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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
3,5
რივიუს დაწერა მეზარება, აგე ამ კაცმა თქვა თითქმის ზუსტად ის რაც მინდოდა :)) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/662492050?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1
რივიუს დაწერა მეზარება, აგე ამ კაცმა თქვა თითქმის ზუსტად ის რაც მინდოდა :)) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/662492050?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1
Now I have already mentioned that there was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it got even stronger. It said only one thing, I want, I want! And I would ask, 'What do you want?' But this was all it would ever tell me.I've never been to Africa. I'd love to though - if anyone wants to float me a one-way ticket to Ouagadougou, maybe a layover in Zürich to pick up some luxury essentials, I'd be mighty grateful. But I digress, I've never been, and what I know of it I basically know from "Out of Africa" starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, or from Things Fall Apart or Heart of Darkness - so essentially I know nothing of it whatsoever. But in any case, it has had, and still has, a sort of mystical quality of the unknown, of spots which we believe have eluded cartographers and adventurers alike. There's a romance in the unknown, the untrammeled, and that romance is the central figure of Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow's novel about a rich but dissatisfied man who seeks the meaning of life in the African plains.
Saul Bellow admonished readers not to look for symbolism, in what is a preposterously allegorical work. It is almost impossible not to see symbolism everywhere in this book, in fact it would take a deliberate skepticism to avoid it. So why the warning? Maybe it is because the overflowing symbolism reminds us of another novel, taking place in Africa, also brimming with symbols? Maybe one by an author that Bellow admired, like, say, Joseph Conrad? Of course! I saw much of the symbolism of Henderson the Rain King to be a parodic point-counterpoint for Conrad's controversial depictions of Africa in Heart of Darkness, particularly his representation of the natives. In Bellow's reversal on themes, instead of trying to bring order to the African chaos, he seeks in Africa a stability of meaning in his own internal chaos. While Henderson's expectations of the African experience are clearly influenced by a Conradian view of the continent and its aboriginals, the novel as a whole evades the stereotypical trap by refusing to characterize "Africa" but instead keep it firmly in the backdrop. Henderson's views are quickly overturned, churned, and reversed as he meets African tribesmen who speak English and are trained in medicine.
Henderson the Rain King is about a modern transcendental quest, à la Thoreau's sojourn on Walden Pond. Following in the philosophical tradition of Emerson and Whitman, Bellow through Henderson argues in favor of the human capacity to transcend state inertia of the Self, to metamorphose to a state unimaginably changed from one's original. Henderson elucidates this change as from a "pig state" to a "lion state," or perhaps he falls short of the leonine ideal, but a fully changed man he is, nonetheless. This change is brought about masterfully in the sub-Saharan chrysalis of the novel. The change is great, but incomplete, Henderson becomes man qua man: he remains imperfect, but changed for the better - the same man with a violent imagination and a youthful impetus but with a changed perspective, a human optimism which abandons his erstwhile melancholy to the realm of the past.
Without Africa, I feel transcended beyond previous Selves. From the solipsistic and ill-behaved child to the melancholic perturbations of my high school spirit to the Self I have become today, I am a fully different individual, and all has been the result of changes in perspective. Unlike Henderson, these permutations of the spirit are naturally occurring transitions of youth: Henderson is a middle-aged man, and perhaps it takes so stark a change in venue to spark so vital a change in spiritual vitality. This book is a book of continuous conflict, on the surface it is a conflict between the impetus of the Self and the desire of change (ultimately a clash of desires), but deeper questions surface, combative questions of the physical versus spiritual selves, reason versus emotion, death and immortality, body and soul, and Self versus Society. Is it possible to make a drastic change to the Self in the midst of the the fierce tributary of modern society's desires and temptations? That question isn't wholly answered, because Henderson is always in a state of escape from Society. He lives outside Danbury on a pig farm before his journey to the African continent, far reclusive from the mainstream of society. When you feel out of sorts, escape feels a necessity for life, no solitude is solitude enough. But Henderson relents, Henderson finds solace in the masculine companionship he finds in his African guide, Romilayu, and in his spirit guide, King Dahfu of the tribe Wariri. While solitude and remoteness seems an ideal, it seems that change is impossible in a vacuum, we need people to catalyze our changes. Africa doesn't change Henderson, rather the men he meets there help to reveal to him his true capacity of heart, his true capacity for good, his veritable capacity to change.
