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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book falls a bit between a rock and a hard place - it’s not really incisive satire, but neither is it Wodehousian in its silliness. The protagonist certainly brings a fair share of laughs, but whilst there is an uneasy side to his character throughout it never feels totally explored. Maybe one to reread - doesn’t neatly fall into genre which makes it a tricky one to judge.
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Saul Bellow's use of blustery and abrasive protagonists in a coarse and boorish style (a surprising departure from what I loved in The Victim and The Adventures of Augie March) disappointed me greatly in Seize the Day and Henderson the Rain King. In the former title, I could stomach it because it is shorter and it gave the impression of being a brief aberration among his body of work. Unfortunately, the seed planted in Seize the Day must have germinated fully in Henderson and it's an awfully ugly growth.
Have you ever noticed some people who possess detestable character traits which others are usually in agreement in frowning upon but for some inexplicable reason in these people everyone around them instead finds those same traits excusable and even endearing? "Oh, he's hopelessly stupid, but it's good for laughs." "Yes, he's loud and talks too much but you've just got to understand him." Well, that's Henderson. Loud, never shuts up, always whining about not getting anything right yet somehow is supremely confident and rushes into outlandish situations certain of his own imminent success. He stomps forward and through people fully expecting everyone to make way, loves to reflect but his trap keeps flapping. His soul yearns for something but he has simply taken what he wants all his life. I don't get it. I suspect there isn't much to get. Even if there is, I don't really want to try anymore.
Maybe this book will appeal to you. I don't know. A lot of readers seem to have enjoyed following this sweaty fatty while he looks for his spirit-animal. I don't really like to criticize a book so harshly. I never thought I'd give a negative review for a Saul Bellow novel in a million years. Maybe it's my mood (disappointment in life seems a steady constant these days, I regret to say). But even if I try to assess in the most judicious manner, I cannot like this book. I do enjoy novels about self-exploration and self-discovery, but there's so many others preferable over this. The level of annoyance felt is on a consistent rise throughout the book and it is just a mess at the end. I remember Bellow saying in an interview that the character in his bibliography he himself is most like is Henderson. Say it ain't so, Sol. Say it ain't so.
Have you ever noticed some people who possess detestable character traits which others are usually in agreement in frowning upon but for some inexplicable reason in these people everyone around them instead finds those same traits excusable and even endearing? "Oh, he's hopelessly stupid, but it's good for laughs." "Yes, he's loud and talks too much but you've just got to understand him." Well, that's Henderson. Loud, never shuts up, always whining about not getting anything right yet somehow is supremely confident and rushes into outlandish situations certain of his own imminent success. He stomps forward and through people fully expecting everyone to make way, loves to reflect but his trap keeps flapping. His soul yearns for something but he has simply taken what he wants all his life. I don't get it. I suspect there isn't much to get. Even if there is, I don't really want to try anymore.
Maybe this book will appeal to you. I don't know. A lot of readers seem to have enjoyed following this sweaty fatty while he looks for his spirit-animal. I don't really like to criticize a book so harshly. I never thought I'd give a negative review for a Saul Bellow novel in a million years. Maybe it's my mood (disappointment in life seems a steady constant these days, I regret to say). But even if I try to assess in the most judicious manner, I cannot like this book. I do enjoy novels about self-exploration and self-discovery, but there's so many others preferable over this. The level of annoyance felt is on a consistent rise throughout the book and it is just a mess at the end. I remember Bellow saying in an interview that the character in his bibliography he himself is most like is Henderson. Say it ain't so, Sol. Say it ain't so.
I need to stop reading Saul Bellow.
In fact, 2/3rds through this book, I was announcing that I was swearing off all mid 20th century male writers. But I'll walk that back some and just come to the point where I announce that I have now tried Bellows three times and there is something that absolutely turns me off. I had thought that since I had read two minor works (cue Squid and the Whale joke), The Bellarosa Connection and Mr. Sammler's Planet, I should try one selected as part of the cannon. Yet Henderson the Rain King just further cemented my distaste for his plot lines. I can admire the man's prose at certain points, but it is his characters and flow that just turns me off.
