Customer Reviews

The Victim

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is the story of Asa Leventhal, a magazine editor living alone one summer in 1940s New York while his wife is away taking care of her widowed mother. One night he is accosted in a park by Kirby Allbee, a slight acquaintance whom he has not seen for several years. The anti-Semitic Allbee has visibly come down in the world, and holds Leventhal responsible.

A parallel plot concerns Leventhal's sister-in-law who is alone in Brooklyn with her two sons. While Leventhal's brother pursues business interests in Texas, Leventhal attempts to act as a surrogate father.


This is a book about responsibility, community, maturity and Jewish/Christian relations in America. We see Leventhal transformed from an insecure, self-absorbed, blame-shifting individual, to a self-confident and compassionate man of action. There are some deft touches of humor, and the evolving relationship between Allbee and Leventhal is complex and fascinating.

I strongly recommend this book.

Saul Bellow's novel, The Victim, first got under my skin about fifteen years ago. It is not an easy book to read, but not because it isn't well written or well conceived. The style of writing here is very clean, particularly in comparison to later works by this same author, and the plot is both very simple and very tight, maybe too tight for readers who prefer to luxuriate in a more leisurely unfolding of events. It seems to me that what makes the novel somewhat difficult is Bellow's nearly claustrophobic presentation of Asa Leventhal's character and dilemma. He places his reader so close to his main character that at times the proximity becomes unbearable. But this is what makes The Victim such a compelling read. I can think of no modern American novel I would recommend more highly than this one.

I am a Bellow fan and have read most of his novels.

Saul Bellow wrote two manuscripts in the early 1940s. One was so bad that he threw it out. The second was "Dangling Man" is probably his worst novel, or tied with "The Actual," but there are some good passages. However, in 1944, he got good book reviews from his first book, and more importantly the publisher liked the book, and it was enough to go on to another book. The present book is of course his second novel. It is slow in the first half back picks up steam as the story unfolds, and by the end is a good novel. It does not have the charm of the later works, but still it is good. It is not as famous as the later works such as "Herzog" but it is a solid well written effort and mostly entertaining.

In case you are new to Bellow, his novels reflect his life, his writings, and his five marriages during his five active decades of writing. He hit his peak as a writer around the time of "Augie March" in 1953 and continued through to the Pulitzer novel "Humbolt's Gift" in 1973. He wrote from the early 1940s through to 2000. His novels are written in a narrative form, and the main character is a Jewish male, usually a writer but not always, and he is living in either in New York or Chicago. Bellow wrote approximately 13 novels plus other works. Bellow progressed a long way as a writer over the five decades.

The early novels "Dangling Man" and "The Victim" were written 25 years before his peak. Those were heavy slow reads. "Dangling Man" is often boring, and Bellow was in search of his writing style in that period of the 1940s. Some compare his style in "Dangling Man" with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground." Having read both I would say that "Notes" is brilliant while "Dangling Man" is at best average and sometimes a bit boring. By the middle of the present novel, there is a definite change in the writing and we see Bellow leaving that dull pace of the first novel.

The book follows the Bellow pattern: a narrative about a Jewish man living in Chicago or New York. Here it is New York. The central character, Asa Leventhal, is an editor and it takes place in a hot New York summer. To say more would give away the plot.

There are many small touches that we see in subsequent Bellows novels such as the brother, and the brother's family. We saw that briefly with the "big shot" brother in "Humbolt's Gift," and in other works. Here it plays a central role with the sickness of a chld.

I recommnd this novel as an interesting read, but it lacks the charm of his best.

