Leaving the Women? Crazy!

When I started my story, I said I would be simple and respond to the blows as they came, and a man's character is also his destiny. Well, then it's obvious that this destiny, or the one he is content with, is also his character.

"First write and then delete: and this you call working." So the father Abram Bellow commented in the 1930s on his son's choice to dedicate himself to literature as a profession. A father who did not have the fortune to learn, in 1976, that his son Saul had received the Nobel Prize. Augie March is a Bellow as he would like to be, said the most ironic and prosaic singer of the Great Depression in Chicago. Within these pages dense with romantic truths are the Russian-Jewish origins, the study of the Bible, the prolonged adolescence with books and classics, the urban environment as a magical place, the charm and attraction for women, loves and betrayals, conflicts and abandonments, friendships and influences and life masters, countless work experiences and travel and formation.

As fictional characters, polemic, sarcasm, humor, skepticism make highly permeable the boundaries of the human and social scenarios that develop between word and action, between thought and fact: a school of life immoderate and disrespectful for a very intelligent schlemiel who denies nothing to himself and never denies to the other. The unfolding of events is an adventurous river in which Augie seeks the meaning of being in the world, discovering it every day in a new case, a funny episode, a strange circumstance, adventures, tests, relationships, events. He steals something from every person he meets and confronts others to refine the perception of reality, with vitality, to free in the air that curious and astute spirit that makes his odyssey circular and extraordinary. Are we not all prisoners?

"Why are human beings ready to yield to the deceptions of previous history, while simple creatures see with their own eyes?" It is a profound question that Bellow investigates with participation and discernment: the prison of the vision that others have of us and at the same time of the four walls of our being. The anguish, the guilt, the contradictions, the disillusion, the void of hopes that inhabit it in our thoughtless company. And the infinite ways to resist them, to evade them with commitment and ideal, with dreams and disillusions, utopias and challenges, success and pleasure. To reach that state of mind in which one frequents a life that is a periodic triumph (we only count when someone loves us, otherwise we are just exchange elements). In fact, we all suffer for what we are, but love is what prevents the fact of being born from being an accident or an inconvenience; and in the face of love we are doubly impotent: we cannot oppose it nor free ourselves from its consequences (love in Bellow is infinite and is adultery, is alterity, change).

A complex and multiform author, ingenious and erudite, who introduces the reader to the suffering of the economic crisis and war, experiences with a rocky face that belong to death, a frightening kidnapper that follows its steps, to be beaten like an old enemy. In the face of the shadow of things, the necessary delusion, the opposite of the finite, Bellow's heroes wake up and work to build themselves a destiny worthy of a man; they are many souls that do not stop trembling with anger in front of a destiny of little importance and with this feeling they try in every way to resist and live together, to adapt to the laws of living, fleeing the meshuggah.

On which side the author's biography has in dialectically and specularly reflecting in the tragicomic and visceral folds of the romantic events has been excellently written by scholars such as Guido Fink, Livia Manera and Franco Marcoaldi. And surely in the end the unfortunate Augie March wins, who elegantly wears the Calvinist dress, wearing which it is allowed "to become without ceasing to be, to be without ceasing to become": something that for a simple mortal sounds like an elusive secret, but that for the Canadian narrator consists naturally in being himself, continuing to write rigorously and bravely his own fortune.

"It takes a moment like this to discover how much your heart has suffered; and to understand, as if it were not enough, that during all the time you believed you were idle, a hard work was taking place. A hard, very hard work, of excavation and perforation, of mining, opening galleries like moles, raising, pushing, moving the rock, working, working, working, panting, pulling, loading. And nothing of this work is visible from the outside. It takes place internally. This happens because you are impotent and unable to reach your goal, to have justice or the agreed reward, and therefore inside you you struggle, you fight and battle, you settle accounts, you remember insults, attacks, you respond, you deny, you lie, you denounce, you triumph, you outwit, you win, you take revenge, you cry, you insist, you forgive, you die and you rise again. All alone! Where are the others? In your chest and in your blood, all of them."

