'Accepting the anesthetic with confidence'

 

“A novel is balanced between a fewtrue impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what wecall life. With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling thatyou've fallen into good hands - someone from whom you can accept the anestheticwith confidence.” – Saul Bellow

Canadian by birth and later a naturalized U.S. citizen, Bellow attended theUniversity of Chicago and Northwestern University where he studied writing andEnglish but earned degrees in sociology and anthropology.  The fact thathe was an anthropologist probably is not a surprise for his readers who findanthropological references sprinkled throughout his many award-winningbooks.  

 

Born on this date in 1915, Bellow’s3 best-known novels are Adventures of Augie March, Herzog,and Humboldt’s Gift.  For his work, he won every majorwriting award, including the Nobel Prize, the National Book Award for Fiction(3 times), the Pulitzer Prize (twice) and the National Medal of TheArts.     

 

“I feel that art has something to dowith the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos,” Bellow said.  “(It's) a stillness which characterizes prayer, too,and the eve of the storm.  I think thatart has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst ofdistraction.”