Synopses & Reviews
A sweeping collection and a tribute to one of the most influential, daring, and visionary minds of the twentieth century The year 2015 marks several literary milestones: the centennial of Saul Bellows birth, the tenth anniversary of his death, and the publication of Zachary Leaders much anticipated biography. Bellow, a Nobel Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, and the only novelist to receive three National Book awards, has long been regarded as one of Americas most cherished authors. Here, Benjamin Taylor, editor of the acclaimed Saul Bellow: Letters, presents lesser-known aspects of the iconic writer.
Arranged chronologically, this literary time capsule displays the full extent of Bellows nonfiction, including criticism, interviews, speeches, and other reflections, tracing his career from his initial success as a novelist until the end of his life. Bringing together six classic pieces with an abundance of previously uncollected material, There Is Simply Too Much to Think About is a powerful reminder not only of Bellows genius but also of his enduring place in the western canon and is sure to be widely reviewed and talked about for years to come.
Review
Best of 2010 Lists The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani's Top Ten of 2010
The Washington Post, John Yardley's Best of 2010
Minneapolis Star Tribune
"It comes as no surprise to find that the great novelist was a great correspondent as well. I hungrily read the book through in three nights, as though I'd stumbled upon a lost Bellow masterpiece only recently unearthed."
?Philip Roth
"In the Letters, as in everything he wrote, Saul Bellow never dipped below a certain level?and that level is stratospheric."
?Martin Amis
"These aren't dashed-off notes, but letters that required considerable care and meant much to the author, as he expresses affection and support for other writers (Ellison, Roth, Malamud, Cheever, Amis et al.), takes critics and journalists to task with well-formed arguments and offers critical commentary on the culture that provides the context for his work (a culture that no longer values the art of writing letters)."
?Kirkus Reviews
"Feisty, smart, but most of all thrillingly intimate, these letters ripen and mature as they go along, just as some people do."
?Chicago Tribune
"Benjamin Taylor has done a superb job in both his selection and his introduction to these salient letters from a gone world when literature was all the rage."
?Tablet Magazine
"Benjamin Taylor's introduction and frequent brief indentifying notes are models of elegant scholarly restraint."
?Boston Globe
"Collected and annotated by Benjamin Taylor, these letters reveal in Saul Bellow a rare consistency: From the first letter in 1932 to the last in 2005, Bellow's ex-wives accrue, his fortunes rise and fall, but his character-as a man generous and preoccupied by literature-remains fixed."
?Time Out New York
"Vibrant, witty, and revealing, the collection is truly captivating."
-Kiara, Bookseller, Booksmith
Review
Best of 2010 ListsThe New York Times, Michiko Kakutaniandrsquo;s Top Ten of 2010
The Washington Post, John Yardleyandrsquo;s Best of 2010
Minneapolis Star Tribune
and#160;
andldquo;It comes as no surprise to find that the great novelist was a great correspondent as well. I hungrily read the book through in three nights, as though Iandrsquo;d stumbled upon a lost Bellow masterpiece only recently unearthed.andrdquo;
andmdash;Philip Roth
andldquo;In the Letters, as in everything he wrote, Saul Bellow never dipped below a certain levelandmdash;and that level is stratospheric.andrdquo;
andmdash;Martin Amis
andldquo;Saul Bellow: Letters is a treasure trove. Itandrsquo;s fascinating to see one of our great American writers take form.andrdquo;
andmdash;Nathan Englander
andldquo;Magnificentandhellip; The man is all here in this book, in his stunning, almost baffling plenitude. Bellowandrsquo;s letters are one of Bellowandrsquo;s greatest books. Benjamin Taylor records that it contains only two-fifths of what Bellow called his andldquo;epistling,andrdquo; but its riches are nonetheless immense. Taylor has selected and edited and annotated these letters with exquisite judgment and care. This is an elegantissimo book. Our literatureandrsquo;s debt to Taylor, if our culture still cares, is considerable.andrdquo;
andmdash;Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review
andldquo;Full of those wonderful vignettes that pepper his books, comic and perceptive at the same timeandhellip; Thereandrsquo;s so much going on here, such swift and impassioned dialogue between the spiritual and the physical, the place and those who inhabit it, that, as so often in his books, we can only gasp in joyful wonder.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Wall Street Journal
andldquo;Masterfully edit[ed].andrdquo;
andmdash;Vanity Fair
andldquo;A hefty, handsome volumeandhellip; Chatty yet polished, and always vibrant, Bellowandrsquo;s letters serve as the autobiography he never wrote.andrdquo;
andmdash;Los Angeles Times
andldquo;You must read this. If youandrsquo;re a lover of prose, someone who knows how to savor the taste of a scrumptious sentence, then youandrsquo;ll find morsels aplenty to set your eyes rolling to the back of your head in indecent pleasure.andrdquo;
andmdash;NPR
andldquo;Studded with brilliant passagesandhellip; Just as Bellowandrsquo;s novels teem with the turbulence of raw immediate experience burnished by the refinerandrsquo;s fires of insight, emotion, and style, his letters make clear that his life was the source of that connected fullness.andrdquo;
