Secondo romanzo di Bellow (1947), non eccelso ma apprezzabile, con tocchi di classe. This novel, although not outstanding, has its own charm and class.

Incipit:

Ci son notti in cui New York è calda come Bangkok. Come se l'intero continente si fosse spostato, fosse scivolato verso l'equatore, come se il grigio e cupo Atlantico si fosse tinto d'un verde tropicale e la gente per le strade fosse una folla scalmanata di fellah formicolanti tra gli stupendi monumenti del loro mistero che, con abbagliante profusione, spargono le loro luci nell'afa notturna senza interruzioni. There are nights when New York is as hot as Bangkok. It's as if the entire continent has shifted, slid towards the equator. As if the gray and gloomy Atlantic has turned a tropical green and the people on the streets are a horde of frenzied fellah swarming among the stupendous monuments of their mystery, which, with a dazzling profusion, scatter their lights in the nocturnal heat without interruption.

Un passo (unico, arbitrariamente diviso in tre):

Non puoi trovar posto per tutto nei tuoi sentimenti, o cedere alla pressione di ogni spinta come una porta girevole, la stessa per tutti, con gente che vi entra o ne esce a suo piacere. You can't find room for everything in your feelings, or yield to the pressure of every push like a revolving door, the same for everyone, with people going in and out as they please.

D'altro canto, se ti chiudi in te per paura di essere disturbato, allora diventi un orso nella sua tana d'inverno, o uno specchio avvolto negli stracci. E, come quello specchio, corri minor rischio di spaccarti, ma non puoi neanche splendere. On the other hand, if you close yourself off for fear of being disturbed, then you become a bear in its winter den, or a mirror wrapped in rags. And, like that mirror, you run a lower risk of breaking, but you can't shine either.

E invece devi splendere. È qui il punto strano. Tutti vogliono essere ciò che sono fino in fondo. Se ti guardi attorno, è la cosa che più salta agli occhi. Nelle grandi imprese come nei delitti e nel vizio. Instead, you must shine. This is the strange point. Everyone wants to be what they are through and through. If you look around, it's the thing that stands out the most. In great enterprises as well as in crimes and vice.

This is the very first book penned by this author that I have had the pleasure of reading, and I must say that I truly liked it.

The main plotpoint was simply great. It had me hooked from the very beginning, pulling me into its captivating world. Additionally, there was a compelling side story that added an extra layer of depth and interest to the overall narrative.

However, the ending wasn't entirely satisfying. It left me with a few lingering questions and a sense that something was lacking. But, to be fair, it wasn't enough to ruin what was otherwise an excellent book.

Despite the slightly underwhelming ending, I would highly recommend this book to others. It showcases the author's talent and creativity, and I look forward to reading more of their work in the future.

A short read, this piece is not really worth a whole lot. Bellow hadn't truly found his voice yet when he penned this one.

What makes it mainly interesting is not its characters but rather its depiction of late-1940s NYC. It's quite funny because Bellow may not have even meant for the setting to be so captivating, considering how little time he spends focusing on it. He was likely just describing what he witnessed around him.

Perhaps he was more concerned with other aspects of the story at that time. However, the accidental charm of the setting adds an unexpected layer of interest to the piece. It gives readers a glimpse into a specific time and place, even if it wasn't the main focus of Bellow's writing.

Overall, while it may not be a masterpiece, it still has some value in its unique portrayal of the city during that era.

This book was truly captivating, with an underlying moral depth that left a lasting impression.

Bellow poses a profound question: How much responsibility do we bear towards our fellow human beings when they find themselves in a state of utter destitution and despair?

It delves deep into the complex web of human relationships, exploring the various ways in which we interact, support, and sometimes neglect one another.

The language used in the book is nothing short of breathtakingly beautiful. Each sentence is crafted with precision and care, painting vivid pictures in the reader's mind.

I thoroughly enjoyed this literary masterpiece and found myself completely engrossed from start to finish.

I eagerly anticipate the opportunity to read another book by Bellow in the not-too-distant future, as I am confident that it will be just as engaging and thought-provoking.

