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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
Charlie Citrine, the narrator, recounts his many misadventures around Christmas in 1973, alternating nostalgic memories, dubious encounters in the shady Chicago, extravagant projects, absurd situations, and sociological, philosophical, or metaphysical considerations. He hates intellectuals cut off from the world while tending to meditate more or less on far-fetched theories in critical situations. He's a writer haunted by Humboldt, an old friend, an avant-garde poet from Greenwich Village who had little success between the Lost and the Beat Generation. But as Charlie rose to recognition and won literary prizes, medals, and money, Humboldt gradually forgot and slipped into madness. Finally, they got angry, and Humboldt died in the 1960s without their reconciliation.
I won't tell the whole plot, which is long and complex but well-paced, funny, and ingenious. There are three main things to remember about Charlie Citrine: his confused relationship with money, women, and death. He gets ripped off or his money pumped by everyone: the State, a little crook who dreams of Al Capone, his ex-wife, his lawyers, his girlfriend, his collaborators, and even his friends. And when I say Humboldt haunts him, I'm hardly exaggerating because Charlie is very fond of theories on the immortality of the soul, based on rebirth, kabbalah, anthroposophy, or I don't know. Too much. His quest is to clear up this confusion and find a happy medium between poverty and wealth, materialism and spiritualism, dry scholarship, and pure stupidity.
I would have loved this novel if the translation hadn't bothered me so much. But unfortunately, not only is it poorly written but also very bizarre, and some elements have left me perplexed.
I won't tell the whole plot, which is long and complex but well-paced, funny, and ingenious. There are three main things to remember about Charlie Citrine: his confused relationship with money, women, and death. He gets ripped off or his money pumped by everyone: the State, a little crook who dreams of Al Capone, his ex-wife, his lawyers, his girlfriend, his collaborators, and even his friends. And when I say Humboldt haunts him, I'm hardly exaggerating because Charlie is very fond of theories on the immortality of the soul, based on rebirth, kabbalah, anthroposophy, or I don't know. Too much. His quest is to clear up this confusion and find a happy medium between poverty and wealth, materialism and spiritualism, dry scholarship, and pure stupidity.
I would have loved this novel if the translation hadn't bothered me so much. But unfortunately, not only is it poorly written but also very bizarre, and some elements have left me perplexed.
Well that was unpleasant
-life is hard for an old white writer
-especially when awful women are being so mean to him. don't they recognize his genius?
-the sexy young thing that old white writer is seeing somehow gives herself an orgasm with his foot under the table???
-a big lesson here is don't trust women, even if they use your foot to get themselves off
-also any time anything interesting would be happening in the plot, the narrator would take time off to discuss some blithering philosophical point for like 2-3 pages at a stretch. i ended up skimming that. SORRY IF IT WAS VERY DEEP AND I DIDN'T GET IT, BELLOW.
i did like the part with his brother. that was it.
-life is hard for an old white writer
-especially when awful women are being so mean to him. don't they recognize his genius?
-the sexy young thing that old white writer is seeing somehow gives herself an orgasm with his foot under the table???
-a big lesson here is don't trust women, even if they use your foot to get themselves off
-also any time anything interesting would be happening in the plot, the narrator would take time off to discuss some blithering philosophical point for like 2-3 pages at a stretch. i ended up skimming that. SORRY IF IT WAS VERY DEEP AND I DIDN'T GET IT, BELLOW.
i did like the part with his brother. that was it.
An excellent literary effort. One most worthy of the Pulitzer. Bellow is a wonderful, beautiful writer. He has the ability to string short, direct sentences together without the narration coming across as too choppy, and he has the ability to write long, wordy, unpunctuated sentences without coming across as too incoherent or complex. It’s beautiful writing.
