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avidreadr's review
5.0
will forever be a reminder of my Chicago days <3 reading this outside in chicago parks during the amazing summers ...priceless
hmmmhamburgers's review
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
violetturtledove's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
This is such a strange, rambling and neurotic book, it's difficult to know what to say about it. It's much more about thought than action. Some of the thoughts are heavily philosophical and to be honest, more highbrow than I am able to follow. Or maybe they are intentionally muddled, after all Herzog may be losing his mind.
But other parts are very evocative, I able to appreciate the feelings even if I didn't quite understand the theory! It's a slow one to reflect on, and I'm sure if you have the patience for re-reading you would understand it a little more each time.
Ultimately, I'm reluctant to rate this one especially high or low as it didn't fully click with me but I appreciate that it has many layers to it and they just weren't all for me. But sometimes the only way to judge a book is by the feeling you get at the end, and in this case I felt pretty satisfied and content.
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse and Pedophilia
gwstoryqueen32's review
emotional
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
sahil's review
challenging
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
nephiw's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
mateoismo's review
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
cami19's review
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
annepw's review
4.0
"Herzog" is a revelation. From the first page I was texting all my bookish friends imploring them to read it. It's not flawless in the way, say, "Lolita" is but Bellow is a magnificent, almost schizophrenic writer here, and his fragmented, ineffectual main character is rivetingly damaged. Everyone is Herzog, a little bit. This book is devastating and essential.
rc90041's review
4.0
Bellow seems to be one of those writers mentioned a lot by a lot of other writers, sometimes mentioned as a Nobel Prize winner, but read by basically no one these days. And I can see why he'd be a hard sell today: He's kind of like a proto-Roth, just even less concerned with anything beyond the male mind, but closer to the Old World, the War, and the penury of early days in the Americas, slipping into Yiddish like an old habit, and more self-consciously bookish.
It took me a while to get into this book, but about halfway through I started to really enjoy it. That said, it is a bit unnecessarily windy and self-indulgent: It's basically about a failed professor getting divorced for the second time, dealing with that, having a mental breakdown, writing letters that he never sends to Eisenhower, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Hitler, et al. And that's about it. Herzog goes different places and remembers things and writes these letters and ruminates about what he's done with his life. But it's occasionally hilarious.
The writing really did feel like it came from a different, less hurried era, where the writer could assume some portion of a reading audience would have the patience to bear with unsorted observations and thoughts about Freud, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, descriptions of Chicago, various trips around the East Coast for no apparent purpose, etc. I don't know that readers today would generally have the patience for this kind of slower, more self-indulgent prose--putting aside some of Bellow's somewhat dated takes on race, sex, gender, etc.
An interesting archaeological study, really, in seeing how this ur-Roth/Updike influenced a younger generation.
It took me a while to get into this book, but about halfway through I started to really enjoy it. That said, it is a bit unnecessarily windy and self-indulgent: It's basically about a failed professor getting divorced for the second time, dealing with that, having a mental breakdown, writing letters that he never sends to Eisenhower, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Hitler, et al. And that's about it. Herzog goes different places and remembers things and writes these letters and ruminates about what he's done with his life. But it's occasionally hilarious.
The writing really did feel like it came from a different, less hurried era, where the writer could assume some portion of a reading audience would have the patience to bear with unsorted observations and thoughts about Freud, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, descriptions of Chicago, various trips around the East Coast for no apparent purpose, etc. I don't know that readers today would generally have the patience for this kind of slower, more self-indulgent prose--putting aside some of Bellow's somewhat dated takes on race, sex, gender, etc.
An interesting archaeological study, really, in seeing how this ur-Roth/Updike influenced a younger generation.