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A review by ruthiella
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
3.0
IT took me a month to read this! But it took me two years and three tries to read Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March, so that’s progress, right? I think I am a better reader now compared to when I was attempting Augie March. I have more patience to try and understand the author’s intent, even when I am less than enamored with the work itself.
This was a sort of picaresque novel even though the protagonist is pushing 60. I guess I expect a picaresque hero to be young. Published in 1975 this book positively reeked of the Me Decade, the dress, the lingo, the casual sexism, the casual racism, and the interest in esoteric ideas and philosophies.
It took me a while to cop on that this book is meant to be funny. Like Augie March, this is a mix of Chicago nostalgia and deep intellectual thought on a variety of subjects, but maybe most specifically the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner.
About 1/3 of the book is a nutty story about a man who is haunted by the recent death of his onetime mentor, the poet Von Humboldt Fleisher. All Charlie Citrine wants to do is ruminate on life after death and other big questions, but his friends and his enemies won’t let him. Charlie is a Pulitzer-winning writer whose winning streak is on the wane. His ex-wife is suing him, his friends and family exploit him, his girlfriend is trying to marry him, his lawyers and accountants soak him and a small-town hood is trying to shake him down over a gambling debt. It reminded me a bit of Murdoch’s Under the Net it its absurd cast of characters and plot. The remaining 2/3 of the book is Bellow’s deep thoughts as uttered by the beleaguered Charlie.
I wonder if it had ever been optioned as a film? I would cast Julie Newmar as the gold-digging girlfriend Renate and Abe Vigoda as the mortuary tycoon Flonzaley. Zero Mostel would have to have a role somewhere if only because he was in every 1970’s ensemble piece it seem; there are plenty of possibilities for a man of his talents in the novel; it is chock full of outsized characters. For Charlie aka Saul Bellow I had trouble. Michael Douglas would work, but he was too young in 1975. Think Michael Douglas in Wonder Boys. The star making role would go to who ever played brash, obnoxious, scene stealing small-town hood Ronald Cantabile.
This was a sort of picaresque novel even though the protagonist is pushing 60. I guess I expect a picaresque hero to be young. Published in 1975 this book positively reeked of the Me Decade, the dress, the lingo, the casual sexism, the casual racism, and the interest in esoteric ideas and philosophies.
It took me a while to cop on that this book is meant to be funny. Like Augie March, this is a mix of Chicago nostalgia and deep intellectual thought on a variety of subjects, but maybe most specifically the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner.
About 1/3 of the book is a nutty story about a man who is haunted by the recent death of his onetime mentor, the poet Von Humboldt Fleisher. All Charlie Citrine wants to do is ruminate on life after death and other big questions, but his friends and his enemies won’t let him. Charlie is a Pulitzer-winning writer whose winning streak is on the wane. His ex-wife is suing him, his friends and family exploit him, his girlfriend is trying to marry him, his lawyers and accountants soak him and a small-town hood is trying to shake him down over a gambling debt. It reminded me a bit of Murdoch’s Under the Net it its absurd cast of characters and plot. The remaining 2/3 of the book is Bellow’s deep thoughts as uttered by the beleaguered Charlie.
I wonder if it had ever been optioned as a film? I would cast Julie Newmar as the gold-digging girlfriend Renate and Abe Vigoda as the mortuary tycoon Flonzaley. Zero Mostel would have to have a role somewhere if only because he was in every 1970’s ensemble piece it seem; there are plenty of possibilities for a man of his talents in the novel; it is chock full of outsized characters. For Charlie aka Saul Bellow I had trouble. Michael Douglas would work, but he was too young in 1975. Think Michael Douglas in Wonder Boys. The star making role would go to who ever played brash, obnoxious, scene stealing small-town hood Ronald Cantabile.