A review by ericfheiman
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow

4.0

As sprawling as "Augie" and as neurotic as "Herzog," "Humbolt's Gift" may be the most ambitious novel of Bellow's I've read in the way it tries to weave its ideas about culture, the artist, and aging sexuality into a funny quasi-satire that tells the ordeals of smug Pulitzer-winner Charlie Citrine. It doesn't come off perfect all the time, and it may be a bit overlong, but when you compare it to the diffuse irony that characterizes so much contemporary fiction today, you have to give it credit for going out on such intellectual and emotional limbs. Just short of a classic, I'd say.