That said, the framing of the book isn’t my favorite. Enough about aging, angsty, lascivious old white dudes going through existential crises! In this sense, Bellow writes squarely in the tradition that includes John Updike and Philip Roth. All masterful writers, but whose masterpieces are about decaying, rudderless, old white dudes. Charles Citrine (Bellow), Seymour “The Swede” Levov (Roth), Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom (Updike), are all essentially the same dudes. And the takeaway messages of their lives is also more or less the same. But as for elegant, precise writing - they are all superb, including “Humboldt’s Gift.”
I’m glad I read it, and I do recommend it; but be ready for a slog. It can be heavy and oppressive at times, which makes the reading and digestion of it slower-going. Took me longer than I expected to get through it. But it’s worth it to put in the work.
That said, the framing of the book isn’t my favorite. Enough about aging, angsty, lascivious old white dudes going through existential crises! In this sense, Bellow writes squarely in the tradition that includes John Updike and Philip Roth. All masterful writers, but whose masterpieces are about decaying, rudderless, old white dudes. Charles Citrine (Bellow), Seymour “The Swede” Levov (Roth), Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom (Updike), are all essentially the same dudes. And the takeaway messages of their lives is also more or less the same. But as for elegant, precise writing - they are all superb, including “Humboldt’s Gift.”
I’m glad I read it, and I do recommend it; but be ready for a slog. It can be heavy and oppressive at times, which makes the reading and digestion of it slower-going. Took me longer than I expected to get through it. But it’s worth it to put in the work.
Full of the same level of deplorable characters as The Great Gatsby. I did, however, like the ending. Or perhaps I was just glad it was over
Charlie Citrine, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author and playwright, is haunted by the overwhelming spirit of Von Humboldt Fleisher, a once-brilliant poet and Charlie's one-time mentor who went mad and abusive from his failure to make it big as a literary star or commercial success. Some very vivid character sketches of social types including sexy gold diggers, a would-be Mafioso, pretentious lawyers, and culture moguls after Charlie's wealth (rapidly diminishing) or his talent (still intact), plus long-suffering wives (Humboldt's ex and Charlie's greedy brother's current spouse); also amusing descriptions of Chicago society in the 1970s, and Greenwich Village in the 1940s. Most interesting to me were Charlie's notes for a future essay or book on boredom, which "has more to do with modern political revolution than justice has. In 1917, that boring Lenin who wrote so many boring pamphlets and letters on organizational questions was, briefly, all passion, all radiant interest. The Russian revolution promised mankind a permanently interesting life." (p. 200)
Also worth remembering: Humboldt, according to his widow, "used to say how much he would like to move in brilliant" circles, be a part of the literary world."
"That's just it. There never was such a literary world," I [Charlie] said. "In the nineteenth century there were several solitaries of the highest genius - a Melville or a Poe had no literary life. It was the customhouse and the barroom for them. In Russia, Lenin and Stalin destroyed the literary world. Russia's situation now [mid 1970s] resembles ours - poets, in spite of everything against them, emerge from nowhere. Where did Whitman come from, and where did he get what he had? It was W. Whitman, an irrepressible individual, that had it and that did it." (p. 370)
The writing is energetic, witty, intelligent and linked through references to very wide reading, and so gives many moments of pleasure. But as a total fictional experience, I found it disappointing - disjointed and jerky, farcical realism but with an ending that that is more like a shrug than an explosion or any kind of resolution. 20050406
Also worth remembering: Humboldt, according to his widow, "used to say how much he would like to move in brilliant" circles, be a part of the literary world."
"That's just it. There never was such a literary world," I [Charlie] said. "In the nineteenth century there were several solitaries of the highest genius - a Melville or a Poe had no literary life. It was the customhouse and the barroom for them. In Russia, Lenin and Stalin destroyed the literary world. Russia's situation now [mid 1970s] resembles ours - poets, in spite of everything against them, emerge from nowhere. Where did Whitman come from, and where did he get what he had? It was W. Whitman, an irrepressible individual, that had it and that did it." (p. 370)
The writing is energetic, witty, intelligent and linked through references to very wide reading, and so gives many moments of pleasure. But as a total fictional experience, I found it disappointing - disjointed and jerky, farcical realism but with an ending that that is more like a shrug than an explosion or any kind of resolution. 20050406
Spoiler alert: the gift is that it eventually ends.
