ended the conversation in a bit of a huff. But what could I do? At least I spoke the truth from my heart. Before he hung up, he asked me what I was reading now, and at least I could tell him, with some pride, that I was reading Don Quixote instead of some pulpy Stephen King or Richard Laymon book.
 
Well I agree with all the opinions expressed so far on Bellow - except Morty's! I've read or (admit it: part-read) six of his books, five novels and one collection of stories, and have never had much pleasure from them. The reason I read six of them is because of (a) people like Libre's friend whose opinions I respect and who insist he's great, and (b) qualities I can see in some of the pages and fully admire, even when I don't like the whole. Take this little description from Henderson the Rain King, of the narrator playing his late father's violin:

I tightened the bow screw and scrubbed on the strings. Harsh cries awoke. It was like a feeling creature that had been neglected too long. Then I began to recall my old man. ... So I began to recall his bent back and the flatness or lameness of his hips, and his beard like a protest that gushed from his very soul - washed white by the trembling weak blood of old age. Powerful once, his whiskers lost their curl and were pushed back on his collarbone by the instrument while he sighted with the left eye along the fingerboard and his big hollow elbow came and went, and the fiddle trembled and cried.

Superb stuff. And there's a page-long passage from Herzog (one of the ones, along with Henderson, Seize the Day, and Something to Remember Me By, that I did finish, without getting much enjoyment from) which is used as the epigraph to Ian McEwan's recent novel Saturday, which is just wonderful - taken in isolation like that. I think the problem comes from the fact that it's not in isolation, it's compacted inside a mass of much much more of the same - too much, if you like, of a good thing. For my tastes prose needs a touch more air, more breathing space, than Bellow gives it, and so while I can admire his writing, I find it very difficult to like his books. Maybe when I'm older?

(The others, by the way, that I failed to finish, are The Adventures of Augie March and More Die of Heartbreak.)
 
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