Surely this is not Bellow's best work, but it's deeply affecting nonetheless. Okay, I'll admit it: I'm an enormous fan of Mr. Bellow's and had this been written by another writer I was less familiar with, I perhaps would have gone the three star route (three and a half--but that isn't an option, so Saul gets rounded up), but there is still a lot to admire here. The prose is gorgeous and, while the story sometimes falls off track, anyone reading should be able to identify with one of the two main characters (or, in my own case, with both of them at different times). It deals with the struggles of the modern world and blaming your own mistakes and misfortune on others to keep up the thin stirrings of hope and an optimistic idea of the future. There is also a lot to say about conformity in a modern world (regardless of the 1947 date of publication, the focus on these elements seems to have become 'modern day timeless', lasting forever as the days and seasons change), and how we are dehumanized by the swift pace and grubbing filth and greed of inhuman business, automated people shuttling to and from whereever it is they for some reason need to be. The way these themes are expressed humanizes this sort of fear and explains the way many people feel as their lives settle down and the sky darkens, with an ominous future of nothing left to look forward to. Now if only Asa weren't so irritating (and believe me--I perfectly love unlikable protagonists, but this guy is kind of grating at times and you often find yourself wishing his nightmare could get worse and worse and worse and worse . . .)

How responsible can one person be for the fate of another? Kirby Allbee ("be-all"=Everyman) thinks that Asa Leventhal is to blame for his losing his job, his wife, and his drinking. Allbee appendages himself to Levanthal's life, taking money from him, moving in, opening his mail - even going to Levanthal's apartment to attempt suicide. Both feel victimized by the other (and allow it to continue), and both are victims of the outside oppressive world (Bellow captures perfectly the NYC summer heat that adds to the blanket of oppression). The novel reminded me of Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener," in an inverse way, in Bartleby's refusal to accommodate himself to his employer's wishes while the employer keeps surrendering to Bartleby's passivity; in both novel and story the "innocent" protagonist becomes the victim of the other (and, in a sense, vice-versa). THE VICTIM is one of Saul Bellow's best novels, gripping from beginning to end.

In a Guggenheim Fellowship application in 1945, Saul Bellow described his then work-in-progress, "The Victim" as "a novel whose theme was guilt." He worked assiduously on this novel between 1945 - 1947 when it was published to poor sales. In 1952, a stage version of the book ran briefly off-Broadway.

"The Victim" explores modernist themes of guilt, loneliness, purposelessness and paranoia in the lives of its main character and his strange double. The book is set in a sweltering New York City summer following WW II. The primary character, Asa Leventhal, works as an editor for a trade paper where he has an uncomfortable relationship with his boss. He is a non-practicing Jew highly conscious of anti-Semitism. Leventhal has had a difficult life with a mother who went mad during his childhood and a distant father. He has an older brother, Max, from whom he has long been estranged. Leventhal left a civil service job in Baltimore after an engagement apparently ended, and he endured difficult months of poverty in New York City before finding a position. When the book opens, Leventhal is alone in the hot New York summer. The broken engagement ultimately was restored, and Leventhal's wife Mary is away for several weeks visiting her sick mother.

Leventhal endures a difficult summer. He is approached, and virtually stalked, by a man named Kirby Allbee whom he had known briefly years earlier. At a party both men attended, Allbee had made anti-Semitic comments to Leventhal. But Allbee used his influence to get Leventhal a job interview with Allbee's then-boss. The interview proved disastrous as Leventhal lost his temper. Allbee, who was a marginal worker at best with a drinking problem, was then fired. Allbee's drinking problem grew worse, his wife left him and soon died, and Allbee became penniless and unemployed - the fate that Leventhal himself had narrowly escaped. Allbee blames Leventhal for his troubles - with the implication that Leventhal deliberately insulted Allbee's boss during the interview to retaliate against Allbee for his anti-Semitism - and seeks his help. Allbee becomes ever more persistent, stalking Leventhal in his daily routines, following him to his flat, moving in, rummaging through Leventhal's drawers and effects, carrying on a brief affair in Leventhal's bed, and ultimately trying to kill himself in Leventhal's kitchen.

Leventhal has other problems of guilt as well. His brother Max has married an Italian Catholic woman, Elena, who lives in Staten Island with two children and an aging mother. Max himself is in Texas looking for work. When Elena's younger child becomes gravely ill, she calls Leventhal. Leventhal tries to reach Max who is unable to return before the child dies. Leventhal fears that his brother's wife and her mother somehow hold him responsible. With prejudices of his own, Leventhal is troubled that his brother has married a non-Jew and finds Elena and her mother superstitious and primitive. During the course of the book, Leventhal and his brother take modest steps to improve their estranged relationship.

