Customer Reviews

Bellow - A Biography

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Actually, this is two books combined and correlated within a singlevolume. The first is probably the best biography of Bellow we canexpect unless and until he agrees to work closely with someoneelse. In that event, I suspect, the results would not be of the samehigh quality because Bellow (consciously or unconsciously) wouldmanipulate the material and the presentation of it with an intellectand a willpower few other persons possess. The second is acomprehensive analysis of his canon and I think it isfirst-rate. Others far better qualified than I may challenge some ofthe various analyses but they certainly are sufficient to my needs. Irank Bellow among the greatest American novelists of anycentury. Frankly, I was astonished when reading Ravelstein to findthat in this immensely complicated work, Bellow seems to be inhis prime. How can that possibly be true at his age and after all thathe has personally experienced for so many decades? Long ago, Whitmansaid "I am large. I contain multitudes." The same can be said ofBellow. Whatever anyone may think of his personal life as it hasevolved through the years, through marriages and divorces, throughfriendships gained and lost, no one (at least anyone with anyintelligence and taste) can deny his stature as a literary artist ofthe very highest rank. I am deeply grateful to James Atlas for hissubstantial contributions to my understanding and appreciation ofBellow.

I am a Bellow fan, and aware of the upset this book caused with some, but thought Atlas's critique was very often on the mark. Bellow's early, short, novels are tightly-written, well-constructed American classics of alieanation - Dangling Man, Seize the Day and The Victim, for example. But Atlas zeroes in on the problems of the later, longer books that too often make up the core of university teaching lists - these longer books start off brilliantly, then pad out with a hundred extra pages or so of name-dropping and bizarre philosophizing (some of which belongs in the Chariots of the Gods category), and I think Atlas is right when he says Bellow's early, impoverished immigrant background left him with a strong desire to show off intellectually later in life, to the detriment of his work. Perhaps in his early days Bellow was insecure in a different way, in the right way, not allowing himself any self-indulgence in his early work and thus pulling off the indisputable classics that Dangling Man, et al, are.

This is a slightly odd biography in the sense that it will really, I think, most appeal to readers who pick and choose their fiction based more on the quality of the individual work, rather than those who have invested terms or years studying or teaching a particular author-personality - the most committed Bellow's fans will not like it, but those more detached will find this a very enjoyable and enlightening read. Newcomers to Bellow may wish to read a couple of his early, short books, before deciding if the later, more controversial novels, or this biography, are for them. I thought it a great read.

Many reviewers are comparing this pleasant but uninspiring biography to Richard Ellmann's masterful biography of James Joyce, which bugs me. There's no comparison. The Atlas book is competently written but lacks...I don't know, affect, sensibility, a complex and rewarding attitude toward its subject. Great biographies, whether by people like Boswell or by Ellmann, filter the data of someone's life through someone else's consciousness. It's not necessarily done overtly, but great biographers somehow convey a general moral, aesthetic, and even spiritual understanding and appraisal of their subjects. (There was a great biography of Eugene O'Neill that came out a few decades back that, like Boswell's and Ellmann's work, managed to achieve this.) I'm not talking about vulgar "pathographies" here, but rather accounts of brilliant lives that offer a comprehensive portrait of work and person, and that do not hestitate to condemn as well as praise. Atlas seems strangely repressed in regard to Bellow. Clearly he does not like him, and his dislike seems warranted; and yet he does not follow through on this dislike with a discussion of, say, the way in which many great artists are humanity-challenged precisely by virtue of the tendency toward detachment and emotional cannibalism, if you will, that constitutes their peculiar mode of being. The Atlas biography reads, to me, like a "first" biography of Bellow - one written in the midst of his unfinished life and work, and therefore tentative - without the dimension of tragic summation, for instance, that Ellmann's (written after Joyce's death) had. Bellow, as he's the first to admit, is a very curious character, one whose life has much to tell us about the loathing of and entrapment by modernity. He will ultimately (posthumously) have a biographer who tackles the themes of his life.

This biography of one of America's greatest writers is a colossal joke. Atlas takes pot shots at Bellow througout the book and actually attempts to psychoanalyze him several times! Instead of focusing on the brilliant works Bellow has produced, Atlas whacks Bellow over the head time and again for being a womanizer.

Fortunately, a couple of knowledgeable and appreciative authors have come forward and set the record straight concerning Bellow's unmatched contribution to American letters. Most recently, Charles Simic wrote a fabulous appreciation of Bellow in the New York Review of Books (May 31, 2001, "The Thinking Man's Comedy"). A recent Harper's magazine piece (February or March 2001 issue, I believe) also takes Atlas to task for producing such a pile of dung.

I refer Bellow fans and other interested readers to the above-mentioned articles.

I liked other works by James Atlas and so ran out and bought this book as soon as it came out. I was so disappointed, since Atlas writes with a subtext of superiority--amend that: sometimes his competitive streak IS the text. Nothing I say can hold a candle to Lee Seigel's great review in The New Republic where he shows, and I agree, that Atlas--straight-laced member of the Ambitious Generation is doing a hatchet job on the masters of yore, in this case Bellow. Do not buy this book if you are a Bellow Lover.

