An American Ulysses is a remarkable work that truly captivated me.

It is a story that is both tangential and indulgent, taking the reader on a meandering journey through the life of its protagonist.

The author's writing style is engaging and immersive, allowing the reader to become fully invested in the characters and their experiences.

Despite its somewhat unconventional structure, the book manages to convey a powerful message about the human condition and the search for meaning in life.

I found myself constantly turning the pages, eager to see what would happen next and how the story would ultimately unfold.

In conclusion, An American Ulysses is a must-read for anyone who enjoys a thought-provoking and engaging novel.

It is a work that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it, leaving you with a new perspective on life and the world around you.

Introduction: The Great American Augie, by Christopher Hitchens


--The Adventures of Augie March

Augie March is a remarkable character who embarks on a series of adventures that shape his life and perspective. In this novel, we are introduced to Augie as he navigates the complex and often chaotic world around him.

His story is one of growth, self-discovery, and the search for meaning in a rapidly changing society. As he moves from one situation to another, Augie encounters a diverse cast of characters, each with their own motives and desires.

Through his experiences, Augie learns valuable lessons about human nature, love, and the importance of following one's own path. The Adventures of Augie March is a rich and engaging read that offers a unique glimpse into the American experience.

Whether you are a fan of classic literature or simply looking for a captivating story, this novel is sure to satisfy. So, join Augie on his journey and discover the many joys and challenges that await him.

This is the book that I find myself constantly rereading. It is none other than Moby Dick, which is like the Odyssey of the literary world. It's also like Webster's Dictionary, filled with a wealth of knowledge and words. Then there's Huck Finn, adding another layer of charm. It represents the present absence of religion, yet it's like snake oil in a champagne glass, something mysterious and alluring.

It's a room crowded with every American archetype, and a few new ones have been thrown in for good measure. There's a ravenous eagle, symbolizing power and hunger. The dirty swirls of snow in formerly clean entranceways add a touch of chaos and change. The sentences are perfect and winding, brimming with so many big ideas that they seem on the verge of splitting apart, but miraculously, they never do.

It's like a carnival inside a circus inside Don Quixote, a perfectly imagined world that moves with the energy of Tchaikovsky on a bender. It's also like a conversation between a professor and a thief, full of contrasts and surprises. And it's like people anxiously breathing, creating a sense of anticipation and excitement. It's the answer to every question every reader hadn't thought to ask until they were asked and answered for them. And yet, it answers to no one and doesn't give a sh-t, making it truly unique and unapologetic.

I had come into a place devoid of all light, that bellows as the sea does in a tempest, if it be combated by opposing winds. The infernal hurricane that never rests carries along these souls.

Dante, in his Divine Comedy Volume 1: Hell,描绘了这样一个黑暗的场景。

“We have to think of them as forever bailing, forever setting and hauling, while the North East lowers over shallow banks, unchanging and erosionless.” Eliot's words in The Dry Salvages also paint a picture of a ceaseless struggle.

No matter how great our liking for the ingenuous grifter Augie March, we cannot help thinking of him as “forever bailing, forever setting and hauling” interminably, through the windy streets of Depression-era Chicago.

While on higher social echelons far above him - his patron and his peers, more devious souls - roll restlessly upon their narrowing fate “as the sea does in a tempest.”

No fit life for man or beast. But Augie is undeterred. His huge heart beats out a hopeful beat that is in perfect accord with the dreams of the most innocent ingenue.

But perceived consciously - and yet somehow unbeknownst to his hopeful heart - the sulfurous fires of Hell's acid flames within its Second Circle rage without ceasing, all around him.

He remains untouched. And, as the novel is a Bildingsroman, his character is as yet unformed. He goes through life unresisting, "a turtle on the wave" to echo Coleridge, but pure of heart.

But oh, as the book progresses the challenges rise up to beat back his optimistic joie de vivre! But they never hit home within his resonant heart.

He has a resident guardian Angel that never leaves him. So he backs calmly away from every act of aggression. Unruffled, he steps through the encircling fire.

Augie goes through life purely intuitively. He has no clue where it is taking him.

But look at his jaded mentor, Einhorn - a brilliant quadriplegic who in the political world is a mover and a shaker, and plots each of his dark moves for personal gain - but is essential to the story as a dull foil to Augie's undying candle.

