Humboldt's Gift (Penguin Classics)
by Saul Bellow
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Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
Jack might get more out of it than I
This is a book in which Not Much Happens but there is an awful Lot to Talk About. Weighing in at nearly 500 pages, it is a slow read, not entirely uninteresting, but highly philosophical and super-brainy. There are a lot of references that I just don't understand and I grow weary of pausing to look up words, people, places, incidents.
The entire book takes place in the mind of Charlie Citrine, most of it in flashback to his relationship with the poet Von Humbolt Fleischer and other acquainte...more
The entire book takes place in the mind of Charlie Citrine, most of it in flashback to his relationship with the poet Von Humbolt Fleischer and other acquainte...more
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Read in January, 2003
I got to read this book in the form of my Brother in Laws collections of "classics" A book with a read leather cover - gilt edge pages a satin ribbon and thick vellum paper. Since I almost alway read used paper backs that are nearly disintigrating as I read them. That was kind of a treat. I enjoyed the experience of reading a real book -- I think I covet my brother-in-law's collection of classics. Anyway about the book - all good but with some weird direction with a mafiosa but th...more
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Read in January, 2008
This was a difficult novel, but worth the effort. At least for me it was; I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. The plot, which is semi-autobiographical of Bellow, isn't much to speak of. The narrator Charlie Citrine, roams around Chicago interacting with a cast of local characters: fellow Chicago socialites, writer friends, slimy lawyers, his childhood chums, a sketchy gangster named Rinaldo, pneumatic young women that he dates, and his long lost friend, the booze-soaked genius poet von Humbolt...more
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Read in August, 2002
Last night I dreamt that Saul Bellow was still alive, and that I met him. (Met him at the Chicago branch of something called the Hitler-Piedmont Bank--I know, I know, it was a dream, so it had to be a little fucked up.) I started to gush, but of all the phrases, characters and scenes of his that I admire, the only thing I praised was his description, in this novel, of Humboldt's mud-bespattered station wagon as looking like "a Flanders staff-car."
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Read in January, 2006
I read a lot of fiction so decided it was time to read all the Pulitzer Prize winners. Well, let's just say that after reading this I couldn't believe it was the best fiction had to offer in 1976. Someone should have edited Saul Bellow, or perhaps I should have stayed with cheap trashy novels.
This was a difficult, semi-autobiographical novel where the author waxes philosophical regularly. The thing is - I love Chicago and even his protagonist gallivanting around one of my favorite cities...more
This was a difficult, semi-autobiographical novel where the author waxes philosophical regularly. The thing is - I love Chicago and even his protagonist gallivanting around one of my favorite cities...more
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Read in July, 2007
An interesting portrait of mid-20th century Chicago, and a host of strange characters therein, from artists and academics to crazed gangsters. Loaded with interesting philosophical concepts about the nature of human existence. The story, at times, tends to take the back seat to all of this, but, still, worth reading. The main thrust of the story concerns a writer, Charlie Citrine, who, with the aid of his late friend's legacy, is able to turn his life around.
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I almost gave up on this book because it was so annoying and I found no pleasure or interest whatsoever in any part of it including any of the characters, but I finished it for my brother. I guesss I'm glad I did, so that I can add it to my list and write a review having known that I did read the whole book and didn't miss anything in the last half that would change my opinion of the book. I didn't learn anything and was confused at times. This book was just not for me.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in February, 2008
Amusing story of friends that you are forever tethered to for love, guilt, and all the stuff in between. Snobby, superior intellectuals always peak my interest, but the endlessly detailed lists and recitations of the brillant conversations the two friends had was tiring. As the book progressed, such details were shorted and referenced without such exhaustion. Perhaps Saul Bellow got tired of the lists as well. Perhaps intellectual snobbery is tiring.
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Read in August, 2005
this is a great, dynamic read. the protagonist is real and believeable even if his past and contacts are somewhat incredible. bellow's man is sympathetic yet juvenile and self-centered simultaneously. and there is humboldt, the "benfactor". this book is somewhat along the lines of "the big lebowski". the situations the reader is taken through are strange and funny. i do think it lacked something, though not quite sure what.
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After reading Herzog, I had high hopes for Humboldt. It was slightly disappointing. Charlie Citrine, the novel's protagonist, does not have the pathological deliciousness of Herzog, and I found the book's extra length tiresome. There are, of course, some brilliant passages, and the themes of genius and the burgher versus the bohemian are so important to the modern reader that the book is worth a read.
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Read in November, 2007
Not among my favorites. But I'll admit fault for my displeasure doesn't lie with Bellow but with me. The overly educated stream of consciousness style just bugs me. Or maybe I wasn't in the mood.
There is no doubt that Bellow is a brilliant man, but that doesn't make for a great novel, just a really long series of essays held together by a thin plot told by an not very likable narrator.
There is no doubt that Bellow is a brilliant man, but that doesn't make for a great novel, just a really long series of essays held together by a thin plot told by an not very likable narrator.
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There is power and poise in this character's stream-of-consciousness narrative that produce second and third thoughts and meaningful reflections. There's relatively little action, but much humorous rumination on the human condition and its consequences. Bellow addresses themes of genius, sleep, romance and friendship, success, and consciousness. I had a great time with this book.
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Read in January, 2005
Chicago is as much the protagonist of this story as is Saul Bellow's semi-autobiographical narrator, a successful writer whose multiple marriages are slowly depleting the trappings of his success. A great introduction to Bellow's work, "Humboldt's Gift" will have extra appeal for those with Chicago roots, who will appreciate his presentation of that city circa the early 1970s.
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Read in August, 2007
Humboldt's Gift was a very good, if dense, novel. It was particularly interesting knowing that he pretty much taught Philip Roth how to write novels; you can see what Roth picked up from him, and what Roth added (or, as one curmudgeon I know pointed out, subtracted). The philosophical passages bogged me down at times, but that may have been more my fault than the author's.
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Read in December, 2005
recommends it for:
All Folks
Daunting. Lot of knowledge deployed in Bellovian fashion. Manic. Enthralling. Like most of Bellow's fiction, most of what's described in the novel actually occurred. In this case, it's a roman a clef of his friendship with Delmore Schwarz, who was a manic/depressive poet of promise who drank himself to death (and who resented his good friend Bellow's success).
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in July, 2008
This is the first book from the 1970's Pulitzer winners that I'm reading. Have read something from every other decade of the prize, generally more than one from each decade, and am already enthralled. In the first few pages, the narrator eschews the Pulitzer as a joke.
The characters are rich and Bellows has a real way with words.
The characters are rich and Bellows has a real way with words.
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Read in May, 2008
I just couldn't finish this. I tried. I liked it in parts. There were some really funny moments. But is it bad that the other day I described myself as more of a Bellow-esque Jewish writer than a Roth-esque one and then it turns out that I can't finish his book? I did read Herzog in college. But I can't remember a think about it. Sigh.
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Read in January, 2007
I just could not get through this book. I couldn't understand it, and I didn't enjoy it, so I stopped reading it about halfway through, one of the few times I have EVER done that in my life. Made me not want to read another Saul Bellow book!
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Read in March, 2008
A sophisticate who worshiped a grumpy poet deals with love, life and overcoming the hatred that poet had for his success. A little too philosophical, but humorous throughout.
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Read in December, 2007
My second reading of this book, 23 months later. It held up to memory---still breathtaking.
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