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michaelsreading's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
chaoticbookgremlin's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
msjoanna's review
4.0
I went back and forth between the audiobook and the print book while reading this (alas, without the benefit of whispersync). Although this sounds like a book that would translate to audio format, since it's really one dude's story, it doesn't really, because nothing ever happens in the book and it's easy to get lost in the text when listening.
The book is really a send-up of pedantic dudes who are always spouting erudite sounding nonsense. Listening to the erudite nonsense, it's easy to feel like you're just not listening hard enough to understand what the book is on about. I found when reading it was much easier to absorb whole passages in the spirit of...ah, here's Herzog, spouting nonsense again. What's truly impressive, though, is that Saul Bellow is able to write this and make it enjoyable to read. Most authors just can't manage it.
This book has been sitting on my shelves for more than 15 years waiting for me to get around to reading it. I'm glad I suddenly felt inspired to pick it up. Worth the effort.
The book is really a send-up of pedantic dudes who are always spouting erudite sounding nonsense. Listening to the erudite nonsense, it's easy to feel like you're just not listening hard enough to understand what the book is on about. I found when reading it was much easier to absorb whole passages in the spirit of...ah, here's Herzog, spouting nonsense again. What's truly impressive, though, is that Saul Bellow is able to write this and make it enjoyable to read. Most authors just can't manage it.
This book has been sitting on my shelves for more than 15 years waiting for me to get around to reading it. I'm glad I suddenly felt inspired to pick it up. Worth the effort.
ireadslow's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
vtlism's review against another edition
2.0
i never find it that enjoyable to read about sad-sack old men.
the_dave_harmon's review
2.0
So I went back and finished it.
So my big complaint is there are these long asides where he departs from the narrative and starts rambling. And it's generally incoherent blathering that doesn't seem to mean anything. And I guess it's supposed to be Herzog's stream of consciousness? Letting us in on his mental confusion he is going through. But it was not enjoyable to read. Better than Virginia Woolf though.
So my big complaint is there are these long asides where he departs from the narrative and starts rambling. And it's generally incoherent blathering that doesn't seem to mean anything. And I guess it's supposed to be Herzog's stream of consciousness? Letting us in on his mental confusion he is going through. But it was not enjoyable to read. Better than Virginia Woolf though.
cjcurtis's review against another edition
5.0
I didn't realize it until about twenty pages from the end of the book, but Moses Herzog is one of the most endearing characters I have ever encountered in a novel. He probably shouldn't be. He's washed up, broken down, and quite possibly a little bit crazy, and spends a great deal of time mentally composing letters full of obscure philosophical references, addressing them variously to former colleagues, past lovers, or the dead philosophers themselves. All the while he is anguishing over the destruction of his second marriage, the distance between himself and his two children, the woman who may actually love him despite everything. As the wreckage of his actual life is slowly revealed, the pointlessness of the letters, even were they actually written down and sent, becomes increasingly, painfully apparent.
But then, somehow, that changes. Herzog's letters begin to seem more relevant, more significant, even with their persistent indecipherable academic jargon. Their abstract seriousness begins to seem like a front, a shield, and one that Herzog himself seems to see as increasingly flimsy and, more importantly, superfluous. As he divests himself of scholarly baggage, the meaningful parts of his life begin to reveal themselves, and suddenly, imperceptibly, Herzog the human being comes to light. (The unresolved question for me here is, did the letters themselves change, or did I change, and gradually come to recognize the truth hidden within them all along?)
For a considerable portion of this book, I admit I skimmed a lot of the letters, stuffed as they were with their hyperacademic maundering, thinking, as long as I got the gist, there was no need to bog myself down with the details. But when the book ended, so soon after I finally realized how fond of this shambling academic I had become, I began to regret my casual attitude. In a scaled down version of what we so often feel at the passing of a loved one, I wished I had paid better attention, had listened more carefully to what this earnest soul was trying to say before he was gone. He deserved that much. But now it was too late.
But then, somehow, that changes. Herzog's letters begin to seem more relevant, more significant, even with their persistent indecipherable academic jargon. Their abstract seriousness begins to seem like a front, a shield, and one that Herzog himself seems to see as increasingly flimsy and, more importantly, superfluous. As he divests himself of scholarly baggage, the meaningful parts of his life begin to reveal themselves, and suddenly, imperceptibly, Herzog the human being comes to light. (The unresolved question for me here is, did the letters themselves change, or did I change, and gradually come to recognize the truth hidden within them all along?)
For a considerable portion of this book, I admit I skimmed a lot of the letters, stuffed as they were with their hyperacademic maundering, thinking, as long as I got the gist, there was no need to bog myself down with the details. But when the book ended, so soon after I finally realized how fond of this shambling academic I had become, I began to regret my casual attitude. In a scaled down version of what we so often feel at the passing of a loved one, I wished I had paid better attention, had listened more carefully to what this earnest soul was trying to say before he was gone. He deserved that much. But now it was too late.
njauf's review against another edition
3.75
Herzog decided not to be mentally ill anymore and that's so valid of him
sarahreadsaverylot's review against another edition
4.0
4.5
Welcome to Herzog's "post-quixotic, post-Copernican U.S.A., where a mind freely poised in space might discover relationships utterly unsuspected by a seventeenth-century man sealed in his smaller universe." Nothing remains sealed in this world of heartrendingly effortless prose, where every sentence is a microcosm. Follow Herzog, that magnificent pierrot, along his epistolary journey of curiously exuberant entropy. Listen as he navigates that emotional landscape, crying, "what can thoughtful people and humanists do but struggle toward suitable words? Take me, for instance. I've been writing letters helter-skelter in all directions. More words. I go after reality with language. Perhaps I'd like to change it all into language...I must be trying to keep tight the tensions without which human beings can no longer be called human. If they don't suffer, they've gotten away from me. And I've filled the world with letters to prevent their escape. I want them in human form, and so I conjure up a whole environment and catch them in the middle. I put my whole heart into these constructions. But they are constructions." Revel in a novel that grows deeper and richer with every provoking page you turn.
Welcome to Herzog's "post-quixotic, post-Copernican U.S.A., where a mind freely poised in space might discover relationships utterly unsuspected by a seventeenth-century man sealed in his smaller universe." Nothing remains sealed in this world of heartrendingly effortless prose, where every sentence is a microcosm. Follow Herzog, that magnificent pierrot, along his epistolary journey of curiously exuberant entropy. Listen as he navigates that emotional landscape, crying, "what can thoughtful people and humanists do but struggle toward suitable words? Take me, for instance. I've been writing letters helter-skelter in all directions. More words. I go after reality with language. Perhaps I'd like to change it all into language...I must be trying to keep tight the tensions without which human beings can no longer be called human. If they don't suffer, they've gotten away from me. And I've filled the world with letters to prevent their escape. I want them in human form, and so I conjure up a whole environment and catch them in the middle. I put my whole heart into these constructions. But they are constructions." Revel in a novel that grows deeper and richer with every provoking page you turn.