The Adventures of Augie March

Martin Amis, one of Bellow's acolytes, who has little patience for those he deems foolish, put it simply. After experiencing Bellow at his finest - and this work is undoubtedly one of his absolute masterpieces - you might find yourself thinking that you could never write a novel. Ever.

That's the kind of impact this book has. I was overjoyed when I completed it.

It is streamlined, with a wonderful pace and told in an exuberant manner.

Augie is one of the most remarkable characters you could ever hope to encounter. He is full of life, completely unpretentious, constantly inventive and adventurous, curious, and deeply human.

This novel truly encapsulates what it means to be alive.

It contains all the elements that make for a great read. So, don't hesitate - enjoy it immediately!

I knew from the very beginning, right from the first couple paragraphs of this novel, that it was truly fantastic and amazing. It was like a sleek and well-built Italian or German sports car, exuding an air of elegance and power.

However, as the story progresses and Bellow takes us on Augie's flight to Mexico with Thea, where they attempt to catch Mexican lizards with a rather wussy eagle, it's as if we suddenly discover that the sports car we are driving actually has 6 gears, adding an unexpected layer of complexity and excitement.

Anyway, this is one of those remarkable books where the sentences seem to have a life of their own, almost escaping the gravitational pull of the English language. The characters are so vivid and larger than life, as big as planets, and the plot is as vast and encompassing as Eternity, or at least the Universe, or at least that part of the Universe that is visible from the vantage point of Chicago. It's a literary masterpiece that takes the reader on an unforgettable journey.

The true adventure story is one that not only takes you through a man's life and everything that happens to him, but also of his own discovery of who he is and what he wants to be in the world.

This book by Bellow is precisely that. I had only read Herzog by him a very long time ago, but I didn't understand it at all. Maybe the time wasn't right because with The Adventures of Augie March, my experience was completely different. I connected from the very first moment and loved every minute of it.

Augie insists on not leading what he calls a "disappointed life," and with that thought, his life becomes a true adventure in search of who he really wants to be. We see every character that crosses his path give cause for reflection on relationships, friendships, family, and everything that can occur when another person impacts your life.

I adored it. And I can't not mention that the fact that Mexico has a presence was also a plus, as well as the constant presence of many strong, beautiful, eccentric, sometimes annoying, and sometimes great women and men. It is totally recommended!

The Adventures of Augie March

The Adventures of Augie March, first published in 1953, is the third novel of Saul Bellow, the 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature awardee. Just a year before, he won the Pulitzer award for Humbolt's Gift. Bellow is a remarkable writer, being the only one to have won the National Book Award three times, with The Adventures of Augie March in 1954, Herzog in 1965, and Mr. Sammler's Planet in 1971.

I read Herzog last year and gave it a 4-star rating as I really liked it. This time, I spent 5 days reading The Adventures of Augie March. It's an easy read, but the plot was a bit confusing for me. There are numerous characters, and most of them are not fully developed. They often enter the story without proper introduction from Mr. Bellow, forcing me to constantly consult Sparknotes and Wikipedia to understand the characters and keep up with the story's flow.
The novel tells the story of Augie March from the age of 12 to adulthood. He grew up in a fatherless family with his mother, Rebecca, elder brother Simon, and younger brother Georgie. Simon is the brightest, while Georgie is mentally handicapped. Augie is the average middle child but doesn't show the typical middle-child syndrome as his mother has no time for her sons. The story is set in the 1930s, mainly in Chicago during the Great Depression, with other settings like Europe later. Their mother worked hard to support the three sons, and they even had a border, Grandma Lausch, who influenced the two young men with sayings like "Nobody asks you to love the whole world, only to be honest" and "Respect is better than love".
The novel is described as picaresque, a Spanish term meaning "rogue" or "rascal". It's a popular sub-genre of prose fiction, usually satirical, depicting the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class living by his wits in a corrupt society. Originating in Spain, possibly influenced by Arabic literature, it flourished in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries and still influences modern literature. That's why The Adventures of Augie March can be compared to Don Quixote and is also said to be the modern Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
The story is inspiring and plausible, with many symbolisms like Thea's eagle, showing Mr. Bellow's virtuosity. It proves that life isn't easy and we need to strive for happiness and rise against odds. However, Herzog is better with its well-developed characters and contained plot. Augie March, perhaps due to being an adventure, has more characters and a seemingly shapeless plot, which explains the 1-star lower rating.