Einhorn, in his wealth, is a dark thinker. Augie feels his way lightly out of a quandary, though, and Einhorn justly calls him an Alcibiades, the statesman who survived doomed Greece.

Augie goes with the flow and always knows which side is up.

And all around him, his friends and relatives burn in anguish - even Einhorn is often trapped within the convoluted nefarious folds of his mind - but Augie is unscathed throughout.

When I was thirty, I became a believer. The upper story of the house of my self became well-lit, airy and roomy. The lower story remained gloomy and melancholy. What had happened?

Simple. I was now ecstatically bipolar and no longer, thank God, only a thwarted angry Aspie. But I still had a black, ugly basement! So in my senior years, my bipolar condition now in strict remission, I resumed my underground life and recognized myself in it as I always had been.

Same with Einhorn. His palatial penthouse of urbane wit is constructed over a room fulla doom 'n gloom. He's deeply depressive at heart. And he burns in bale and smothers in smoke. His glass, like mine, is half empty.

And me? I won't be happy till the Second Coming.

But not so Augie!

He is Whole and Happy. He can face the Music with a smile.

And he always returns the ascending elevator to Einhorn and his many friends.

While the other characters have abandoned hope, for Augie hope is the one thing that springs eternal.

And his love and hope will always, invariably lead him Home to Happiness!

Well, this particular book really set my reading progress back by a couple of months.

Every now and then, I find myself having to take on something like this to remind myself precisely why I prefer to stick to non-fiction as much as possible. However, this book was on the highly esteemed list of the 1001 books you must read before you pass away. So, I thought I would give it a try.

To be honest, I really hated it. I feel a bit guilty admitting that, and perhaps a little bit stupid considering how many people have rated it so highly. Saul Bellow is indeed a good writer when he isn't confusing you with some rather clumsy sentence structures. The problem I had was that Augie March is probably the most uninteresting protagonist to ever appear in the pages of a novel. He never does anything out of his own volition, always acting at someone else's invitation and using someone else's money.

So, you might wonder why I gave this book four stars when I didn't really care for it. Well, aside from the issues with character development and the baffling sentence structure, Bellow does manage to write a somewhat engaging book. There are certain aspects of his writing that are still值得欣赏.

Adventures of Augie March

In a mammoth work that stretches over six hundred pages, the Nobel laureate Saul Bellow takes us to America in the early 20th century with his protagonist (Augie March), who in his personality and characteristics resembles millions of people. Augie is a man involved in the projects of others, having no personal project of his own. He has no clear vision for his life or what he can do. Therefore, he finds himself each time part of someone else's project, and each time this ends badly. Even Augie himself, in a moment of crucial enlightenment at the end of the novel, discovers this:

"I trembled and was seized by a shout... because I had felt again that sign under which I was born, to be an adherent, a component part in someone else's plan."

And Augie is not alone in this. The earth abounds with all those who are involved in large or small projects. Perhaps it is that comfortable feeling when a person refrains from asking himself the big questions and leaves others to lead him and determine the truths about him. Perhaps it is also a way to shift the blame to others when things do not go as they should.

We are all involved in one way or another, politically, economically, socially, and culturally, whether we are aware of it or not. And what some of us do is an attempt to resist involvement in one of these projects in one way or another.

There is no great plot in (Adventures of Augie March). The great story is Augie and his relationships, his dictatorial father, his poor mother, his beloved brother George, and his other brother Simon, who tries to succeed and escape the power of the family. His relationships also with people and women, the strange projects he undertakes, from training dogs to stealing books and hunting jaguars in Mexico by a condor.

This is a novel that I will not forget. It is engraved in my memory along with the great American novels that have presented me with strange and distinctive characters like (Stoner) by (John Williams) and (The Sot-Weed Factor) by (John Barth).

I am an American; born in Chicago - Chicago, that dirty city - and I deal with things as I have taught myself, in a free style, and I will go my own way: the one who enters first knocks on the door first; sometimes a clean knock, and often an unclean one at other times. But a person's personality is his ability... thus says Heraclitus.