There is a certain narcissism that oozes from his protagonists. I find this a problem with Roth and Updike too (see why I was in a rage yesterday?) In reading Henderson, I just find myself overwhelmed by the use of “I” as a way of telling a story. Apart from the main character who is fleshed out and where the reader is stuffed into his mind, there is very little of three-dimension in this book. The landscape feels flat, the other characters seem paper thin, the African culture, stereotypical or not is bland and even the eventual spiritual growth (from a pig to a lion! Or other such force fed ideas) seems like it will wash away shortly after the book ends. Increasingly, I look to fiction as an exploration of interaction, whereas Bellows seems much more caught up in inner turmoil and self-centered reflection. It also is often disturbingly misogynistic – or at the very least devoid of any sort of compelling female perspective. Women – and in this book, different cultures as well – are props, jokes or unimportant.
My other issue with this book is with its humor, which hardly makes up for the irritating drip of the I pronoun. The book reminds of Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater in its description of a wealthy scion’s escape from expectations and descent into madness. Vonnegut used it for a societal critique, while Bellows used the tale as almost a celebration of what it is to be a man, searching for manliness, with a gloss of goofiness to blunt the edges of his masculinity theme. It doesn't help that Conrad in all his inelegance did it so much better - though Bellows does try to replace "the horror" with Henderson's "I want".
The quote that really ties up the nauseating quality of Henderson and his paper world is from page 197 - "I did treat everything in the world as though it was a medicine." It is a moment of clarity in an otherwise uncritical, opaque book. I feel used by the end, the reader as an antibiotic, sharing in all the minute miseries of a white privileged man. Frankly, I'd rather share in the life of someone else.
In fact, 2/3rds through this book, I was announcing that I was swearing off all mid 20th century male writers. But I'll walk that back some and just come to the point where I announce that I have now tried Bellows three times and there is something that absolutely turns me off. I had thought that since I had read two minor works (cue Squid and the Whale joke), The Bellarosa Connection and Mr. Sammler's Planet, I should try one selected as part of the cannon. Yet Henderson the Rain King just further cemented my distaste for his plot lines. I can admire the man's prose at certain points, but it is his characters and flow that just turns me off.
There is a certain narcissism that oozes from his protagonists. I find this a problem with Roth and Updike too (see why I was in a rage yesterday?) In reading Henderson, I just find myself overwhelmed by the use of “I” as a way of telling a story. Apart from the main character who is fleshed out and where the reader is stuffed into his mind, there is very little of three-dimension in this book. The landscape feels flat, the other characters seem paper thin, the African culture, stereotypical or not is bland and even the eventual spiritual growth (from a pig to a lion! Or other such force fed ideas) seems like it will wash away shortly after the book ends. Increasingly, I look to fiction as an exploration of interaction, whereas Bellows seems much more caught up in inner turmoil and self-centered reflection. It also is often disturbingly misogynistic – or at the very least devoid of any sort of compelling female perspective. Women – and in this book, different cultures as well – are props, jokes or unimportant.
My other issue with this book is with its humor, which hardly makes up for the irritating drip of the I pronoun. The book reminds of Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater in its description of a wealthy scion’s escape from expectations and descent into madness. Vonnegut used it for a societal critique, while Bellows used the tale as almost a celebration of what it is to be a man, searching for manliness, with a gloss of goofiness to blunt the edges of his masculinity theme. It doesn't help that Conrad in all his inelegance did it so much better - though Bellows does try to replace "the horror" with Henderson's "I want".
The quote that really ties up the nauseating quality of Henderson and his paper world is from page 197 - "I did treat everything in the world as though it was a medicine." It is a moment of clarity in an otherwise uncritical, opaque book. I feel used by the end, the reader as an antibiotic, sharing in all the minute miseries of a white privileged man. Frankly, I'd rather share in the life of someone else.
A Dickensian satire of American tycoons in the 1920s. An American heir to a fortune goes to Africa and becomes involved with a tribe of natives. A laugh out loud classic that offers insight into our lives without being trite and dusty.
I will definitely need to do a re-read of this book. My wife read it while in college and had discussions about it during her readings. I definitely think that I would have benefited from some literary guidance to make this book more worthwhile for me.
Yawn, see reviews giving this book two stars most of them are on target.
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Oh my god this book bored me to TEARS. I really tried but I fail to see the appeal. Only my dislike of setting aside a book half-read propelled me to make the rest of my way through this thicket of pseudo-philosophical drivel. I could excuse the, er, unreconstructed nature of Henderson’s views on women and the way that people of colour are portrayed in the novel. It was a different time and I get that. But I couldn’t see why we were meant to care about the bellicose Henderson, the stereotypical Ugly American Abroad from the days before that was a stereotype. Stop crying dude, put the lion cub down and go back home to your wife.