Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by marc129
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
2.0
Bellow offers very divergent reading experiences to me. "Dangling man" was astounding and fresh, but I left the labyrinth of "Augie March" after 100 pages, "Herzog" was tough but briljant, and this, wel I must confess, this book I also left unfinished after 140 pages.
Bellow can write for sure, some episodes are really brilliant, intense, beautifully composed and witty. But then there are these fucked-up characters and situations, seemingly without purpose and end.
This book is going in circles, with the friendship, or better the master-pupil-relation between the successful, but shallow writer Charlie Citrine and the ingenious, erudit poet von Humboldt Fleischer as focal point.
That it didn't resonate is probably my fault: I've had it with all this midlife-crisis-stuff. Sorry, Saul. (2.5 stars)
Bellow can write for sure, some episodes are really brilliant, intense, beautifully composed and witty. But then there are these fucked-up characters and situations, seemingly without purpose and end.
This book is going in circles, with the friendship, or better the master-pupil-relation between the successful, but shallow writer Charlie Citrine and the ingenious, erudit poet von Humboldt Fleischer as focal point.
That it didn't resonate is probably my fault: I've had it with all this midlife-crisis-stuff. Sorry, Saul. (2.5 stars)