Both Leventhal and Allbee are lonely outsiders and one-time members of the class whom Bellow describes as "the lost, the overcome, the effaced, the ruined." The book seems to me heavily influenced by Dostoevsky and by existentialism. Allbee reminded me of Melville's character Bartelby in the famous short story. The novel explores the nature of personal responsibility. It is a study of pervasive, if somewhat repressed anti-Semitism not only in Allbee but in the business world of New York City as well. But Bellow also shows Leventhal's own prejudices, his willingness to think the worst of Allbee and his distrust of his brother's Italian family. The book suggests that guilt, loneliness and redemption can be overcome by friendship. love and purpose.

This book is tightly written and constructed, unlike its successor, the long, diffuse and exuberant "The Adventures of Augie March." As with much of Bellow, the story is framed with many philosophical reflections and discussions, between Leventhal and Allbee, and between Leventhal and his friends. The lonely life on city streets, park benches, cheerless flats, and cheap restaurants plays a dominant role in this early novel is it does in Bellow's later works. But the writing in "The Victim" seems to me formulaic. The scenes which Bellow would later fully bring to life here sometimes tend to fall flat. The book is serious and thoughtful, but it does not move well.

Late in life, Bellow distanced himself from this book and from its predecessor, "Dangling Man", by calling the former novel his M.A. and "The Victim" his Ph.D. This is an accurate if overly-harsh assessment. This book will have its greatest appeal to readers who are seriously interested in Bellow and his themes.

Robin Friedman

Readers should know that The Victim is, at its core, an Americanized version of The Eternal Husband by Dostoyevsky.

This was his second novel and, taken with the first (Dangling Man), reads very differently from the rest. This is young Bellow finding his voice, not the master spinning magic from the heights. Nevertheless, it contains moments of quintessential Bellow -- social critique, family sentiment, urban isolation, the immigrant ethos, etc. -- and should be considered among the very best of American stories on "the double."

Aspiring writers may appreciate Bellow's technique of modeling Dostoyevsky. It is only in The Victim and Dangling Man that Bellow employs the use of outside help when crafting his tale. (In Dangling Man, he uses a kind of pre-fab structure -- in that case, a personal journal or diary.) It's heartening to know that even a genius like Bellow relied on external structure to get his start.

Literature teachers, discussion groups, or just plain ambitious readers would do well to read this together with Eternal Husband.

Like another reviewer, I picked this novel up with the intention of broadening my literary horizons. Unfortunately, I found The Victim to be an extremely unlikable read, so much so that I had to force myself to finish it.

The novel is about a Jewish man, Asa Leventhal, who, while his wife is away, encounters an old acquaintance who both accuses Asa of ruining his life and demands Asa to make them "even." Concurrently, Asa encounters family troubles when his estranged brother's family has a crisis.

Through Asa's dealings with the old acquaintance, questions arise as to the nature of luck and blame in American life. Is an individual solely responsible for achieving success? Can others be blamed for an individual never achieving that desired success? Is everyone born with the same ability to achieve success, and if not are some people simply lucky?

These seemingly valid questions were not what I was thinking of as I read this novel. Mostly, I was disappointed by the unlikable characters and oppressive mood of the novel. Asa plays the curmudgeonly Jew perfectly, constantly lamenting being a Jew and noting how he is treated unfairly by his Christian counterparts. While sometimes his woes are valid, at other times he seems simply paranoid. His former acquaintance, Kirby Allbee, is the anti-semite that feels wronged. He's presented as a drunken manic, constantly spewing vitriol while still expecting to be given something for his suffering.

The mood, created by the hot summer setting, the loneliness from Asa's wife being away, the tense, and the angry quality of Asa and Allbee's dialogue is horrendous. It was stressful simply reading this novel, because the characters experienced so much stress. I'm not saying that every novel needs to be as light as Jane Eyre, but ugh... this was simply not a pleasure to read!