Asa Leventhal, a Jewish man living in New York, is socially and economically well-off. When his wife leaves him to spend some weeks out of the city, Asa starts to feel an overwhelming sense of heaviness and solitude. To make matters worse, complications regarding his grandson Mickey's health and the alarmism of his sister-in-law Elena, which fall on his shoulders in the absence of his brother Max, add to his woes. But, as habit teaches us that if something goes wrong it can only get worse, Asa is also approached by Albee, an old acquaintance who has fallen on hard times. Albee accuses Leventhal of having cost him his job years ago and being the indirect cause of his wife's death, from whom he was separated at the time. Initially, Asa rejects the accusations, believing Albee to be crazy, seeing him as a drunk and a stalker. Only later does he start to suspect that the accusation may be more founded than it seems. Certainly, he was not aware of having ruined Albee, and if it happened, he did it involuntarily, but this does not absolve him of all responsibility. A mutual friend, questioned about the facts, sides with Albee. However, Asa is not convinced of his guilt, or at least not of all that he is accused of. No matter what he says or does, he cannot get rid of Albee, to the point that in the end he is forced to financially support him and even take him into his own home. To all this, we add Albee's propensity for anti-Semitism and Asa's acute suffering regarding the anti-Semitic question, and we have created a ticking time bomb.

The novel is well-written, contains excellent ideas, and lends itself to many interpretations. However, it did not particularly enthuse or captivate me. It is an interesting novel, we can say, but to define it as pleasant would be excessive. The main theme of the work is the relationship between victim and persecutor, ambiguous from the title. In our case, who is the victim and who is the persecutor? Is Asa the persecuted and Albee the persecutor or is it the opposite? Bellow does not offer an answer to this question. Sometimes we suspect that Asa is a paranoid and Albee is just an unfortunate man who has nothing left to lose. At other times, we share Asa's anger and his intolerance of persecution. But who is the victim and who is the persecutor is not clear at all, because the roles constantly change. Personally, towards the end, I found myself rooting for Albee, because the character of Asa is so mean-spiritedly human that one would feel like hitting him. Another relevant social theme is the relationship between the rich and the poor. Theoretically, says Asa, the relationship between the two categories is simple: the poor reproach the rich because, by luck or ability, the latter have what the former lack. But the poor do not reproach a specific rich person: the poor address the category "rich men" and express their condemnation without a precise target. A direct relationship between the two components, Asa argues, is as unthinkable as it is absurd. How should I, a rich man, behave if a poor man knocks on my door and accuses me, specifically me, as an individual, of taking something away from him? What can I do for him? How can I help him? How can I know if the accusation he makes against me is founded? And this is precisely what throws Asa into confusion. There is also the question of the relationship between persecution and anti-Semitism. We are in 1947 and Bellow, like Asa, is an American Jew who has not known the Nazi persecutions. While their people suffered and were exterminated in the concentration camps, Asa and Bellow were safe in the United States. This "non-participation" in the Shoah has left, among American Jews, psychological consequences of great significance and, mainly, a sense of guilt, the pain of not having shared the fate of their people, a pain that is also relief, of course, but that as a sense of guilt needs to be expiated. And so Asa becomes the victim of a personal persecution, entirely his own, less serious but parallel to that of the European Jews. It is his own sense of guilt that makes him particularly sensitive to Albee's anti-Semitic remarks. Albee speaks in generalities, nothing that can really be offensive, but Asa suffers from them in a traumatic way. In the middle of the novel, we see him exclaim: "I don't see how you can talk like that. You say so much for the sake of saying it. Millions of us have been killed. How do we reconcile this?" This is the only reference to the Shoah in a book written by a Jew in 1947. "Millions of us have been killed." How much fear and reticence, how much omission of conscience are nested in a simple sentence, thrown there, an almost involuntary sentence. The Victim is all this and much more (my ignorance on the Jewish question surely deserves further study). Interesting, I repeat, but not one of those novels that takes you and stays in your heart.

It's impossible to please everyone.

Hopefully, there isn't a soul on this earth that doesn't realize that, even if it takes them a while to do so. An obsession with appeasing people in life is, in my opinion, one of the most vain and futile preoccupations that a person can have. For every individual, there is bound to be at least a handful of people that they will be despised by. It rarely takes very much either. We make judgements based upon someone's image, ideology, dietary preferences, habits, etc. Have you ever found yourself despising someone merely based on the way that they open a door (and I mean literally, opening a door)?

I'm trying to avoid a vague ethical discourse here, but this idea seemed to be lying beneath the more obvious moral of Saul Bellow's, the Victim. The protagonist, Asa Leventhal, lives a modest existence working for a small paper in New York. In the midst of a brutally hot summer, while his wife is out of town, he is confronted by a man from his past whose life he had supposedly ruined. The man, Kirby Allbee, had once arranged an interview with a prominent newspaper and assertively accuses Leventhal of not only getting him fired from his job but also his subsequent divorce, which was followed by his wife's death. What follows is a subplot involving a personal family tragedy for Leventhal while being pursued by Allbee, who is seeking some sort of moral reparation.