Augie March, a restless, stubborn and rebellious child, not discouraged by the difficulties around him, lives with two brothers who sell newspapers. He fails to sell newspapers on the trains, and also fails to become a businessman like his brothers later. Young children in a fatherless, impoverished family, protected only by two weak women who cannot continue to protect them from hunger, sorrow, crime and the vices of a city that destroys human innocence and crushes it. He lives in America and its upheavals in the forties of the last century, where the torn life, the turmoil, the confusion and the sense of unease that a person feels after World War II. Where a state of violence, conflicts and social, moral, political, ideological and economic contradictions prevailed. "This city is a place where a person can go out and walk for a peaceful stroll, and return home with a bruised eye or a bloody nose. And it is quite possible that the reason for this is a thug like it is possible that it is a husband from the fools who do not have a few dollars for a prostitute on the way at night, so they huddle and plot to attack someone. You know that the policemen do not live on their official salaries now... not all that money that they can seize. There is not a single car smuggling alcohol that can travel a mile without a police car following it. And this makes them not care about what they do. I hear from people that they sometimes almost kill people who do not know the English language enough to answer their questions."

"The true reality of a person comes from his ability to weave the story of his life by himself."

In his attempt to escape from the great economic crisis that hit the American and global economy at that time, to start a comprehensive geographical journey inside America, seeking his place in life with hesitant steps, moving between one job and another, and one relationship and another, searching not only for a livelihood or love, but also for the meaning of the American dream and his identity as a young man living between the boundaries of conflicting cultures and mentalities and different ways of life, adhering to his principles and ideas that stem from his conscience and his overly sensitive nature and his ideal vision of life; he finds freedom for the confusion resulting from the contradiction between the reality full of tricks, fraud and exploitation, and the values on which he was raised and adopted since childhood from his environment and his readings. "This is the great age of cheap love... this is the time of the new man! This is not for the poor, dark, distorted creatures, full of lies, lying since birth, which poverty tortures, which emits a smell of cowardice and meanness, which jealousy inhabits, and envy inhabits it deeper than the baseness of beggars, which has no feelings that exceed the feelings of the downtrodden, which looks at beauty with the eyes of vultures and at duty with the eyes of donkeys, which is not occupied with anything but its mouth! Creatures that do not have tears to shed, nor souls to even laugh... creatures of a base nature... childish, deceitful, corrupt, anxious, lazy..."

Despite his enjoyment of intelligence, culture and the ability to play with words, Augie finds himself involved in the projects of others, without having a project of his own, not even having a clear vision of his life or what he can do. He finds himself each time part of someone else's project, and each time this ends badly, until one day he is struck by deafness. "I won and deafness struck me... because I again received that sign under which I was born, to be a follower, a subordinate element within someone's plan." He is the one who again refused to have his destiny determined by someone else. "I have never accepted in my life that my destiny be predetermined, and I will not become what others want me to be. I said 'no' to Gypsy Gorham as well. And I said it to my grandmother, and to Jimmy, and to many people."

"I do not try to prove anything, I do not try to prove anything ever! Every person I met was trying to show in some way how he understands the whole world. This only comes as a result of your feeling of the effort needed to understand yourself. But you exaggerate it and make it include the whole world as a result of the intensity of the effort you make. But the matter does not require all this effort. Or at least it is not allowed to require it. You are not responsible for this world! The world exists without you! Therefore, I do not want to be a representative or a leader or anything higher for my generation, nor do I want to be a model for humanity. I only want something for myself, I only want to reflect on myself. This is what makes me raise my voice now, I want a place for myself! And if this place is in a snowy mountain in Greenland, then I will go to Greenland, and I will not raise myself for a second to be part of anyone's plan."

Augie March is a true example of a person who lives on the margins of society and feels his confusion about the surrounding world. He finds himself suspended between his personal abilities that are unable to achieve his ambitions and the pressure that society exerts on him by considering him a marginal person. He is a striking example of the torn, confused, lost and uneasy feeling that a person feels in our modern consumerist life, which leads to the emptying of a person of his essence and turning him into just a cog in a powerful machine, and whoever tries to get out of it is thrown and wanders! And in the end, "I said when I started writing these memoirs that I would be simple and that I would accept blows when they come to me. I also said that a person's personality is his ability. Well, it is clear after this that a person's ability, or what he stands on, is also his personality." #loved

Augie March is a young man from Chicago who graduated from high school in the late 1920s. He then had to hustle a living through the difficult times of the 1930s depression. His adventures didn't stop there. They continued all the way to the end of WWII. During this time, he spent time in various places such as Mexico, New York, in the Merchant Marine, on a raft in the Atlantic, and finally in Paris.