In our lives, there are certain great lines. Any man at any moment can return to these great lines, and thinking of doing special and extraordinary things is "just a boast that distorts this ancient knowledge, older than the Euphrates and the Ganges."

Augie March, who grew up in early 20th-century Chicago, is the emblem of the restless man who - even in the face of the maturation of this awareness - evades the dictates of his own destiny, wearing other people's clothes. He walks between lines that are not his own, amalgamating, mimicking his own being, driven by an insatiable hunger for approval.

He is a domesticated eagle; a naturally wild, majestic, and brutal being reduced to a clumsy, lazy bird that prefers the meat given by hand to hunting prey, flees from the bite of lizards, and flies at the leash. He is fine where he is, in "Circe's courtyard."

A bildungsroman, even more than a coming-of-age novel; Bellow has built something great, but it comes across more as an agglomeration than a cauldron, just like his Chicago. It is rightly called a "picaresque novel" because these Adventures of Augie March are built piece by piece, but the overall vision is always rather difficult.

We can try to make a rough division: the first 11 chapters collect Augie's adolescence, growing up in the "domestic religion" of the iron-willed and eccentric grandmother Lausch (an unforgettable character), then collecting the most disparate experiences; the petty thefts in the large department stores, the dealings in the microsystem of 'word loans', boxing and billiard halls, vagrancy, and brothels.

We are at that line of Conradian memory, the feeling that "there is darkness, there is for all" and this darkness is not probed with a foot and then withdrawn calm and immaculate. There is an implicit global communion with that soiled, hungry, vagrant humanity that sucks coal under Vesuvius or in boiling Calcutta. A humanity 'cataloged' from the first cries, as in the speech of William Einhorn, Augie's paraplegic 'tutor': "The State already knows the number of delinquents and orders in advance the quantity of bread and beans for the prisons." A'statistical and prejudicial' knowledge of the poor Christs, which is reflected in the social worker Lubin: "Something in his person suggested what the community that provided the money wanted us, poor bastards, to be: sober, respectful, buttoned-up, clean, sad, moderate." All the world is a village...

The end of chapter 12 is in fact the conclusion of the First Act in the long formation of Augie; there is a "second birth", a budding, in Augie's night walk to the obstetrics department. Also here, Augie sees "not his" children, accompanies the abortion of a "not his" child; but he breaks up the household with "the assigned bride" and begins the true flight from destiny.

Augie's personal story intertwines with History; from the labor unrest of the 1920s to Lev Trotsky's exile in Mexico, until the outbreak of the Great War, History only incidentally touches him, and he distances himself from it. As his friend Manny Padilla says: "You don't keep up with the times. You go against history."

After the parenthesis of the labor unrest, in fact, Augie rediscovers the old flame Thea and reflects within himself: "Why do you head, instead of fleeing from it, towards the enormous force that threatens to break your ribs, erase your features, smash your teeth? No, stay away! Be the wise one who creeps, travels, runs, walks towards his solitary ends, accustomed to solitary effort, who is sufficient unto himself and keeps away from the fears that are the kings of this world."

And the most beautiful pages of this book begin, in the wild Mexico with the deep sky, so much so that it seems to hold "an element too strong for life, and that the flaming brilliance of the blue dissipated the threat sometimes showing from the curvature, like a sheath or a membrane of silk, the weight that it sustained." A primordial beauty that cannot but recall the mesas of Cormac McCarthy.

The episodes of the hunt with the eagle Caligula finally give emotions to the rather tired reader, because Bellow writes well but is also damn exuberant and has a prose that is at times anabolic.