andmdash;The New Yorker
andldquo;A window into literary genius.andrdquo;
andmdash;London Review of Books
andldquo;Arresting, seizing the reader by the lapels and refusing to let goandhellip; Bellow is a gifted and emotionally voluble letter writer. The Bellow that floats to the surface in this volume is a close spiritual relative of the heroes who populate his fiction: a seeker and searcher who also happens to be a first-class noticer; an intellectual, deep in what he once called andldquo;the profundity game,andrdquo; who is constantly trying to balance the equation between rumination and action, solipsism and distraction, the temptations of selfhood and the noise of the real world.andrdquo;
andmdash;Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
andldquo;Bellowandrsquo;s sheer brio, his occasional feuds and deep friendships, his unquenchable enthusiasm for being human, and his incomparable prose, make this collection of letters an absolute must for anyone who is remotely interested in American literature of the 20th century.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Financial Times
andldquo;Bellow was an exceptionally astute man. He was also formidably well-read, an intellectual in the deepest sense of the word but also a lover of pleasure in many forms. His collected letters are probably the last book we shall have from him, andandhellip; a very good one.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Washington Post
andldquo;Drollery, mordancy, tenderness, quick-draw portraiture, metaphysical vaudeville, soul talk, heart pains, the whole human messandmdash;Saul Bellowandrsquo;s letters are a Saul Bellow novel, the author himself the protagonist. A Saul Bellow novel! A gift from the grave, like Humboldtandrsquo;s. The great voice again, the peerless voice.andrdquo;
andmdash;William Deresiewicz, The Nation
andldquo;Reveal[s] Bellowandrsquo;s unfailingly high quality as a correspondentandhellip; Scarcely a letter in this volume is without an amusing phrase or arresting insight or interesting formulation.andrdquo;
andmdash;The New Criterion
andldquo;Feisty, smart, but most of all thrillingly intimate, these letters ripen and mature as they go along, just as some people do.andrdquo;
andmdash;Chicago Tribune
andldquo;These letters are rich in gossip, declarations of love and ambition, praise, criticism, and commiseration; the most touching among them are to the writers for whom he had tender feeling (John Berryman, Ralph Ellison, John Cheever) and those who appealed to him for help (William Kennedy, Wright Morris).andrdquo;
andmdash;Bookforum
andldquo;So richly characteristic on every page. What makes Bellow rare, possibly unique, among the great writers of the past century was [his] conviction that seeing had a metaphysical warrant, that perception, and the recording of perception, was not a pastime but an andldquo;assignment.andrdquo;andrdquo;
andmdash;Adam Kirsch, The Times Literary Supplement
andldquo;The letters are all zest and craving and demandandmdash;so many journeys, so many cities, so many liaisons, so many courtings, so many marriages and partings, so many spasms of rage, so many victories and downers, so many blue or frenetic melancholias and grievances; but cumulatively they add up to a rich montage of knowing, speckled now and again with laughter, that most metaphysical of emotions.andrdquo;
andmdash;Cynthia Ozick, The New Republic
andldquo;The virtue of these letters is found in their compassion.andrdquo;
andmdash;Playboy
andldquo;Ben Taylorandrsquo;s meticulously edited and annotated volume of Bellowandrsquo;s letters provides the most intimate glimpse we have yet received of how this voice emerged. Bellowandrsquo;s language in letters, as in fiction, is stunning. His is an English both earnestly and adoringly cerebral and earthy, drawing on the cadences of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, Hyde Park Trotskyism, the high-church intellectualism of the University of Chicago, and the guys and dolls patois of Damon Runyon.andrdquo;
andmdash;Jewish Review of Books
andldquo;Flecked with remarkable judgments on the people he knewandhellip; Bellowandrsquo;s letters reveal him as a restless, agitated truth-seeker, not unlike many of his characters.andrdquo;
andmdash;National Post
andldquo;These letters crackle with wit, often wicked and nonetheless satisfying for that.andrdquo;
andmdash;Commonweal Magazine
andldquo;Wonderfulandhellip; offers a strong salve to those who miss his familiar voice. Like the fiction, the missives can be brilliant, glistening, scathing, boring, funny, generous, probing and always genuinely human.andrdquo;
andmdash;Chicago Sun-Times
andldquo;A generous sampling of the literary judgments of a great writer, with private assessments of his own work as well as that of others.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Huffington Post
andldquo;Insightful and engagingandhellip; This elegant edition provide[s] new insight into the relationship between Bellowandrsquo;s life and his art.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Daily Beast
andldquo;Readers of Bellow will plunge into these letters eager to trace the making of a writer, and in this they will not be disappointed. Who, reading these letters, could not but love him? He was fearsome and kindly, tolerant and unforgiving, committed to his art but dedicated to the world. andldquo;I have,andrdquo; he wrote, andldquo;sophisticated skin and naandiuml;ve bones.andrdquo; There was no one to match him, nor will be again.andrdquo;
andmdash;John Banville, The Guardian (U.K.)