Look, I'm not disputing Bellow's literary genius, but this novel was absolutely torture to get through. I hate that I force myself to finish every book I start (with very rare exceptions), because a sane version of me would've given up on this one a long time ago.
I've never before experienced a novel that feels so much like a trip to the dentist. The prose is dense, turgid, and overly allusive, and the protagonist is a washed-up intellectual who would rather stand on his head (really, he does this several times) thinking about anthroposophy (don't ask me) than spend time with his kids, or anyone else. The women in his life tell him how ludicrous he is and I guess we're supposed to think that's cute, but all I could think was that the women were right and there was no reason for me to be reading about this guy. Also, seemingly every single character is described as "fat" or "obese." At some point, please just stop telling me how fat everyone is.
As for the plot, there really isn't one until the last few pages, and by then I promise I didn't care.
In the novel's defense, there are lots of interesting ideas embedded in Charlie Citrine's (read: Saul Bellow's) musings that are still highly relevant today (decline of western civilization and all that), although I wish he had done a little more than hint at how an intellectual giant might make his mark in the lower brow arts like (gasp!) film. But on most topics, I wish he'd done a lot less. I don't have the patience for bizarre philosophy than I had in, say, college, and that might've made me a little biased against this book.
If you want to work hard in your reading life, and if you like to hang out with rambling uber-intellectuals, this is the novel for you. Otherwise, pass.
Look, I'm not disputing Bellow's literary genius, but this novel was absolutely torture to get through. I hate that I force myself to finish every book I start (with very rare exceptions), because a sane version of me would've given up on this one a long time ago.
I've never before experienced a novel that feels so much like a trip to the dentist. The prose is dense, turgid, and overly allusive, and the protagonist is a washed-up intellectual who would rather stand on his head (really, he does this several times) thinking about anthroposophy (don't ask me) than spend time with his kids, or anyone else. The women in his life tell him how ludicrous he is and I guess we're supposed to think that's cute, but all I could think was that the women were right and there was no reason for me to be reading about this guy. Also, seemingly every single character is described as "fat" or "obese." At some point, please just stop telling me how fat everyone is.
As for the plot, there really isn't one until the last few pages, and by then I promise I didn't care.
In the novel's defense, there are lots of interesting ideas embedded in Charlie Citrine's (read: Saul Bellow's) musings that are still highly relevant today (decline of western civilization and all that), although I wish he had done a little more than hint at how an intellectual giant might make his mark in the lower brow arts like (gasp!) film. But on most topics, I wish he'd done a lot less. I don't have the patience for bizarre philosophy than I had in, say, college, and that might've made me a little biased against this book.
If you want to work hard in your reading life, and if you like to hang out with rambling uber-intellectuals, this is the novel for you. Otherwise, pass.
Humboldt is a poet, once revered, eventually ridiculed; Charlie Citrine, the narrator, was his acolyte, friend and enemy. Citrine, of an inferior talent, enjoys much greater commercial success than Humboldt. This anomaly is the foundation for much soul searching about the relationship between the artist and commercial success in America.
Humboldt fulfils society’s most cherished expectation of the poet – he goes nuts and dies ignominiously. In other words, he’s too delicate for this world. Something we all feel in our most sensitive moments. Poets do what we’d sometimes like to – over indulge sensibility to the point of cutting themselves off from the outside world - and we perhaps honour them for this as much as we do for their poetry. Bellow here attempts, not very successfully, the Nick/Gatsby divide in this novel – he has a prosaic narrator recounting the larger than life character, Humboldt. But a failing of this novel is that Bellow can never keep his own voice muffled for long and soon the narrator Charlie Citrine and Humboldt become almost the same character. Charlie ends up as eccentrically broken as Humboldt. And the title’s gift is a rather lame and implausible denouement.