Augie March, the chameleon, the "ideal recruit" who suffers from Zelig syndrome, will gather all these 'instances of life', and this patchwork of characters and situations will remain the irregular perimeter within which his infinite formation will continue. His story merges with billions of other existences, like liquid wax in a dish, the paradoxical non-protagonist of his own novel.

This was an extremely tough read, significantly different from 'Dangling Man'.

I'm rather afraid that I've delved into far too much of this sort of'struggling to grow up in arduous circumstances and seeking one's own niche on the planet'-type of material.

The progression of the story is like an overwhelming avalanche of people, places, and events.

It's incredibly difficult to assimilate, despite the fact that I did take pleasure in the portion related to William Eichorn.

Eventually, I threw in the towel after page 100.

It seems that this particular narrative style and content didn't quite resonate with me as much as I had hoped.

Maybe I'm just in need of a break from this kind of heavy and complex storyline.

However, I do appreciate the author's attempt to present a vivid and detailed picture of a challenging life journey.

Perhaps others will find more value and inspiration in this book than I did.

Mda, a powerful, abundant novel, but by far too stuffed (and at times, not very believable), and overly long.

The protagonist happens to "accidentally" meet acquaintances in the most unexpected places on the globe. The overly lofty (cultural) theories that the characters, previously described as naive, uphold in dialogue.

I am not a fan of Bellow, that's for sure. After reading four books, I cannot claim to be passionate about this great American writer.

Perhaps it's because the story seems to be trying too hard to be profound and ends up losing some of its authenticity. The constant introduction of new ideas and characters can be overwhelming at times.

However, I do recognize Bellow's talent for creating complex and vivid characters. Each one has their own unique personality and motives, which makes them interesting to follow.

Overall, while I may not be a die-hard fan, I can still appreciate the effort and skill that went into writing this novel. Maybe with more time and a different perspective, I will come to understand and enjoy Bellow's work even more.

I am an American, born in Altoona - not Chicago, but just as gloomy. At an impressionable age, I waited until the end of class, then walked up with Bellow's Seize the Day in hand and asked Professor Mitchell for a moment of his time. Mr. Mitchell, with his wispy hair and pale skin, always wearing the same blue suit, a librarian-like man, conceived before acid-free paper. I said, "The names, the names in this novel; every one is the name of a theorist in psychology. Surely that means something!" And Mr. Mitchell paused, ever so slightly, and then he pursed his lips - he gave me the Mona Lisa look, the bastard - and he said, "No. No - (almost a giggle) - No, I don't think so." And then he said, "Have you read Augie March?" "No, not yet." "You should really read Augie March!" And he actually looked happy, not triumphant, but like someone recalling a first, passionate love.

So, I did what any certified American would do: I refused to read The Adventures of Augie March for 44 years. I'd show him! But this year, in a world full of discord, I figured Mr. Mitchell had suffered enough.

Mitchell was not alone in his post-coital pleasure when thinking about Augie. Christopher Hitchens enthused in the Introduction to the edition I read. And - my copy was purchased "used" - a former owner was kind enough to have left the pages of Martin Amis' famous essay inside, in which Amis, a Brit, awards this book by Bellow, a Canadian, as "The Great American Novel."

I don't know.

There were gorgeous sentences. Like: "I had a glimpse of things from her standpoint, of how it was one thing to have a young man for your happy friend in the rosy days of love, and quite different the faulty creature to face in practical weather." And: "If wit and discontent don't necessarily go together, it wasn't from the old woman that I learned it."

And because Augie narrates his story in a self-reflective voice, the reader - well, this reader - can't help but search for something of Augie in himself. "I thought this was like me and my life - I could not find myself in love without it having some peculiarity."

Oh, it's smart, even profound. Maybe if I had read it when meekly challenged by Mr. Mitchell, I would have loved it more. But that was then and this is now. I've had many other adventures (and misadventures) since.

The world turns. It won't happen - these things don't happen to me - but I can imagine someone cradling this book and asking me, "The bald eagle? So greatly admired and, yet, when the lizard bit back, he proved a coward. It's... I mean... is it us?"

I thought so once. But that's too easy, isn't it? Have you read about my friend, the Gaviero?