andldquo;Why not simply admit it? The new collection of Saul Bellowandrsquo;s andldquo;Lettersandrdquo; is a modern reliquary. It is a treasured remnant of the beloved wonderworker. And who are the followers, the faithful? Bookish cranks, mainly, plus unstoppable line-quoters, Jewish lit fetishists, passionate scholars, and the unclassifiable lovers of living books.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Forward
andldquo;Taylorandrsquo;s significant contribution constitutes the eloquent autobiography that Bellow never wrote.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Jewish Chronicle
andldquo;Thoughtful, eloquent, feisty. Benjamin Taylor has done a superb job in both his selection and his introduction to these salient letters from a gone world when literature was all the rage.andrdquo;
andmdash;Tablet Magazine
andldquo;Benjamin Taylorandrsquo;s introduction and frequent brief identifying notes are models of elegant scholarly restraint.andrdquo;
andmdash;Boston Globe
andldquo;He is a great describer, a whiz with metaphor, a humanist, a life-affirmer, a practitioner of philosophical laughter.andrdquo;
andmdash;The New York Observer
andldquo;[A] cracking new volumeandhellip; A principal pleasure in this chronological collection is the chronology itselfandmdash;in the joy of watching a big man of American letters grow into himself, reflexively and reflectively, in the course of composing letters.andrdquo;
andmdash;The American Scholar
andldquo;A cause for celebration.andrdquo;
andmdash;New Statesman
andldquo;Wise, honest and often very funnyandhellip; [This] may be the last of the great literary letter collections. Letters are often wrongly dismissed in the academy as worthless gossip, but the letters of great writers can be windows on to minds and social milieus once vibrant and alive, now long gone; arguments and issues from the past; literary craft; personal triumphs and tragedies; reminders of the teachings of Ecclesiastes (all is vanity); and insight into how smart people thought about peculiar situations in which they found themselves.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Second Pass
andldquo;A large and readable volumeandhellip; essential to understanding the literary situation of the mid- to late 20th century.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Denver Post
andldquo;At once an autobiographical portrait and a work of literature unto itselfandhellip; Brittle and brilliant as crystalandmdash;as prone to slice those who handled him as to dazzle those who gazed on from afarandmdash;Bellow attains that rare stature in which all that really matters is what is on the printed page. We no longer have him, but we will always have that.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Wilson Quarterly
andldquo;Everything you have heard and more, an essential text for any writer, aspiring or published.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Millions
andldquo;Reveal[s] the organic origins of the street-smart intellectual style that he first introduced in The Adventures of Augie March and perfected in Seize the Day and Henderson the Rain King.andrdquo;
andmdash;The Christian Science Monitor
andldquo;Illuminatingandhellip; These arenandrsquo;t dashed-off notes, but letters that required considerable care and meant much to the author, as he expresses affection and support for other writers (Ellison, Roth, Malamud, Cheever, Amis et al.), takes critics and journalists to task with well-formed arguments and offers critical commentary on the culture that provides the context for his work.andrdquo;
andmdash;Kirkus
andldquo;Collected and annotated by Benjamin Taylor, these letters reveal in Saul Bellow a rare consistency: From the first letter in 1932 to the last in 2005, Bellowandrsquo;s ex-wives accrue, his fortunes rise and fall, but his characterandmdash;as a man generous and preoccupied by literatureandmdash;remains fixed.andrdquo;
andmdash;Time Out New York
andldquo;As entertaining, as infuriating, as tantalizing, as messy, as his novelsandhellip; a wonderfully complex portrait of a unique individual.andrdquo;
andmdash;Tulsa World
andldquo;The letters gathered here disclose a fertile mind harnessed to a febrile temperament.andrdquo;
andmdash;Library Journal
andldquo;A lot of fanfare has been made in anticipation of the release of Saul Bellow: Letters, and for good reason.andrdquo;
andmdash;Jewcy
Review
