Shabbat Reading: Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow

#whatireadovershabbat Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King (1959; Penguin, 1996)

There is a great mistake about Saul Bellow. The mistake is to read his books as if he is inscribed, uninflected, in his main characters. What do I mean? I mean that there is a tendency, especially since his death, to read his male leads as simply versions of himself.

Now I don't deny the general principle; many a great modern writer has mined his life for material. In his biography of James Joyce, Richard Ellmann describes how the residents of Dublin pored over Ulysses when it was published, trying to identify which of their neighbors the characters were based on. The point, however, as Ellmann makes clear, is that the task was rather difficult. Joyce, a masterful borrower from his own life, nevertheless would combine two or three people he knew into one character. That is, when he wasn't inventing out of whole cloth.

You can see the tendency to equate Bellow with his characters in Asaf Galay's recent documentary, The Adventures of Saul Bellow. It's there in the title: Bellow becomes Augie March. The documentary, as Forward writer Julia M. Klein points out, explores (or perhaps, exposes) how Bellow liked to recast his life—friends, lovers, enemies, and wives (oh so many wives!)—not to mention himself—in his fiction.

The tendency, then, is understandable. In fact, it's good criticism—assuming you think biographical criticism is ever good (I do). Indeed Ravelstein (2000), Bellow's last and most accomplished novel, was in a sense commissioned by its subject, the philosopher Allan Bloom, who asked his friend to write his story. But I go back to what I said at the start: the mistake is to read his books as if he is inscribed, uninflected, in his main characters...

To read the rest, head over to my Substack, Well-Read (or Trying)