According to the script of the film 'Amadeus', someone once said that Mozart's music had "too many notes." Similarly, 'Augie March' has "too many words" and "too many people." There are numerous passages that read like an entry in a thesaurus, and the novel is teeming with characters. None of them can be easily dismissed as many reappear later in Augie's life in some way. People he wishes to leave behind and places and incidents he wants to forget keep resurfacing to haunt him. The unsuspecting reader who has filed them away in the disposable short-term memory or consigned them to the recesses of the mind is forced to reread passages or rack their memory.

If I had taken Augie's attitude, I might have given up on this book and stopped reading after a couple of chapters, as he says: "I never blamed myself for throwing aside such things as didn't let themselves be read with fervour, for they left nothing with me, anyhow."

My lack of connection with the book may, of course, be partly my own fault for stretching out my reading over the course of 3 months. However, I am inclined to think that the very reason I did this was the way in which the book was written. I have to admit that I found the first part of Augie's life in Chicago rather boring. The book didn't really take off for me until Augie went to Mexico, when the style of writing became much more fluid. The Mexico episode saved the book for me, even though I felt that the old stodgy form of writing returned once Augie returned to his old haunts.

Of course, the wordiness and stream-of-consciousness style is one of the things that marks this novel as a modern novel, reminiscent of James Joyce rather than a Dickensian novel in an older tradition, though the storyline also harks back to this style of storytelling.

Yet, in some ways, I did enjoy the word-collecting sections of writing, and Bellow wrote some truly amazing sketches of his characters in one-sentence portraits. Unfortunately, the majority of the characters were unlikable. In particular, I took an intense dislike to Augie's older brother Simon, who, while keeping an eye on his younger brother, took no interest in what he really wanted to do with his life. He merely commanded him and took control, forcing him to fit into a mould that suited Simon. This remains Augie's problem throughout his life as he fits himself into how other people want him to be and lacks self-confidence.

Apparently, this is one of those novels that is a candidate for the title of 'The Great American Novel'. I don't claim to know enough about what qualifies a novel for consideration for this title, but it seems to me that the novelist must be conscious of it when writing, and I'm quite sure that Saul Bellow was. This is very consciously written in a literary style, and I can't help but think that Bellow must have been one of those irritating authors with an arrogant high opinion of himself. Why this search for 'The Great American Novel'? Does any other country feel the need to single out one novel as better than the rest? All I know is that 'The Adventures of Augie March' is not the best American novel I have ever read. I'm also slightly mystified by the comparison to 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' that I've seen in many reviews of this book. I can only imagine that it's the 'The Adventures of' part of the title that triggers the American mind, as it would never have occurred to me. I would compare it more to the novels of Dickens or Defoe's 'Moll Flanders' or perhaps to Hardy's 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles', where the main character is buffeted by the tides of fortune. However, those books and characters are more engaging. Those books are still read by choice, whereas I'm not sure that Saul Bellow is read by anyone who is not studying literature or attempting to read books from a list such as '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die'. Perhaps I am too much a product of my British heritage, but Augie March is not for me!

Nobody Makes It Through Life Alive

When I was a child, some of my classmates already had a clear vision of what they wanted to be. They moved forward in a straight line towards their goals. However, I never knew what I wanted to do. I liked studying, but I had no idea about my future. I just drifted along and climbed into any boats that came within my reach.

Augie March, a young Chicagoan from a broken home, also drifts with the tides during the period 1927 - 1947. He engages in various activities such as smuggling illegal immigrants, stealing books, traveling to Mexico, trying to train an eagle to catch iguanas, and playing poker. After having several experiences with women, both good and bad, he joins the Merchant Marine during World War II, gets married to a would-be actress, and survives a ship torpedoing. When we last see Augie, he is involved in illegal business deals in Europe. It's not clear if he has ever made a truly conscious decision.

Bellow's novel, THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH, is filled with humor, philosophy, and insights on life. For example, on page 305, he writes, "But I had the idea also that you don't take so wide a stand that it makes a human life impossible, nor try to bring together irreconcilables that destroy you, but try out what of human you can live with first."