Praise for THERE IS SIMPLY TOO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT, edited by Benjamin Taylor:
"A nonfiction collection celebrates the centennial of Saul Bellow's (1915-2005) birth. Nobel Prize winner Bellow was a prolific writer of nonfiction: essays, reviews, interviews, talks and memoirs. Organized by decade, the 57 pieces in this volume, edited by Taylor (Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay, 2012, etc.), trace both Bellow's writing career and his outspoken opinions on politics, literature and intellectual life in America during the second half of the 20th century. After publishing Dangling Man (1944) and The Victim (1947), "two very correct books" that he thought would establish his credentials as a novelist, Bellow won his first National Book Award in 1954 for "a speculative biography," The Adventures of Augie March. Critical acclaim for that novel established his reputation; many more prestigious awards followed, as did opportunities to publish his views. Some of the most interesting pieces here are autobiographical. Born in Canada to Russian immigrants, growing up in Depression-era Chicago, Bellow knew early in his life that he wanted to be a writer. "I felt that I was born to be a performing and interpretive creature," he wrote, "that I was meant to take part in a peculiar, exalted game." As a young man, he looked up to such critics as Edmund Wilson, who supported him for a Guggenheim Fellowship, but by 1975, he had changed his mind dramatically: "Critics use strength gathered from the past to pummel the present," he announced scornfully. Nevertheless, Bellow found himself in a critic's role throughout his career, deriding novelists who were didactic and those more interested in being intellectual over telling a good story. He also bristled at being categorized as a Jewish writer: "I was a Jew and an American and a writer and I believed that by being described as a ‘Jewish writer' I was being shunted to a siding." This comprehensive collection illuminates Bellow's sense of his own identity and his changing world."
—Kirkus Reviews
“This rich . . . collection of Bellows reviews, essays, speeches, and interviews illuminate his lifelong exploration of what it means to be an American, a Jew, and a writer. As assembled by Taylor, the pieces succeed in showing that Bellows calling was, in the novelists own words, ‘not to preach but to relate.” — Publishers Weekly Praise for SAUL BELLOW: LETTERS, edited by Benjamin Taylor:
***Selected by Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times as a Top Ten Pick of 2010***
***Selected by Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post as a Best of 2010***
"It comes as no surprise to find that the greatest novelist was a great correspondent as well. I hungrily read the book through in three nights, as though I'd stumbled upon a lost Bellow masterpiece only recently unearthed."
—Philip Roth
"In the Letters, as in everything he wrote, Saul Bellow never dipped below a certain level—and that level is stratospheric."
—Nathan Englander
"Magnificent . . . The man is all here in this book, in his stunning, almost baffling plentitude. . . . Taylor has selected and edited and annotated these letters with exquisite judgment and care. This is an elegantissimo book. Our literature's debt to Taylor . . . is considerable."
—Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review
"Masterfully edited."
—Vanity Fair
"Arresting, seizing the reader by the lapels and refusing to let go . . . Bellow is a gifted and emotionally voluble letter writer. The Bellow that floats to the surface in this volume is a close spiritual relative of the heroes who populate his fiction."
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Review
"Atlas's definitive 2000 biography, Bellow, is excellent but harsh, and Bellow will redeem himself for some readers here, in his own words. The letters bear full witness to his rakish nature: A serial philanderer, he married five times, and usually divorced badly. His expression in the cover photo of the collected letters seems to say, 'Darling, be reasonable. It's not as though I actually told you I love you.' But the letters also reveal his poignant longing for acceptance from his streetwise father and brothers, his tenderness toward his children, and a fierce love of his friends." Michael O'Donnell, The Wilson Quarterly (Read the entire )
Synopsis
A never-before-published collection of letters-an intimate self- portrait as well as the portrait of a century.