There is such a pervasive, realistic feel of a bygone, downtown, mechanically oriented, pre-electronic era to this early Bellow work that it might easily be dismissed as an anachronism which is irrelevant to our modern lives. The fact that the Jewishness of the protagonist, Leventhal, plays a very prominent role in his experience of life might also contribute to this sense of irrelevancy to non-Jewish readers.

Either of these reactions, if indulged, would be overlooking the greater story hidden within Leventhal's seemingly mundane, somewhat austere existence. A patient and reflective reading, I believe, will be rewarded with an emerging understanding, that even though this is a very literal story rooted in the pragmatic considerations of a stolid-appearing protagonist, consumed with the minor and major problems of both professional and private affairs, there are compelling and universal themes just below the surface which transcend the ideas of minorities and majorities, whether of race or attitude.

Bellow has tipped us off before he even begins his story, in the two introductory quotations he gives. The first, from the 'Thousand and One Arabian Nights' is an example of unintentional guilt and its sometimes terrible consequences. The second, from 'The Pains of Opium' by Thomas de Quincy, speaks of a vision of humanity as an ocean of "innumerable faces, upturned to the heavens...imploring, wrathful, despairing...that surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, by generations."

None of us are as guiltless as we would like to imagine, nor are we as isolated, whether we imagine that isolation to be from privilege or from oppression. Each of those innumerable faces in the ocean of humanity imagines itself separate, not realizing that it is a particle composed of the same basic substance as all the others, each particle contributing to and subordinate to the totality or cosmic unity. These seem to be the two basic themes which the pragmatic, unwilling, non-intellectual Leventhal has to come to terms with, not through abstract philosophical speculation, but by facing the challenges of getting a living, dealing with family and social relations, and enduring the consequences of his own actions.

Under Leventhal's impassive exterior, feelings of guilt, self-doubt, and a general suspicion that things in general might not be as clear as they seem, provide a setting in which something extraordinary might happen. And, in fact, the extraordinary does happen. Suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue, an old acquaintance intrudes into Leventhal's already burdened existence, demanding restitution for an old grievance.

Does the accuser, Allbee, have a legitimate claim against Leventhal? Leventhal furiously denies that Allbee has any grounds for expecting anything from him. The fact that Allbee has a tendency to make sly, disparaging remarks about Jews, and is also a drunk, would seem to divest him of credibility. Unlike Leventhal, who had struggled to find a position in life, Allbee had been born into privilege, but was now fallen into the dregs.

However, Allbee manages to sink his grapples into Leventhal like a true parasite, and exploit the incipient guilt already there. Against the will of his host, Allbee insinuates himself ever deeper into his affairs until he becomes more than a nuisance. He is a menace who must be dealt with. But, ironically, Leventhal grudgingly begins to see some truth and justification to the claims of Allbee, and perhaps even begins to feel some common ground of humanity with him. The collision of these two particles, Leventhal and Allbee, is as ambiguous as a collision of particles in quantum physics. After the collision, they each move to a different psychic energy state, and are somewhat transmuted in their makeup.

The metaphysical drama in which these two main players partake is solidly grounded in a literal and realistic depiction of life as lived in a very particular time, place, and cultural setting. The impressionistic descriptions of the light and color of the cityscape are sometimes beautiful, and make a significant contribution to the overall mood of the story. Though perhaps lacking in the stylistic achievements of his later work, 'The Victim' is a subtle, thought-provoking, and highly original accomplishment of a young author.

Bellow's first two novels are apprentice works. In this work he gives signs of the voice to come but has not yet freed himself completely into a voice of his own. Nonetheless the work is an interesting one, a kind of ' double ' of a Dostoevsky work ' on the double theme'. It is also a book about how one can pettily sustain one's own hope by resenting others. An Anglo- Saxon holder of the keys to the kingdom resents the Jewish intruder about to come on to his intellectual turf. This novel echoes Bellow's own experience in being thrust away as an undergraduate from the English Department at Northwestern. The work has flashes of the kind of social criticism and general historical and cultural reflections Bellow would refine to a high art in later works, primarily 'Herzog'. This is not in the first rank of Bellow's books but because it is Bellow it is still an intelligent, probing and stimulating read.