The novel is like an almost endless literary parade of portraits, featuring weird and wonderful characters from all walks of life. It's a pilgrimage back in time to another America, another age - perhaps more innocent in some ways, but not as smooth or well-rounded. It's a thrusting, struggling America where raw money power determines so much.

Although the book could have been shortened a bit as 617 pages is rather long, Bellow's novel will remain a classic of American and world fiction for two reasons. First, human nature hardly changes. Many of the people around Augie March are universal characters, found everywhere and at all times. Their motives are complex, their behavior sometimes inexplicable, but always within the realm of "human." They strive, succeed, fail, give up, and never remain the same. Life reshapes them.

The second reason, and the one that makes me give this book five stars, is the language. Hemingway and Fitzgerald wrote clearly and simply. Hawthorne and Melville's prose was very ornate and stylistic. Faulkner... well, yes, Faulkner. But Bellow's prose reminds me of a Persian carpet - colorful, ornate, and full of useless little frills that add richness to the text. Some examples that I liked (and the novel is full of them) are on page 156: "For there was his stability in the green leather seat, plus his unshaking, high-placed knees beside the jade onion of the gear knob, his hands trimmed with sandy hairs on the wheel, the hypersmoothness of the motor that made you feel deceived in the speedometer that stood at eighty." And on page 205 about the ancient Greeks: "But still they are the admiration of the rest of the mud-sprung, famine-knifed, street-pounding, war-rattled, difficult, painstaking, kicked in the belly, grief and cartilage mankind, the multitude, some under a coal-sucking Vesuvius of chaos smoke, some inside a heaving Calcutta midnight, who very well know where they are."

Wow! If you love writing like this and want a rich feast of language, Bellow is your author and this is your novel.

I once had the opportunity to visit Italy, specifically Siena. The cathedral there was truly a sight to behold. It was built in the 14th century by popes who seemed to have a penchant for extravagance and a lot of money.

To be honest, it was quite impressive. You could sense that those popes had aspirations of being like Alexander McQueen, but unfortunately, they were about 6 centuries too early.

Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with Augie March, a character from a mid-20th century Chicago novel. Well, as I tiptoed out of the cathedral and put down the book, I was left with the same sour and sore feeling.

I was exhausted. Both the cathedral and the book were just too overwhelming. They lacked any sense of subtlety. It was as if they were shouting at me, in my face.

Augie March is, of course, a brilliant piece of literature. However, it felt like the author was force-feeding the poor reader with an excessive amount of details.

The vocabulary was extremely high, and every single aspect of Augie's life was laid out on the page. It was like being trapped on an endless train journey with a bore who couldn't stop talking and didn't know when to shut up.

But at the same time, there were some truly great paragraphs and sentences that deserved to be immortalized on a wall.

Overall, I'm left with a bit of a conundrum. I know this is a five-star book, but for me, as a one-star reader, I just couldn't give it a rating. I'll have to make a mental note to try it again in my next life.

Maybe then, with a different perspective, I'll be able to fully appreciate its brilliance.

It was my great intention to return to reading Saul Bellow after reading Seize the Day back in 2015. I found Seize the Day to be just okay, but it introduced me to a different, yet thought-provoking writer in Bellow. I can clearly see where Bellow gained his great acclaim and how, from the Jewish perspective, he has earned his place as the author of several modern classics. What attracted me to The Adventures of Augie March was its status as once being considered "The Great American Novel" and how it was the novel that made Bellow a great American writer (Dangling Man and The Victim preceded this one, in that order). I was definitely drawn in by Augie March's story and how he became the person he is. However, this was a great challenge to get through.

If you are looking for a novel that you can approach critically, dissect like an earthworm in a biology class, or think about the elements of realism and naturalism, this is certainly for you. But if you want a casual read, this is not the novel for you.