Saul Bellow was a dedicated correspondent until a couple of years before his death, and his letters, spanning eight decades, show us a twentieth-century life in all its richness and complexity. Friends, lovers, wives, colleagues, and fans all cross these pages. Some of the finest letters are to Bellow's fellow writers — William Faulkner, John Cheever, Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Ralph Ellison, Cynthia Ozick, and Wright Morris. Intimate, ironical, richly observant, and funny, these letters reveal the influences at work in the man, and illuminate his enduring legacy — the novels that earned him a Nobel Prize and the admiration of the world over. Saul Bellow: Letters is a major literary event and an important edition to Bellow's incomparable body of work.
Synopsis
Bellow was a dedicated correspondent until a couple of years before his death, and his letters, spanning eight decades, show us a 20th-century life in all its richness and complexity. These letters reveal the influences at work in the man, and illuminate his enduring legacy.
Synopsis
andquot;I hungrily read the book through in three nights, as though I'd stumbled upon a lost Bellow masterpiece only recently unearthed.andquot;
-Philip Roth
A literary milestone in its own right, this selection of correspondence connects us as never before to one of the greatest writers of our time. Saul Bellow was winner of the Pulitzer Prize, three National Book Awards, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. He also wrote marvelously acute, unsparing, tender, ferocious, hilarious, and wise letters throughout his long life (1915-2005). Including letters to William Faulkner, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Cynthia Ozick, Martin Amis, and many others, this vast self-portrait-shows the influences at work in a seminal literary mind.
Synopsis
andquot;I hungrily read the book through in three nights, as though I'd stumbled upon a lost Bellow masterpiece only recently unearthed.andquot;
-Philip Roth
A literary milestone in its own right, this selection of correspondence connects us as never before to one of the greatest writers of our time. Saul Bellow was winner of the Pulitzer Prize, three National Book Awards, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. He also wrote marvelously acute, unsparing, tender, ferocious, hilarious, and wise letters throughout his long life (1915-2005). Including letters to William Faulkner, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Cynthia Ozick, Martin Amis, and many others, this vast self-portrait-shows the influences at work in a seminal literary mind.
Synopsis
A never-before-published collection of letters-an intimate self- portrait as well as the portrait of a century. Saul Bellow was a dedicated correspondent until a couple of years before his death, and his letters, spanning eight decades, show us a twentieth-century life in all its richness and complexity. Friends, lovers, wives, colleagues, and fans all cross these pages. Some of the finest letters are to Bellow's fellow writers-William Faulkner, John Cheever, Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Ralph Ellison, Cynthia Ozick, and Wright Morris. Intimate, ironical, richly observant, and funny, these letters reveal the influcences at work in the man, and illuminate his enduring legacy-the novels that earned him a Nobel Prize and the admiration of the world over. Saul Bellow: Letters is a major literary event and an important edition to Bellow's incomparable body of work.
Synopsis
A lively, elegantly concise historic tour of Italy’s city by the bay An invaluable addition to the art of literary travel writing,
Naples Declared presents an informative and compulsively readable account of three thousand years of Naples history. From the catacombs of San Gennaro to the luminous paintings of Caravaggio to the ruins of Pompeii in nearby Campania, renowned author Benjamin Taylor takes readers on a stroll around the city Italians lovingly call Il Cratere. Gracefully written and full of good humor, wisdom, and amusing anecdotes,
Naples Declared is a wholly original work that will be welcomed by anyone seeking to know more about the art, culture, and history of this fabled place.
Synopsis
A lively, elegantly concise historic tour of Italy’s city by the bay An invaluable addition to the art of literary travel writing,
Naples Declared presents an informative and compulsively readable account of three thousand years of Naples history. From the catacombs of San Gennaro to the luminous paintings of Caravaggio to the ruins of Pompeii in nearby Campania, renowned author Benjamin Taylor takes readers on a stroll around the city Italians lovingly call Il Cratere. Gracefully written and full of good humor, wisdom, and amusing anecdotes,
Naples Declared is a wholly original work that will be welcomed by anyone seeking to know more about the art, culture, and history of this fabled place.
About the Author
Editor
Benjamin Taylor is the author of a book of essays,
Into the Open, and two novels,
Tales Out of School, winner of the 1996 Harold Ribalow Prize, and
The Book of Getting Even, a
Los Angeles Times Favorite Book of 2008. He is a member of the graduate writing faculty of The New School in New York City.
Saul Bellow (1915-2005) is the only novelist to have received three National Book Awards. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1976.