“There's the most extraordinary, unheard of poetry buried in America, but none of the conventional means known to culture can even begin to extract it...the agony is too deep, the disorder too big for art enterprises undertaken in the old way.” So says Charlie. But this passage is much more applicable to DeLillo’s novels than Bellow’s. I’m not sure I ever really felt Bellow was getting to the heart of this buried poetry. DeLillo is actually much better at finding the poetry in our technological, media circus age because he’s better able to project out beyond himself; DeLillo shows where Bellow tells. Bellow often ends up sounding like the patient on the psychotherapist’s couch, gorgeously eloquent but telling rather than dramatizing.
Saul Bellow would rank pretty high as nightmare husband. He likes the sound of his own voice too much. He holds forth brilliantly but there’s a sense he doesn’t listen much. He tends to see others as appendages or anecdotes. Bellow’s novels are always about Saul Bellow, Saul Bellow and his relationship with the world, Saul Bellow and his dysfunctional relationship with women. All the novels I’ve read by him have had the same narrator. There’s a lack of versatility in his voice. The supporting cast of characters are often more like showcases for how brilliantly and wittily Bellow can write than any kind of approximation of real people. His most successful novel was Herzog because he sent up his rampant egotism in a brilliantly witty fashion. Bellow is probably a much better writer than he is novelist. His prose is fantastic; his plots often half-baked and flimsy. This one just scrapes four stars because of the quality of the prose; as a novel I found it essentially inspired and daft in equal measure.
Humboldt fulfils society’s most cherished expectation of the poet – he goes nuts and dies ignominiously. In other words, he’s too delicate for this world. Something we all feel in our most sensitive moments. Poets do what we’d sometimes like to – over indulge sensibility to the point of cutting themselves off from the outside world - and we perhaps honour them for this as much as we do for their poetry. Bellow here attempts, not very successfully, the Nick/Gatsby divide in this novel – he has a prosaic narrator recounting the larger than life character, Humboldt. But a failing of this novel is that Bellow can never keep his own voice muffled for long and soon the narrator Charlie Citrine and Humboldt become almost the same character. Charlie ends up as eccentrically broken as Humboldt. And the title’s gift is a rather lame and implausible denouement.
“There's the most extraordinary, unheard of poetry buried in America, but none of the conventional means known to culture can even begin to extract it...the agony is too deep, the disorder too big for art enterprises undertaken in the old way.” So says Charlie. But this passage is much more applicable to DeLillo’s novels than Bellow’s. I’m not sure I ever really felt Bellow was getting to the heart of this buried poetry. DeLillo is actually much better at finding the poetry in our technological, media circus age because he’s better able to project out beyond himself; DeLillo shows where Bellow tells. Bellow often ends up sounding like the patient on the psychotherapist’s couch, gorgeously eloquent but telling rather than dramatizing.
Saul Bellow would rank pretty high as nightmare husband. He likes the sound of his own voice too much. He holds forth brilliantly but there’s a sense he doesn’t listen much. He tends to see others as appendages or anecdotes. Bellow’s novels are always about Saul Bellow, Saul Bellow and his relationship with the world, Saul Bellow and his dysfunctional relationship with women. All the novels I’ve read by him have had the same narrator. There’s a lack of versatility in his voice. The supporting cast of characters are often more like showcases for how brilliantly and wittily Bellow can write than any kind of approximation of real people. His most successful novel was Herzog because he sent up his rampant egotism in a brilliantly witty fashion. Bellow is probably a much better writer than he is novelist. His prose is fantastic; his plots often half-baked and flimsy. This one just scrapes four stars because of the quality of the prose; as a novel I found it essentially inspired and daft in equal measure.
challenging
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes