Synopses & Reviews
What makes all of this so remarkable is not merely Bellows eye and ear for vital detail. Nor is it his talent for exposing the innards of character in a paragraph, a sentence, a phrase. It is Bellows vision, his uncanny ability to seize the moment and to see beyond it.” Chicago Sun-Times
Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm has reached his day of reckoning and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos: He is separated from his wife and children, at odds with his vain, successful father, failed in his acting career (a Hollywood agent once cast him as the type that loses the girl”), and in a financial mess. In the course of one climactic day he reviews his past mistakes and spiritual malaise, until a mysterious philosophizing con man grants him a glorious, illuminating moment of truth and understanding, and offers him one last hope
.
This Penguin Classics edition contains an introduction by Cynthia Ozick.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Review
"A feast of language, situations, characters, ironies, and a controlled moral intelligence . . . Bellows rapport with his central character seems to me novel writing in the grand style of a Tolstoy—subjective, complete, heroic." —
Chicago Tribune
"Herzog has the range, depth, intensity, verbal brilliance, and imaginative fullness—the mind and heart—which we may expect only of a novel that is unmistakably destined to last." —Newsweek
"A masterpiece" —The New York Times Book Review
Review
“This is our greatest writers greatest book.” -Martin Amis
“Bellows gift for delineating the American scene…remains unrivaled.” -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Synopsis
A collection of treasured stories by the unchallenged master of American fiction
Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow has deservedly been celebrated as one of Americas greatest writers. For more than sixty years he stretched our minds, our imaginations, and our hearts with his exhilarating perceptions of life. Here, collected 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. With a preface by Janice Bellow and an introduction by James Wood, this is a collection to treasure for longtime Saul Bellow fans and an excellent introduction for new readers.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Synopsis
Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of
More Die of Heartbreak, has left his native Paris for the Midwest. He has come to be near his beloved uncle, the world-renowned botanist Benn Crader, self-described "plant visionary." While his studies take him around the world, Benn, a restless spirit, has not been able to satisfy his longings after his first marriage and lives from affair to affair and from "bliss to breakdown." Imagining that a settled existence will end his anguish, Benn ties the knot again, opening the door to a flood of new torments. As Kenneth grapples with his own problems involving his unusual lady-friend Treckie, the two men try to figure out why gifted and intelligent people invariably find themselves "knee-deep in the garbage of a personal life."
Synopsis
In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a man struggling with the complexity of existence and longing for redemption.
Synopsis
Deftly interweaving humor and pathos, Saul Bellow evokes in the climactic events of one day the full drama of one man's search to affirm his own worth and humanity.
Synopsis
In time for the centennial of his birth, the Noble Prize winners moving final novel Deeply insightful, Saul Bellows moving last novel is a journey through love and memory, an elegy to friendship, and a poignant meditation on death. Told in memoir form, it follows two university professors, one of whom is succumbing to AIDS, as they share thoughts on philosophy and history, loves and friends, mortality and art.
This Penguin Classics edition commemorates the fifteenth anniversary of Vikings first publication of Ravelstein. Featuring a new introduction by Gary Shteyngart, it rounds out the entirety of Bellows major works in Penguin Classics black spine.
Synopsis
In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a man struggling with the complexity of existence and longing for redemption.
This is the story of Moses Herzog, a great sufferer, joker, mourner, and charmer. Although his life steadily disintegrates around himhe has failed as a writer and teacher, as a father, and has lost the affection of his wife to his best friendsHerzog sees himself as a survivor, both of his private disasters and those of the age. He writes unsent letters to friends and enemies, colleagues and famous people, revealing his wry perception of the world and the innermost secrets of his heart.
This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Philip Roth.
About the Author
Saul Bellow (19152005) was the author of nearly twenty works of literature, including
Seize the Day,
The Adventures of Augie March,
The Victim,
Herzog, and
Humboldts Gift. He taught at the University of Chicago and Boston University.
Janis Bellow teaches literature at Tufts University. She was married to Saul Bellow from 1989 until his death in 2005. She spends as much time as possible in Vermont, where she lives for several months each year with her daughter, Rosie.
James Wood is a staff writer at the New Yorker, a visiting lecturer at Harvard University, and the author of the national bestseller How Fiction Works and a novel, The Book against God. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
Herzog Introduction: Rereading Saul Bellow by Philip Roth
Herzog