But there remains in the background a beauty of experience, which commingles a beauty of the natural and a beauty of the human. I love nature, and I find no better escape into myself than to get out into the forest, to go for a run in the glaucous shade along the Charles River esplanade. But that natural beauty is remote in its purest form, it is a beauty which transcends our complete appreciation and the essence of what it gives to us lies just beyond the ability of our natural language of praise and awe. Natural beauty needs the human element, imperfect analogues and the unnatural beauty of language, to pin it it down, anesthetize it for us to appreciate, like a butterfly on cardstock; Bellow does that for us with a moving ability, but rather than sedating it, he breathes a life into it. Bellow elucidates our human short-comings to appreciate natural beauty:
We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects but endless fire.All beauty: natural, humanistic, aesthetic - all beauty is alive. Our materialist society has an unnatural desire for that which is eternal, but we find those pleasures empty, they don't fulfill us - they are unnatural, they are dead pleasures. Wallace Stevens in "Sunday Morning," another tribute to the mystical power of a natural spiritualism, ponders:
Is there no change of death in paradise?and answers:
Does ripe fruit never fall?
Death is the mother of beautyDeath, mortality, is what makes the world beautiful. The eternal is not beautiful and can never fulfill us. Money, material goods, is immutable, fungible, of an exact value - it lasts forever, so long as we hoard it. Nature cannot be hoarded or safeguarded in our purses and wallets, it slips ever through our fingers if we do not take it into our selves. We must ever grasp for it, appreciate it, love it and preserve it. All that is beautiful must die, life must end, but I wouldn't trade in life and I wouldn't trade in the beauty of endless fire (an allusion to Prometheus's gift) for the material glister of "small gold objects."
I'll never have time for a book like this in 21st century
I was thinking about what to write about this book and all I could think was, "It's just so male."
I've read a lot of books by men, about men, and specifically about a certain type of middle-aged white man having a crisis. Sometimes I enjoy them, sometimes I can relate to them, and sometimes I just want to slap the character (and maybe the author) and tell them to get over themselves.
This one belonged to the last category.
I've read a lot of books by men, about men, and specifically about a certain type of middle-aged white man having a crisis. Sometimes I enjoy them, sometimes I can relate to them, and sometimes I just want to slap the character (and maybe the author) and tell them to get over themselves.
This one belonged to the last category.
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
While I appreciated his writing and some of his parodies, like his send up of Hemingway heroes and colonialists though his cartoony, buffoony main character, his parodies of African culture just felt racist to me. Couldn't get more than half way through.
Henderson the Rain King is my fourth expedition into a Saul Bellow novel, the others being Seize the Day, The Adventures of Augie March, and Herzog. I reviewed The Adventures of Augie March on my Literary Gladiators channel, while I discussed Herzog on the panel with a panel of two others, one of which was my American Literature I and II instructor. I will say that with Henderson the Rain King, this had the strongest message about life among any of the Bellow novels that I have read thus far. A certain Eugene Henderson has had enough with his upper class American life, having just about everything handed to him, yet he was still not satisfied. He fought in the war, married, had kids, found another woman, divorced, got married, and he felt that an escape to Africa would help replenish him.
Upon reading a summary about his novel, I was going in thinking that Henderson would be a bit more solitary and have complete reign over what one could call an "epiphany," but the role that an African tribe plays in his visit has a great impact through this piece and in Henderson's own story. It was a great idea to place Henderson among a tribe of people that from our (and by "our," I am taking a more subjective point of view of a white American) point of view is in a worse situation, but that is not the way they see it. Initially, their chief concern is that frogs have interfered with their water in which they need in order to survive. On the contrary, their way of life is disdainful toward killing the frogs, as they see them as an equal life form. This and other instances cause Henderson to see their lives and life in general a lot more substantially and create a greater sense of true empathy among fellow living beings (regardless of their species) while also pondering on the absurdities of life on Earth.