Augie March is a young man growing up in southern Chicago with his older brother, Simon, who is frequently doted on, highly acclaimed, and seen as the model of what Augie should be. His younger brother, George, is mentally challenged. His Grandma Lausch is the matriarch of the household and clearly asserts her presence with a gruff, cold demeanor. And his mother, often called "Mama," whose role became reduced to a servant-like one when her husband and Augie, Simon, and George's father left the house. Augie grows up not standing out in school, working different jobs like tending to rich men, engaging in suspicious and often illegal activities in hopes of getting ahead, having relationships, one of which took him to Mexico, and experiencing everything else that comes with growing up the American way.

Augie tells his story through the events and happenings of other people and says very little directly about himself. At the beginning of Chapter 4 in a book of 26 chapters, Augie claims that, "All of the influences were lined up waiting for me. I was born, and there they were to form me, which is why I tell you more of them than of myself." Augie gets at the idea that in almost every case, we are who we reflect and our reputation is developed by how others perceive us. This novel explores so many elements that are sure to make you think about the story at hand and about the way we see our lives and all of humanity.

Why only three stars? As I mentioned above, I struggled my way through this one and was unable to absorb more than sixty pages at a time, and that was on a good day. While Augie's adventures could definitely raise eyebrows and I feel we have to respect that Augie was seeking to live his life the way he wanted and not in the cookie-cutter mold that society expects from him, he is not the most likable individual. There are so many characters in this story that we come across who are meant to play an important role, but it is so easy to lose track of them. Their conclusions are very brief, and while a critical perspective could be taken on this regarding the conclusions we have of people in life, those that come to conclusions such as death are jumped to and then brushed away.

I cannot stand to annotate in any of my books and unless it is text that I print from a computer or an assigned one to write in for a grade, I will never engage in this practice. However, if there was a work that I would have annotated, this would have been the one. This novel needs a close reading, which I may need to consider in the future, and which will at least require note-taking of the text. This novel needs to be read critically and not casually, but even still, I think the story itself and the strength of the characters in general was okay. If there were fewer characters or major characters with greater depth, I would say it would have helped the novel. While this was a thought-provoking work, it was also a cluttered one.

I am definitely planning to pick up Bellow again. Perhaps I will start from the beginning and read Dangling Man or read another highly regarded work of his like Herzog. We will just have to see.

You can find my video review (which is also spoiler free) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQOQk...

I'm truly intrigued by the initial premise of this story. We have a simple mom and her kids, one of whom is an idiot, living in their home with a boarder. That boarder is an old woman who, along with her little dog, seems to run the place. However, as I delved deeper into the book, I found myself becoming increasingly impatient.

By page twenty-four, we were still getting to know the characters in extremely great detail. The writing style has its cool aspects, but it's really wordy. It's not easily skimmable, which is a real problem for me as I can't read fast and understand the meaning as I usually do. In fact, I didn't even realize that the old lady living with them was Grandma Lausch. When the author said "Grandma," I was like, "Who's Grandma?" and had to go back and look.

The sentences are filled with so much detail that they become almost unmanageable. For example, "I was sitting up in front, in the feather-trailed air, with the old lady, who was dressed up in dark silk and multiply wound gold chains with the heart of a locket that one of her teething children had dented; she was narrow-nosed with pride, and distinguished, in a kind of fury of silent trying, from the other immigrant relatives." This sentence is a perfect example of my quandary.

Another sentence that I found overly complex was "At last he answered me coldly, with a cold lick of fire in his eyes, on the stationary wintriness of the black steel harness of the bridge over the dragging unnamable mixture of the river flowing backwards with its waste." To my taste, it would have been better to end it after "a cold lick of fire in his eyes." The additional description about the river just seemed to muddy the waters.

On the other hand, there were some great moments in the book. For instance, "She shook the crabbed unit of her hand at me... 'Remember when I am in my grave, Augie, when I will be dead!' And the falling hand landed on my arm; it was accidental, but the effect was frightful, for I yelled as if this tap had tenfold hit my soul." This part made me laugh out loud.

