About the Author

Saul Bellow was born in 1915 to Russian emigre parents. As a young child in Chicago, Bellow was raised on books - the Old Testament, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Chekhov - and learned Hebrew and Yiddish. He set his heart on becoming a writer after reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, contrary to his mother's hopes that he would become a rabbi or a concert violinist. He was educated at the University of Chicago and North-Western University, graduating in Anthropology and Sociology; he then went on to work for the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Bellow published his first novel, The Dangling Man, in 1944; this was followed, in 1947, by The Victim. In 1948 a Guggenheim Fellowship enabled Bellow to travel to Paris, where he wrote The Adventures of Augie March, published in 1953. Henderson The Rain King (1959) brought Bellow worldwide fame, and in 1964, his best-known novel, Herzog, was published and immediately lauded as a masterpiece, 'a well-nigh faultless novel' (New Yorker).

Saul Bellow's dazzling career as a novelist was celebrated during his lifetime with an unprecedented array of literary prizes and awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, three National Book Awards, and the Gold Medal for the Novel. In 1976 he was awarded a Nobel Prize 'for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work'.

Bellow's death in 2005 was met with tribute from writers and critics around the world, including James Wood, who praised 'the beauty of this writing, its music, its high lyricism, its firm but luxurious pleasure in language itself'.

Reviews

This latest novel by Pulitzer (1975) and Nobel prize (1976) winner Bellow is basically a rumination on the themes of friendship, love, death, and aging. It offers very little in the way of plot but a great deal as a sensitive exploration into the human condition. Ravelstein is a brilliant albeit eccentric professor of political philosophy, many of whose acolytes have become the movers and shakers of today's world. He has always lived life to the fullest, even when he couldn't afford to--a point that becomes moot when he publishes, at best friend Chick's suggestion, a best-selling book outlining his ideas. When he is diagnosed with AIDS (he is, as Chick says, homosexual but not "gay"), Ravelstein convinces Chick, a well-known writer in his own right, to become his Boswell. Consisting of Chick's reflections on their relationship--memories of discussions on a wide range of topics from the nature of truth to nihilism, from the responsibilities inherent in being a Jew to the nature of love, from the world of the intellect to the world of vaudeville--the book is at once witty, erudite, and compassionate. While its pace and intellectual depth may put off those more attuned to today's "popular" genre, this is the work of a master and unquestionably belongs in all academic and public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/00.]--David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Age does not wither Saul Bellow. The 84-year-old writer's new novel is echt Bellow--the grab-bag paragraphs stuffed with truculent observations; the comedic mix of admiration and rivalry that subtends the friendships of intellectual men; the impossible and possible wives. Abe Ravelstein, a professor at a well-known Midwestern college, is obviously modeled on the late Allan Bloom. To clinch the identification, Bellow's narrator, Chick, a writer 20 years older than Ravelstein, uses phrases to describe Ravelstein that are almost identical to phrases Bellow used about Bloom in his published eulogy. Like Bloom, Ravelstein operates his phone like a "command post," getting information from his former students in high positions in various governments. Like Bloom, Ravelstein writes a bestseller using his special brand of political philosophy to comment on American failings. And like Bloom, Ravelstein throws money around as if "from the rear end of an express train." In fact, Chick is so obsessed with the price of Ravelstein's possessions that at times the work reads like a garage sale of his student's effects. Ravelstein also spends lavishly on his boyfriend, Nikki, a princely young Singaporean. Chick's wife, at the beginning of the memoir, is Vela, an East European physicist. Ravelstein dislikes her, and suspects that her Balkan friends are anti-Semites. Eventually, Vela kicks Chick out of his house and divorces him (fans will not be surprised that Bellow, as seems to be his habit, makes this a thinly veiled attack on his ex-wife). Chick ends up marrying one of Ravelstein's students, Rosamund. When Ravelstein succumbs to AIDS, Chick mulls over his obligation to write a memoir of his friend, but he is blocked until he himself suffers a threatening illness. Chick's alternate na‹vet‚ and subconscious rivalry with Ravelstein is the subtext here. Amply rewarding, this late work from the Nobel laureate flourishes his inimitable linguistic virtuosity, combining intimations of mortality with gossipy tattle in a biting and enlightening narrative. First serial to the New Yorker. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.