Among the Bellow novels that I have read thus far, this one made me feel something. I think it was key to have Henderson tell his story on a first place account, because we get the sense of someone who is perfectly flawed, but yet you cannot help but admire his honesty and longing to be a better person, not someone who is entitled or self-centered as he admits to being through his flashbacks about the events that took place before he traveled with his friend to Africa. As far as the story itself is concerned, the flow was a little bit clunky. I felt that Herzog did a better job as far as getting the story to flow. I think that many of us can admit that in some way, shape, or form, there is that certain sense of rage and "want" that we have that is similar to Henderson's and that feeling of agony is something that we can all feel and admit to and to have that internal feeling is okay. It is a matter of whether or not we can grab a handle of these feelings and turn them around to make something better of ourselves or allow them to define ourselves and our actions.
Henderson the Rain King also succeeds to reminding us that while you may not see it within yourself, everyone has the ability to mean something to another living being. Henderson constantly had feelings of self-doubt and insecurity, but throughout his visit, he begins to see otherwise and that he genuinely does mean something to others.
While this novel requires one to pay attention to the transitions between present Africa and Henderson's flashbacks from back at home, the messages that come out of this novel are very rewarding and provide an insecure mind with greater reason to be confident and that it is okay to step aside and gather your thoughts. Henderson the Rain King has a lot to say about what it means to be alive and that the quality of life is far more important than the quality and quantity of one's material possessions.
Upon reading a summary about his novel, I was going in thinking that Henderson would be a bit more solitary and have complete reign over what one could call an "epiphany," but the role that an African tribe plays in his visit has a great impact through this piece and in Henderson's own story. It was a great idea to place Henderson among a tribe of people that from our (and by "our," I am taking a more subjective point of view of a white American) point of view is in a worse situation, but that is not the way they see it. Initially, their chief concern is that frogs have interfered with their water in which they need in order to survive. On the contrary, their way of life is disdainful toward killing the frogs, as they see them as an equal life form. This and other instances cause Henderson to see their lives and life in general a lot more substantially and create a greater sense of true empathy among fellow living beings (regardless of their species) while also pondering on the absurdities of life on Earth.
Among the Bellow novels that I have read thus far, this one made me feel something. I think it was key to have Henderson tell his story on a first place account, because we get the sense of someone who is perfectly flawed, but yet you cannot help but admire his honesty and longing to be a better person, not someone who is entitled or self-centered as he admits to being through his flashbacks about the events that took place before he traveled with his friend to Africa. As far as the story itself is concerned, the flow was a little bit clunky. I felt that Herzog did a better job as far as getting the story to flow. I think that many of us can admit that in some way, shape, or form, there is that certain sense of rage and "want" that we have that is similar to Henderson's and that feeling of agony is something that we can all feel and admit to and to have that internal feeling is okay. It is a matter of whether or not we can grab a handle of these feelings and turn them around to make something better of ourselves or allow them to define ourselves and our actions.
Henderson the Rain King also succeeds to reminding us that while you may not see it within yourself, everyone has the ability to mean something to another living being. Henderson constantly had feelings of self-doubt and insecurity, but throughout his visit, he begins to see otherwise and that he genuinely does mean something to others.
While this novel requires one to pay attention to the transitions between present Africa and Henderson's flashbacks from back at home, the messages that come out of this novel are very rewarding and provide an insecure mind with greater reason to be confident and that it is okay to step aside and gather your thoughts. Henderson the Rain King has a lot to say about what it means to be alive and that the quality of life is far more important than the quality and quantity of one's material possessions.
I didn't love it but I didn't want to quit, either, so whatever that means. Good audio narrator but terrible with women's voices.
I enjoyed this book when I first read it in high school, but didn't truly understand it this week when I read it again at the age of 52.
To the high school version of myself, Henderson was a comedic character. Now that we're the same age, I realize he was deadly serious and wrestling with the same inner voices, the same relentless "I want" that we all feel.
Like many things, this book gets better with age. If you're reading it now in high school or college, I'd suggest you hang onto it and read it again when you turn 50. You'll be glad you did.
To the high school version of myself, Henderson was a comedic character. Now that we're the same age, I realize he was deadly serious and wrestling with the same inner voices, the same relentless "I want" that we all feel.
Like many things, this book gets better with age. If you're reading it now in high school or college, I'd suggest you hang onto it and read it again when you turn 50. You'll be glad you did.
Marvelous prose, voice and story. Just what one would expect from Saul Bellow.