A review by jacob_longini
Herzog by Saul Bellow

5.0

This is undoubtedly one of my new favourite books, as well as one of the greatest American novels of all time. I am beyond excited to read more of Saul Bellow's work, and I only hope that it is literature of the same quality. In telling a short, painful section of Moses E. Herzog's life, Bellow conveys his entire human experience to the fullest extent. Herzog blends the dread of the modern existential perspective with the ancient notions of suffering from the Jewish Old World sensibilities. A comparison from film is the Coen Brothers' "A Serious Man", which has a similar power in conveying centuries of struggle through a few months of a single man's life. From the fantastic opening line, "If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog", to one of the last ones, "I will do no more to enact the peculiarities of life. This is done well enough without my special assistance", this novel is full of beauty, pain, and a mastery of human philosophical hunger to know "why?".