Shabbat Reading: Saul Bellow's Herzog

#whatireadovershabbat Saul Bellow's Herzog (Fawcett, 1964)

Cracked up by divorce and disillusionment, Moses E. Herzog writes letters to the living and the dead, arguing with them about how to live decently, despite the fractures of the modern world. Bellow is, as ever, the inimitable stylist, and through every sentence, Herzog appears with a wild intensity. But am I ever supposed to trust his revelations? An edge of irony pierces the novel. Whether it pieces all the way through, each reader must decide.