<![CDATA[Ravelstein (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)]]>

false <![CDATA[Ravelstein (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173756627m/324245.jpg 324245 19 Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Saul Bellow confined himself to shorter fictions. Not that this old master ever dabbled in minimalism: novellas such as The Actual and The Bellarosa Connection are bursting at the seams with wit, plot, and the intellectual equivalent of high fiber. Still, Bellow's readers wondered if he would ever pull another full-sized novel from his hat. With Ravelstein, the author has done just that--and he proves that even in his ninth decade, he can pin a character to the page more vividly, and more permanently, than just about anybody on the planet. Character is very much the issue in Ravelstein, whose eponymous subject is a thinly disguised version of Bellow's boon companion, the late Allan Bloom. Like Bloom, Abe Ravelstein has spent much of his career at the University of Chicago, fighting a rearguard action against the creeping boobism and vulgarity of American life. What's more, he's written a surprise bestseller (a ringer, of course, for The Closing of the American Mind), which has made him into a millionaire. And finally, he's dying--has died of AIDS, in fact, six years before the opening of the novel. What we're reading, then, is a faux memoir by his best friend and anointed Boswell, a Bellovian body-double named Chick: <blockquote> Ravelstein was willing to lay it all out for me. Now why did he bother to tell me such things, this large Jewish man from Dayton, Ohio? Because it very urgently needed to be said. He was HIV-positive, he was dying of complications from it. Weakened, he became the host of an endless list of infections. Still, he insisted on telling me over and over again what love was--the neediness, the awareness of incompleteness, the longing for wholeness, and how the pains of Eros were joined to the most ecstatic pleasures. </blockquote> Ravelstein is a little thin in the plot department--or more accurately, it has an anti-plot, which consists of Chick's inability to write his memoir. But seldom has a case of writer's block been so supremely productive. The narrator dredges up anecdote after anecdote about his subject, assembling a composite portrait: "In approaching a man like Ravelstein, a piecemeal method is perhaps best." We see this very worldly philosopher teaching, kvetching, eating, drinking, and dying, the last in melancholic increments. His death, and Chick's own brush with what Henry James called "the distinguished thing," give much of the novel a kind of black-crepe coloration. But fortunately, Bellow shares Ravelstein's "Nietzschean view, favorable to comedy and bandstands," and there can't be many eulogies as funny as this one. As always, the author is lavish with physical detail, bringing not only his star but a large gallery of minor players to rude and resounding life ("Rahkmiel was a non-benevolent Santa Claus, a dangerous person, ruddy, with a red-eyed scowl and a face in which the anger muscles were highly developed"). His sympathies are also stretched in some interesting directions by his homosexual protagonist. Bellow hasn't, to be sure, transformed himself into an affirmative-action novelist. But his famously capacious view of human nature has been enriched by this additional wrinkle: "In art you become familiar with due process. You can't simply write people off or send them to hell." A world-class portrait, a piercing intimation of mortality, Ravelstein is truly that other distinguished thing: a great novel. --James Marcus 1427 2000 Ravelstein (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) total:540|5:92|4:181|3:179|2:74|1:14| 540 1883 737 59 5 2 false false Sat Dec 29 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed Jan 21 14:50:46 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 27 11:16:36 -0800 2009
Bellow describes his fictionalized wife Vela: “She had to be seen as a beautiful woman. But it was beauty-parade beauty, and re...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 12 09:43:04 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 13 07:01:49 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 16:44:34 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 16:44:34 -0800 2009
Ravelstein is a novel that will likely prompt a bit of research on a great many topics, and readers should expect to come away with considerab...more...]]> 1 0 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jan 21 05:29:58 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 22 06:18:58 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 30 08:41:28 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 20 19:35:24 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 15:04:34 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 23 16:10:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Mon Oct 19 13:11:18 -0700 2009 Thu Nov 05 11:53:09 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Dec 09 08:00:58 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 09 08:06:47 -0800 2008
The book is a fictionalized memoir of Bellow's friend Allan Bloom, who is portrayed in this book as the fictional professor Ravelstein. T...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 18 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Oct 17 22:31:23 -0700 2008 Sun Jan 18 05:06:42 -0800 2009 Abe Ravelstein (Allan Bloom) was a fascinating character. He delved in his paradoxes, and it could have been really easy to dislike him if Bellow did not represent the amazing amount of humanity Rave...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Mar 06 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 27 17:10:41 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 07 18:21:44 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Oct 30 09:06:19 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 30 09:18:10 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Mar 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 05:37:54 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 05:58:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Oct 06 14:53:37 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 06 14:53:52 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sat Oct 10 12:11:41 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 10 12:12:01 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Nov 19 07:12:59 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 19 07:15:42 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Jun 16 19:41:39 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 19:42:41 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Mon Oct 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 03 08:08:17 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 27 09:26:56 -0700 2008
In this case, the novel is a roman à clef whose main character is the punnily named Ravelstein, supposedly based on the Chicago University professor Alan Bloom. Bellow depicts him as egotistical, homosexual, and profligate. One get...more...]]> 0 0 false false Sat Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 19:09:29 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 19:10:55 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1995 Thu Aug 13 14:15:32 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 14:16:57 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Tue Nov 17 09:17:29 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 17 09:17:59 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=324245