However, overall, I was just so tired of constantly learning about new characters every other page. They were introduced with long sentences filled with inflammatory adjectives and phrases, only to be quickly moved on from a few pages later. By page 40, I was already asking "Who's Jimmy?"

So, in the end, I decided to quit this book. There was no point in continuing to struggle. I went to Book Club delinquent, having not finished the book. I had wanted to read it so I could watch the movie with my family, but I just couldn't get through it.

Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March is a remarkable work that can be seen in multiple lights.

It is either his most verbose novel, a fictional piece that almost serves as an historical document of Chicago during the Great Depression, or one of the finest contemporary examples of the picaresque novel. In any case, it has its pros and cons, being both lovely and sprawling, and a testament to Bellow's fascination with the life that emerged from Chicago in the fifties.

The protagonist, Augie, is a tramp, the archetypal schlemil, drifting through life, trying to please his family while also basically enjoying himself. Bellow's portrayal of this character is at times painful to read and yet ridiculously sympathetic. Here, the term "character" should be emphasized as Augie exemplifies what seems lost or perhaps completely absent from the post-war fiction that followed novels like Augie March and The Recognitions. He is a man who, in contrast to his seemingly more level-headed brother Simon, can't seem to succeed or simply doesn't want to. It's not that Augie is necessarily precocious or street clever, but rather that his concept of the American dream is so freewheeling and experimental that he can't commit to one thing.

Throughout the story, we follow Augie as he first earnestly and then listlessly pursues a series of jobs that never offer a sense of fulfillment. He is often shamed by his grandmother, who usurps the role of his feeble mother, to the point where his connection with his family becomes a restraint, holding him back from doing what he wants in life. This existential paradox, set within the historical context of depression-era Chicago, is what gives life to this picaresque tale of self-discovery and struggle. However, the reader has to wonder where these questions will lead in understanding Bellow's commentary on the aimless nature of Augie's time and place.

Augie March is undoubtedly Bellow's longest and most stylistically liberal work of fiction. Its page count alone outweighs the rest of his novels, and its style is more beat-language oriented than anything else he's written. The excessive length of his prose, the clearly subjective tone, and the ostensibly autobiographical essence of the story all have a serious impact on this wonderful book. While Augie is endearing, the narrative that Bellow draws out to an almost irrelevant degree is less appealing. This is because, in many ways, Bellow sounds redundant in narrating Augie's failures and successes. For a novel full of adventurous vignettes, some seem less important than others. And towards the end, the reader can clearly see the heavy-handed emphasis on Augie's inability to adapt to the real world. He is most certainly a Quixotic type character, and it's unlikely that Bellow had Cervantes in mind when creating Augie March. But length has never been a detriment to an intentional narrative. Bellow's intentions are successful and are sometimes conveyed in the most beautiful ways, but overall the story is basically indulgent, taking its time with passages that overstay their welcome.

And yet, we still appreciate Augie because he is destined to fail. Maybe failure is an inappropriate assessment of him. Perhaps it's the blind romanticism that was unavoidable for a character of his individuality and charisma. More importantly, maybe it's just his nature to choose a path that, while exciting and full of life, inevitably leads him down roads that don't promise much of a future beyond tomorrow or the next day. Whatever it is about this man, and even if Bellow goes to great lengths to explain who Augie is, there's something about him that is an exemplary version of the American spirit and our shared concept of individual freedom. We'd all be sore losers to say that it's unfeasible for us to see some static expression of hope and possibility in Augie March that we don't see in ourselves.

A force of nature, "Augie March" is a remarkable work that has left an indelible mark on my mind. The numerous characters, such as Grandma Lausch, Einhorn, Thea, Stella, Mintouchian, and Simon, are etched firmly in my consciousness, providing me with the strongest pleasure. The vivid portrayal of the Depression-era, mainly Jewish Chicago, is also captivating, ranging from Mimi's medical trauma to the unending struggle for material success.

The writing in "Augie March" is often beautiful, despite Bellow's relentless use of classical references. However, one cannot ignore the fact that the book is too long. A well-edited version, perhaps half the length, would have been much greater. It goes without saying that every great American novelist, whether American or not, needs a great editor to refine and polish their work.