The problem is that even if the reader finds Allbee's convictions solid, it's difficult to ignore how much of a loathsome character he is. Leventhal's faults are minor in comparison. Allbee is an anti-semitic, self-pitying, drunken asshole. There is very little to like about him. One wonders how Leventhal could possibly even consider the guilt that he should feel here. However, he has such a difficult time imagining how anyone, even Allbee, could find him responsible for something as serious as the single-handed destruction of a life. Leventhal is obviously not to blame here, but he is a man easily led into psychotically obsessive guilt. Allbee just takes advantage of this.

Given the premise, I was expecting this sort of hellish, Dostoevskian parable. Bellow's characters seem to find a resolution that is somewhat more peaceful. I found Allbee's accusation to be somewhat uninspired. He's just blaming Leventhal for his shortcomings. Bellow, for the most part, pegs him as the bad guy, as any anti-semitic character in life and in a Bellow novel should be pegged. This is what makes Bellow's first two novels seem like an extension of his outrage at the world as he saw it in the forties, which I think he expresses tastefully enough.

A study has been conducted to explore the profound effects of prejudice on the psychology of the victim.

Prejudice, such as anti-Semitism or persecution, has a significant impact on the mental state of those targeted. It often leads to the development of self-doubt within the victim. They start to question their own worth, abilities, and even their very identity. This self-doubt can be crippling and prevent them from reaching their full potential.

Moreover, prejudice can also give rise to paranoia. The victim may constantly feel that they are being watched, judged, or discriminated against. This sense of paranoia can cause them to be overly cautious, withdrawn, and distrustful of others. It can also lead to anxiety and stress, which further affect their psychological well-being.

In conclusion, the effects of prejudice on the psychology of the victim are far-reaching and can have a lasting impact on their lives. It is essential that we work towards eradicating prejudice and promoting equality and acceptance in society.

The Victim was an interesting read, to say the least.

Before I continue with this review, I have a confession to make. I read this book ages ago! I do remember how much I liked it. I enjoyed it so much that I was determined to read more Saul Bellow but somehow I didn't get around to it, and now I feel bad about it. If he is so good, why didn't I find time for more Saul Bellow? Well, there are many great authors and books out there. Sometimes that old proverb 'you can't get them all' applies. It is a shame that the only thing I read by this great author is this little novel, but hey better something than nothing, right?

The Victim was published in 1947. I don't remember thinking much about the date of publication while I was reading this novel. The writing somehow feels very modern, not dated or old fashioned in any way. The novel opens with a protagonist, Leventhal. His wife had to go away to help her mother, so he temporarily lives alone. Leventhal is a middle-aged Jewish man who works as a copywriter. At work, he receives a call for help from his sister-in-law. It seems his nephew is sick. Leventhal examines his relationship with his extended family, wondering if he has failed at his duty. During a walk in the park, a man (revealing himself to be an old acquaintance) approaches Leventhal. At first, Albee seems benevolent enough, and Leventhal pities him as he seems a bit run down. Soon, however, it turns out that Albee blames Leventhal for all the misfortunes in his life, starting from Albee having lost his job to the present day.

A feeling of isolation soaks this novel. Our protagonist asks many questions. He becomes convinced that his brother Maxi has neglected his family. At the same time, a cat and mouse play with Albee continues. What could Albee possibly want? The protagonist asks many questions. As I read, I had a whole set of questions as well. Who is the victim? What is the crime? What is Leventhal a victim of? What are all we victims of? Even after reading this novel, I'm not sure I have any answers. Perhaps we are all victims of life. Perhaps this is what the novel is trying to tell us. That we can be victims of one another, but in the end, we're all victims of the injustice that is this world. I can't be sure what exactly the writer was going for, but I liked the way he went about it. What I'm sure of is that The Victim is a wonderful novel.

Leventhal was easy to sympathize with because he is so human, just a guy trying to do the right thing. The kind of person that will take the time to think things over and yet you're not certain what that exactly means. Is he who he seems to be? Yes, I loved the complexity of the protagonist. His existential questioning appealed to me. Moreover, I quite enjoyed the ambiguity of it all. This is a novel that has left me wondering.

Life is complex and so is this novel. Similar to real life, it's hard to figure out who is guilty and of what. In that sense, the novel felt quite ambiguous. It was also wonderfully philosophical at times. Perhaps for the first fifty pages or so, things seemed much too simple to me and the characters stereotyped. However, that changed. I can say that the rest of the book was excellent - the slow start was, or so it seems, the perfect introduction. Indeed, perhaps those first fifty pages or so are an introduction of some kind... and there's a reason why the introduction is slow (or maybe not exactly slow, it is more that there is no foreshadowing to start with. What could be a good word for it? Maybe it is best to say that the beginning of the story is "not revealing" at all. Ultimately, this proved to be a good thing, because this novel really grabs your attention once the things start to get going. By the end of the story, I found myself immersed in the story. At the start, the characterization seemed stereotypical. Nevertheless, by the end of the novel, there wasn't a character that did not feel real. The protagonist is the most complex character, but they all have a life of their own. Literally, it is like the characters gained life with every page. Another thing that I really liked was the descriptiveness of the writing. Bellow writes with ease. The descriptiveness suited this story perfectly. The contrast between the ambiguity of meaning and the descriptiveness of the prose was startling.

