Saul Bellow and His Works

Saul Bellow and his works

I am very glad to learn something about this American writer -- Saul Bellow as well as his works. In the beginning, I will introduce this writer’s wonderful life.

Saul Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal, on 10 June 1915. His father and mother were Jewish and used to live in Russia. And then, their family moved to Chicago, America. Actually, his mother used to have a rich and privileged life, but these all had changed since they went to America. Their life had a huge and complete change. Because of his special identity, he was looked down by the local natives. His family had a very poor condition and he suffered a lot ,which had great influence on his works and writing styles. His own experience could be reflected in his works.

He attended the University of Chicago, but later he transferred to the Northwestern University. At first, he preferred to major in literature, but after that, he found that the English department was anti-Jewish. Therefore, he majored in both anthropology and sociology. And also his majors helped him to shape his writing styles, and he used his anthropological knowledge in his works.

But how did he to be a writer? This must return to his childhood. When he was nine, his family moved again. This time they moved to the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the west side of Chicago. This city became the backdrop of lots of his novels and lots of his novels’ plots set in this city. His mother died when he was only seventeen. She wanted his son would be a rabbi or a concert violinist. But Saul Bellow had his own thought, and he wanted to be a writer. That’s because he was love for the Bible beginning at four when he studied Hebrew. After that, he grew up reading William Shakespeare and the Russian novelists of the 19th century.

 He continued to teach literature in many universities around the US. He was the professor of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

He was not only a novelist but also a playwright. He created lots of works, including Dangling Man (1944), The Victim (1948), The Adventures of Augie March(1954), Seize The Day (1956) , Henderson The Rain King (1959), Herzog (1964), Mosby’s Memoirs and Other Stories(1968), Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970), and Humboldt’s Gifts (1975).Therefore, he also awarded lots of famous and international prizes.he won 3 National Book Award for fiction, one Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt’s Gift,and the most famous one --the Nobel Prize in Literature. Meanwhile, his plays were also famous. He created The Last Analysis and three short plays, collectively entitled Under The Weather, which were produced on Broadway in 1966.

His first novel was Dangling Man (1944), which was completed during his service in the merchant marine during the world war II. The Adventures of Augie March (1953) made him to be a well-known writer. Herzog (1964) made him to be one of the bestsellers. His best-known works include The Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Seize the day, Hummboldt’s Gift and Ravelstein. Bellow is considered as one of the 20th century’s greatest authors, and he has had a “ huge literary influence.” His best and close friend is the philosopher, Allan Bloom. He used his late friend and rival, poet Delmore Schwartz as his model for a novel, Von Humboldt Fleisher. To tell the truth, Saul Bellow is an excellent and brilliant author in the wold, and he also leave us lots of wonderful works to enjoy.    

Next I will analysis two passages respectively. One is passage from The Adventures of Augie March. The other one is passage from Herzog. Firstly, I will analysis the former one. I think this passage may be taken from the last part of this novel. After Augie March being suffered so much, he began to realize the meaning of life. He started to be curious about and doubt his life, because he didn’t know his father at all. This was cruel to everybody. And also, he found that he even didn’t manage to do one thing in his life. He started to blame himself. Because he didn’t succeed in doing anything, he started to suspect and want to end his unworthy life. He wanted to get rid of his failing life and the torments. Therefore, in the end , he made his decision. He wanted to die and end all of these. He also wanted to return to his mother’s around by ending his own life. Therefore, he thought he could get the peace in the end.

I think this passage is from the very last part of this novel. From the whole novel, we clearly get a cue of his short life. He had a very hard life and a humble condition. He was raised by his mother and lived with his very harsh grandmother as well as his two brothers.Also,he was an immigrant. He didn’t belong to this place and to this country. Apparently, his childhood was not happy. I think this was also a main factor to lead him to be a man like that.His adulthood was also not very smooth. He experienced different kinds of difficulties. He used to be an assistance, and then he also served as a navy soldier in the war. He did never succeed once. But, he did fall in love with women twice. This all novel reveals his life through lots of experience and suffering lots of accidents. Finally, he found he was an useless man in the world and his life was meaningless. But in my view, that means growing up.

  Next, I will talk about the second passage from Herzog. I think this passage is also taken from the last part of this novel. After he suffering lots of difficulties and setbacks, he recovered from all the miseries. He’d stop writing letters. It meant he had gradually recovered from his bad experience. He perhaps chose to live with the flower shopper to spend his life, but all of us not very sure about it. He returned to his countryside house and tried to start it over. He tidied his house when he happened to meet Mrs. Tuttle. Mrs. Tuttle was doing her sweeping again. He wanted to remind her of damping it down. Because her groom carried lots of dusts. But, he didn’t do that. He didn’t send his message about it. To our surprise, he didn’t speak a single word. None of us would know whether he went out of his bad experience or his mental illness was totally picked up. Nobody would know including himself. He also didn’t know what should he do to spend his rest of life. Maybe he would pick up form his mental illness, or maybe he would not return to the normal life. Maybe he would marry the flower shopper, Ramona, or maybe he would choose nobody and live alone in his countryside house.