Hey, if this guy is an American, then I'm a Kenyan.

That motherfucker knew NOTHING about Chicago, not the way I do!

I can tell you about every single inch of Chicago. I can describe it to you with my eyes closed.

It's such a beautiful city. You know that Trump Tower they have down there?

You should really visit it. It's extremely beautiful and very luxurious.

If this guy knew anything at all about Chicago, why on earth didn't he write about THAT?

SKIP!

It took me nearly forty years to read “Augie March.” I purchased the book in the late '70s. The cover price was $1.95, and the cover art was reminiscent of Harold Robbins.

Shortly after Bellow won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and after years of hearing my father (also named Saul, a first-generation American Jew and roughly Bellow's contemporary) rave about the book, I bought it. (It was also years before Bellow became a curmudgeonly conservative, but that's another story.)

The book sat on various shelves over the years, and later my father's earlier edition (cover price $.95 and thankfully without the art) joined it.

While I became familiar with virtually all of Bellow's fictional characters – Henderson, Herzog, Sammler, Charlie Citrine, Ravelstein, and more – over the years, I never got around to reading Augie until now.

Bellow, in 1953, announced his presence and ambition with the opening lines: “I am an American, Chicago born--Chicago, that somber city--and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.”

Augie March grows up fatherless in grinding poverty in “that somber city” but sees only boundless possibilities. He believes he can be whatever he chooses if he can figure out his purpose. All of Chicago, and by extension, the whole world, is his. He experiences everything from dingy rooming houses and pool halls to opulent homes and rich, beautiful women. He tries his hand at multiple enterprises, some legal and many hilarious, while also struggling to educate himself (always reading) and pondering the great philosophical questions.

The novel is episodic rather than plot-driven. Augie's adventures include hustling textbooks, babysitting a seasick prizefighter, training an eagle to hunt lizards in Mexico, and drifting at sea in a lifeboat with a madman. He is drawn into the schemes of friends, mentors, and lovers, but he is always ready to move on, always seeking his true calling.

“The Adventures of Augie March” was the Great American Novel of its time and perhaps of ours as well. With his exuberance, optimism, and passion for a well-lived and thoughtful life, Augie is a hero for all time.

This picaresque novel about Chicago-Born Augie March is truly a remarkable work.

It takes us on a journey from his youth in the vibrant city of Chicago all the way to his seemingly-doomed marriage. The language used in the novel is rich and vivid, bringing the characters, episodes, and ideas to life.

While I cannot wholeheartedly claim that it is a "great" book in the traditional sense, there are indeed numerous bits of greatness scattered throughout. Given the current banal literary landscape, it is almost impossible not to award it a five-star rating.

However, "Augie" is not without its flaws. For this particular reader, after one reading, it becomes evident that considering the vast time span it encompasses, the novel is perhaps a bit overlong and overstuffed with an abundance of characters, incidents, and philosophies.

The latter often seem to spill out from the lips of unlikely philosophers, making it a bit overwhelming at times. Moreover, its innumerable artistic, historical, and philosophical references, in my humble opinion, will likely escape all but the most erudite historian or philosopher.

But perhaps the most troubling aspect is Bellow's style. Although his phrasing is rich and varied, too often the numerous characters who inhabit Augie's world descend into philosophic discussions using syntax, slang, and imprecise expressions that tend to obscure rather than clarify their intended messages.

Nonetheless, despite its length (a hefty 585 pages), it is a rich and rewarding journey that is well worth the effort.

I had high expectations for the highly publicized "great American novel." Truly huge. 860 pages. Although Pynchon, and surely some of his compatriots, have written even larger works. That's about the size.

As for the content, I managed to struggle through 200 pages and saw that the pattern hadn't changed at all, so I decided to give up on this great American novel.

Out of curiosity, I flipped through the first 100 pages and counted 60 people, 60 characters that the author describes in rather verbose terms. On 800 pages, I can't imagine how many more there could be.

That's it.