To conclude, The Victim is a wonderful novel. I'm aware that Bellow, this highly praised and awarded writer, has written many others more famous (and possibly better) works, but if you happen upon this one, don't miss it. As for myself, I really need to get to reading his other works.

There are certain authors whose works I would eagerly follow, regardless of the subject matter. However, Saul Bellow is not among them.

The Victim tells the story of Asa Leventhal and his unexpected acquaintance, Kirby Albee, who accuses Leventhal of deliberately ruining his life. Although the premise held promise, I was ultimately disappointed with the direction the story took. The implicit threat that Albee poses is never fully realized, despite numerous opportunities for him to cause real harm to Leventhal.

At the same time, I found it extremely difficult to empathize with Leventhal. He is unbelievably accommodating towards Albee and inexplicably hostile towards everyone else. His insecurity prevents him from taking action, and while this might have made him an interesting character, it falls flat when he finally summons the courage to send Albee away without any explanation as to what changed in him or why.

Stylistically, Bellow's writing is as solid as ever. His descriptions are vivid and at times even moving. However, for me, his dependable writing was not enough to carry the story, and I will likely forget The Victim soon. From a lesser author, I might have considered the book passable, but I had higher expectations from the author of Henderson the Rain King, and I was left disappointed.

Not Bellow's best, but that still means pretty excellent.

It is interesting to observe how much Philip Roth owes to the master Saul Bellow.

For those who are unsure of the how or why, they should read The Victim by Bellow alongside Roth's Zuckerman Unbound.

The connective tissues between the two works ought to be fairly apparent.

By comparing and contrasting these two novels, one can gain a deeper understanding of the influence that Bellow had on Roth's writing.

It is also a fascinating exploration of the literary traditions and themes that both authors were working with.

Overall, while The Victim may not be Bellow's most renowned work, it still offers valuable insights into his writing style and the evolution of American literature.

"The Victim" is a rather fast-paced read. In this story, not a great deal occurs, yet many aspects are described with great detail. The book focuses on Leventhal, a Jew residing in New York. When his wife departs to tend to her mother, he encounters an old acquaintance who alleges that Leventhal has wrecked his life. Simultaneously, his brother's son is extremely ill.

I am extremely curious as to what my teacher will have to say about this book in class next Tuesday. Perhaps after that, I will have a better understanding and appreciation of it. I wonder if the teacher will shed light on the deeper themes and meanings that might be hidden within the seemingly simple narrative. Maybe the teacher will point out some details that I overlooked while reading. I am looking forward to the class discussion and hoping to gain more insights into this interesting book.

As a newcomer to the writings of Saul Bellow, I perhaps could have chosen a more suitable introduction than "The Victim." I chanced upon this book at a library book sale. I bought it for just fifty cents as I recognized the author's name. Although it is a good novel and is definitely worth more than the meager fifty cents I paid, it didn't captivate me or engage my interest to the extent I'm led to believe some of his other books might.

In "The Victim," Asa Leventhal is left alone for a few weeks when his wife goes out of state to handle some family business. He is accosted by a man named Albee, whom he met a few years ago through a mutual acquaintance. At that meeting, Albee made some anti-Semitic remarks. Leventhal ended up getting a job interview with the obnoxious Albee's boss, a disagreeable man whom he more or less told off at the end of the interview. Now, in the present, Albee is jobless and wife-less, and he blames Leventhal, convinced that the man deliberately sabotaged him and made his boss angry with him regarding the interview because of Leventhal's offense at Albee's comments. Comments that Leventhal hasn't given a second thought to since they were made years ago.

Albee accosts Leventhal in the street, then when he's out with his nephew, and later, at his home. And Leventhal is constantly made to feel guilty; he finds himself trying to help Albee, even though Albee clearly despises him.

I might have read this book in conjunction with Thomas Berger's "Neighbors," as both deal with agreeable people being driven to unlikely levels of paranoia by insistent anti-friends.

"The Victim" is a fairly good novel, but by the end of its 240 pages, I was eager for something different. I look forward to delving into one of Bellow's more highly regarded works.