Collected Stories [Paperback]

Saul Bellow (Author), James Wood (Author), Janis Bellow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 29, 2002

Nobel Prize-winner Saul Bellow has deservedly been celebrated as one of America's greatest living writers. For more than sixty years he has stretched our minds, our imaginations, and our hearts with his exhilarating perceptions of life. Now collected for the first time in one volume and chosen by the author himself are favorites such as "What Kind of Day Did You Have?," "Leaving the Yellow House," and a previously uncollected piece, "By the St. Lawrence." With his larger-than-life characters, irony, wisdom, and unique humor, Bellow presents a sharp, rich, and funny world that is infinitely surprising. This is a volume to treasure for longtime Bellow fans, and an excellent introduction for new readers.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Saul Bellow's Collected Stories, handpicked by the author, display the depth of character and acumen of the Nobel laureate's narrative powers. While he has garnered acclaim as a novelist, Bellow's shorter works prove equally strong. Primarily set in a sepia-toned Chicago, characters (mostly men) deal with family issues, desires, memories, and failings--often arriving at humorous if not comic situations. In the process, these quirky and wholly real characters examine human nature.

The narrative is straightforward, with deftly handled shifts in time, and the prose is concise, sometimes pithy, with equal parts humor and grace. In "Looking for Mr. Green," Bellow describes a relief worker sized up by tenants: "They must have realized that he was not a college boy employed afternoons by a bill collector, trying foxily to pass for a relief clerk, recognized that he was an older man who knew himself what need was, who had more than an average seasoning in hardship. It was evident enough if you looked at the marks under his eyes and at the sides of his mouth." This collection should appeal both to those familiar with Bellow's work and to those seeking an introduction. --Michael Ferch --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of 13 of Bellow's (long) short stories, many of them classics, demonstrates the Nobel Prize winner's formidable literary presence. His characters have prospered in the American century, and now, in their old age, are beginning to doubt its endurance. Bellow likes to take a man at "the top of his field" and, from that perspective, survey the discontents of civilization. Some - like Victor Wulpy in "What Kind of Day Did You Have?" - refuse to retire and take mistresses in their mid-70s. Others, like Willis Mosby, the foreign relations guru writing his mandarin's memoirs in Oaxaca, consider retirement another chance to score points. Bellow's women still rise to the top as they did in the 1950s - by association with men. In "A Theft," Clara Velde, who has successfully formed her own journalism agency, still defines herself in terms of her husbands. Generally, these interior dramas are saturated with the realistic and metaphorical atmosphere of Chicago. Yet the crowning jewel here is "The Bellarosa Connection," in which the unnamed narrator is a retired Philadelphia memory expert who reflects on his friendship with a man still obsessed with his escape from WWII Europe and the legendary showbiz promoter who helped him. Bellow's stories spread rather than march in straight lines, like memory itself, giving a kinesthetic sense of a stained, bamboozled and fundamentally comic culture. A preface by the writer's wife, Janis, an introduction by essayist James Woods and an afterword by Bellow himself, in which he makes a prescient case for short fiction in this time of "noisy frantic monstrous agglomeration," add to the collection's appeal. (Nov. 1).
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (October 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142001643
• ISBN-13: 978-0142001646
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #368,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Saul Bellow won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel HUMBOLDT'S GIFT in 1975, and in 1976 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 'for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work.' He is the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards, for THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH, HERZOG, and MR. SAMMLER'S PLANET

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every Story Deserves A Review, March 11, 2002

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Saul Bellow Collected Stories (Hardcover)

I am stunned that no one else has commented on this selection of short stories by The Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow. It may be that readers are more accustomed to his novels, but to miss these 13 stories and an Afterword by the author is to miss great literature. The writer's comments at the end are deserving of being counted as a separate piece of non-fiction within this collection.

While all will chose their own favorites from this collection, it will likely be based on the personal impact a given story has, and not the caliber of the writing itself. The author provides portraits of people and slices of their lives that are uniformly excellent. While it is true that most of the book's contents takes place in Chicago he also steps well beyond the Loop and the State of Illinois to render some of the most interesting of his characters. You will meet Hattie Waggoner in, "Leaving The Yellow House". This tale set in a remote Texas town reminded me of similar moods that John Steinbeck once created. "Him With His Foot In His Mouth", begins as an apology for an off-hand remark made decades ago. The protagonist has been driven to write to the target of his quip after being reminded of it by a one-time friend. What begins, as a simple apology becomes a massive, cathartic and rambling epistle that invokes every emotion and so many flaws that are human.

Mr. Bellow also produces players that are philosophers, men and women of letters, con artists, opportunists, and portraits of family that range from the humorous to incredibly tragic. It is to some degree a fault to say this is the first time I have read this man's work. It is wonderful as well for there is a large body of his work that is waiting to be explored.

His personal comments in the Afterword will likely resonate with all who enjoy excellent writing, and agree that the quantity of books that is offered today bears no relation to the quality. He also shares his thoughts on what it is that great writing competes with for reader's attention, and these comments are as accurate as they are sad. This collection of short, and not so short stories will meet or exceed any collection of similar work you may find.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 1st Time Reader-Lifetime Reader, May 1, 2002

By 

"tapdogg" (Earth) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saul Bellow Collected Stories (Hardcover)

I am fourteen years old and have been reading avidly since I was ten. I go to the bookstore everyday and I came across this Collection of Stories on the Staff Recommendation shelf.I had no clue who Saul Bellow was, but the cover looked very intriguing, due to my infatuation with oldies cars and Black and White photography. So I had the book held and the next day I came back with my allowance and bought it.On my way home, I had a haircut. Two people in the barbershop said something vague about the author. I didn't take too much notice. When I finally arrived home, I showed my parents the book, and the applauded, explaining that all on my own I had picked out one of the best American authors this century has known. That night I went to bed early and sped through the first two stories; 'By the St. Lawrence' and 'A Silver Dish'. They were both some of the best mixtures of the English language that I have ever read.
I am a writer and so I am very serious when I say that this book is one of the best examples of written art ever painted. If I could, I would give it six-stars!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 'The Old System', April 7, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Collected Stories (Paperback)

There is one story in this collection 'The Old System' which is one of the best stories I have ever read. I love it in part because it captures the spirit and feeling of two worlds I know well, one is the upstate New York Troy- Albany area world, the other is the world of Jewish religious Yiddish speaking immigrants to America. But I think even more than this what I find in this story is a story of family love and hate, of passion and intensity in human relationships. The story is fundamentally of the relationship between a brother and sister who ostensibly become estranged over a family inheritance, a ring. The brother a master maneuver and real estate mogul has risen from poor origins to wealth, and a world and a level beyond that of his resentful sister. She cuts him off. But in a dramatic reconciliation scene at the close of the story there is an incredible depth of tenderness and resignation and wisdom.

My abstract words are a poor summary of this remarkable story. It carries such a weight of meaning in it, said and unsaid, that I cannot possibly describe it.

In my judgment it is a very great story, one of the greatest.