Mosby's Memoirs [Hardcover]

Saul Bellow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1969

The only joke in the human comedy is its name. What's funny about people contesting their fate, breaking their teeth on the traps? Saul Bellow is an observer of this spectacle, not disinterested, but not sweated and bloody, either. His characters may contend, the author remains aloof.

"A fine collection, deeply moving, written by one of the greatest literary artists that America has produced" says the Louisville Times about this book by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. Stories include "Leaving the Yellow House," "The Old System," "Looking for Mr. Green," "The Gonzaga Manuscripts," "A Father-to-Be" and "Mosby's Memoirs."

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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7 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 142 pages
• Publisher: Littlehampton Book Services Ltd; 1St Edition edition (February 1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0297176803
• ISBN-13: 978-0297176800
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,749,384 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

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unleavened Bread, August 29, 2000

By 

Tom Adair - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

Of these six short stories - written between 1951 and 1968 - it is easy to find things to praise, difficult to find things to criticise. They are, all of them, dense, substantial, well-crafted, (highly?) intellectual, richly satisfying. Why should one want to say anything against them? Well: 'satisfying' - more, perhaps, in the manner of a cross-country run than a raspberry souffle. 'Intellectual': perhaps too intellectual to avoid the charge of monotonousness. All Bellow's characters are assiduously introspective and intensely aware. In consequence, Bellow has perfected a prose style based upon the agglomeration of clauses rather than the sequencing of fully-formed sentences; a type of stream-of-consciousness. This can be as tiring as it is effective. More than this, Bellow's characters are always radically isolated people. They think, think, think and hardly do any interacting with other people (although they often think about doing so). One never hesitates to say that Bellow, in these stories, is telling us the truth about man; one does hesitate to say that he entertains us with that truth.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 'The Old System' is one of Bellow's masterpieces, December 8, 2007

By 

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

This review is from: Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

Of the six stories in this collection only one moves deeply and is truly memorable, " The Old System". I consider this to be one of Bellow's finest works and a true masterpiece. It is also I think his most deeply Jewish work , and one which he shows an understanding of American worlds and times in his own powerful distinctive idiomatically rich and specially perceptive way. Above all he creates the picture of a family of its relations and life, tells the story of an estranged brother and sister and their death- bed reconciliation with deep deep feeling.

4.0 out of 5 stars Disconnection and Despair., October 18, 2003

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frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

This is a thin book with six stories. If these stories can be said to have a common thread, it is the people who fail to ever make a real connection. The characters in the stories are aimless, seized by momentary ideas which fill the need for purpose and troubled by other people.

All of the stories were well written, but two for me really stood out. The first was "Leaving the Yellow House". This tells the story of a woman who has never succeeded at anything except that she managed to come to own this house. Faced with increasing infirmity, she can no longer care for herself but cannot bring herself to turn her back on her one success.

The second stand-out was "The Gonzaga Manuscripts", a story about a feckless young man (Feiler) who tries to recover a set of lost poems from 1950s Spain. He wants to find purpose in poetry, but his researches keep bringing him back to politics.

These stories are truthfully not among the best work of Bellow. However, you need to bear in mind that given how wonderful his writing generally is, they are still more than worth the time to read.