This is one biography that was really worth the wait. One almost had the impression over the last ten years that, like Truman Capote with In Cold Blood, Atlas was waiting for his character to die so he could be sure of how the story ended. Fortunately, Atlas did not wait and we still have Bellow and this book!

There have been comparisons already to Richard Ellman's work on James Joyce. Of course, Ellman's Joyce bio is a towering monument of scholarship and perhaps a harder book to write, but that is also a harder book to READ and not nearly as much fun as this one. I would compare Atlas's Bellow to Quentin Bell's Virginia Woolf, also a very fun book and a book that is both a passionate defense and an exasperated apology for its subject.

Now, I am not necessarily comparing Bellow and Woolf except to say they are both prickly and deep. Like Bell, Atlas has the advantage of knowing his subject personally and like Bell, is not above occasionally letting his frustration show. Bellow is not an easy man to like, or even tolerate, but his gifts are prodigious and Atlas never resorts to bitter stereotypes.

This is a book written with a deep sense of the American vernacular. There are currents of Chicago-ese, Canadian, and Yiddish running through it in a delightful mix. Atlas writes a very clear, lucid style and quotes from Bellow's letters and unpublished manuscripts freely.

It is hard to imagine a Stanely Elkin or a Philip Roth without first a Saul Bellow. This book is a great introduction to the Nobel laureate's work.

Everyone who loves Bellow will need to read this book. It is breathtaking in its thoroughness. It is a very detailed, masterful description of Bellow's life and work, though perhaps a bit more "life" than "work". There is a question of whether quite as much life, especially love life, is really needed, but then the reader of this biography will get insights not only into Bellow's life but also into the life of our time. Atlas obviously has tremedous admiration for Bellow, and the reader of this biography -- THIS reader did-- will go away with a far greater appreciation of Bellow than he had before. And yet there is a problem in Atlkas's disapproval of aspects of Bellow's life. There are no doubt moments in Bellow's exhuberant public pronouncements where prudence would have required more tact and more taste, but Atlas surely goes too far when he accuses Bellow -- repeatedly ! -- of such non-PC lapses as "racism" and "misogyny". On the evidence, these accusations are unwarranted, in my opinion.

I've read so many bios I almost know how to write one myself. I've also learned how to evaluate them. For the most part, one should never read an autobiography. The man who writes one is generally too kind to himself.

Atlas says this bio is unauthorized. I say, not so you can notice. Atlas may not understand how profoundly he was being manipulated by Bellow, but I could certainly tell. There are no great secrets here. Bellow is a narcissist, a profound political and literary conservative, and a lifelong womanizer. Oh, and not very likeable.

Bellow's parents are Russian Jewis Immigrants, who first move to Montreal where Saul is born in 1915. From there, the poor family moves to Chicago, where Saul's father begins to make progress and his two older brothers grow up to be very rich men.

Saul the youngest is always the family disappointment. At Tuley high school, he vies with classmates over intellectual matters. Everyone reads books in Saul's group. It will be years before writing will get Saul anywhere. Bellow falls in love with the area around Division Street and Humboldt Park, Studs Terkel's Chicago.

After training at the University of Chicago, Saul begins writing and foraging for college teaching jobs. Through the forties he struggles and writes two books; marries the first of five wives. His mother has died when he was 15 leaving his life a catastrophe.

The teaching jobs get better and eventually Saul finds his voice with The Adventures of Augie March, the book that puts him on the map. After it comes Seize the Day. The New York Intellectual Crowd including the sharpshooters at Partisan Review take notice. Saul becomes a member of the Literati and a comer in the world of novelists, especially jewish novelists.

The Novelist ascends through the ranks, first joining the emerging ranks of Jewish Novelists that includes the panapoly of "serious" Jewis novelists from Bernard Malamaud to Issac Singer ; the younger Phillip Roth follows in Bedllow's footsteps.

Saul will go on to acquire another four wives, a Nobel Prize and accolades for Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Humboldt's Gift, More Die of Heartbreak, the Dean's December and recently, at 85, Ravelstein, the veiled story of his great U of Chicago friend, Harold Bloom.

He is no longer as spry and handsome, but he plugs on and is close to equalling his best work when he wants to.

I think there will be better biographies of Saul Bellow though.

This is not a biography, it is a way for the author to advance his own career, using Saul Bellow, a really distiinguished novelist, as a stepping stone. Why would you pick a subject to write about if you disapprove of him? Yet every page of this book reeks with the author's smug sanctimonious alleged superiority (morally?) Very bogus!

Why on earth was this book published in the first place? It is clear from the off that James Atlas has a grudge against Saul Bellow - based on no other reason that he is bitterly jealous of his literary success - and he launches into a badly written and ill informed diatribe attempting to explain Saul Bellow's progression through life and understand his motives as those of a deeply insecure emotional coward. And the adjectives are a disgrace. Take this for an example, when Bellow is asked what his son will do on a sabbatical in Paris: ''F*ck' his brains out' said Bellow, dismissively', Atlas records. Dismissively! No way. Lovingly, perhaps, or enviously. But never dismissively.

James Atlas you should be ashamed of yourself. You know nothing of what made Bellow tick, this book is a cynical and parasitical attempt to cash in on his legacy.