Augie's life was incredibly diverse. He moved from one job to another, which is quite remarkable considering the economic hardships of the Great Depression. He also had many different relationships, both with women and employers, many of whom were wealthy. As if that wasn't enough, he constantly changed his location, eventually making his way to Mexico and Paris.

Augie himself narrates the story in the first person. He provides excruciatingly detailed descriptions of people and places. Interestingly, he describes everyone else but himself. What we learn about him comes through the events and the people who have an influence on him. In fact, Augie tells the reader that this is his intention.

An elderly boarder in his family's home once described him as being easy to manipulate, and the subsequent story seems to confirm this. Despite this, Augie has great success with young women and is able to win the confidence of rich people. In fact, one couple even offered to adopt him. This indicates that he must have a combination of charisma and good looks. We also know that he has an extensive vocabulary, as evidenced by the countless words he uses to describe his adventures, which fill up six hundred pages (or 22 hours of audio).

Of course, we know that these words are actually the work of the author, Saul Bellow. Since Bellow is also from Chicago and around the same age as Augie, it's natural to wonder how much of the story is autobiographical. The writing skills on display in this book are truly impressive.

The story itself doesn't seem to have a clear arc of achievement. Augie simply grows older, gets married, and ends up in the export/import business in post-war Europe. Along the way, the story reads more like a random joy ride, with no particular direction. The end of the book doesn't have a traditional conclusion. It's almost as if the publisher suddenly took the manuscript away from the author and said, "No more words!"

The title of Saul Bellow's "The Adventures of Augie March" brings to mind "Huckleberry Finn," and the voice that tells the story, like the one Mark Twain created for Huck, is full of the energy of speech. From the very beginning, Augie March grabs our attention and doesn't let go. He is an ever-restless hero who roams from Chicago to Mexico and on to postwar Europe, taunting himself along the way. At the end of the story, he is still searching for the right thing to do and a fate that is good enough. It truly sounds like an American story in every sense of the word.

4.5/5

\\n  In the end you can't save your soul and life by thought. But if you think, the least of the consolation prizes is the world.\\n

I am an American, yet not born in Chicago. I am neither male nor from the generation that grew up in the roaring twenties and came of age shortly after the crash. My life, and more significantly my perspective on it, would have been vastly different from what it is now. I think, however, they might have resembled Augie's, on an axis towards the unknown that is neither certain to exist nor desirable in its existence.

What I cherish above all is a sense of justified living, a measure of verifiable existence that is not more restricted than what the soul can endure. By soul, I assume I mean mind, but in this era, that word is as ambiguous and unreliable as its theological predecessor, albeit with less inherent value in its connotations. Moreover, the soul is more easily imagined as something that can be acted upon, strung along wires and ripped out of the body, as recounted in ancient texts and popular fiction. You can lose your mind, as the saying goes, but not everyone can step back and observe the chattering box of their ego, superego, and id. They think they can, but it's one thing to observe the effects of ideologies on others and a much more complex and unpleasant process to disconnect the self and measure the personality. For where are the boundaries, the limits, the safety nets, and signposts? So I will adhere to the word soul and utilize its enhanced flexibility.

Augie can perceive these effects, whether due to his extensive life experience or the scraps of formal education he has managed to accumulate. He lacks the words to describe what he is seeing, the driving force of civilization on the individual, the socioeconomic machine grinding the niches and slotting the personas, piece by piece, human being by human being. But he can sense them. It is true that he is highly susceptible to being carried away by forces of personality, those who have wound themselves so tightly into their respective positions that they twist all the smaller beings around them into a tight cyclone of centralized activity. The difference with Augie is that when he approaches the center, he does not get stuck in the cogs and crevices. Instead, he lets go, and the centripetal acceleration carries him far away, until he is caught up by yet another great typhoon and loses himself in the whirling midst.

Is that considered failure? To witness what happens to those who'specialize' in the grand scheme of things and be frightened by it? To experience the failure of something that was once of the utmost certainty and forever shy away from the best-laid plans of mice and men? To live, to learn, to love, and have every path lead to a nonexistent final solution, falsely promising a conclusive fate?

The world is not ready for the Augies. The world is not ready for a rambling persona with little sophistication but great empathetic intelligence, someone sensitive to the delicate meters of the psyche and obstinate in the defense of their soul. Someone who cannot put into words the ever-shifting balance of relief and discontent with their existence, seemingly carried on the backs of others while actually pulling against an ever-strengthening tide. Someone who rides the rails into a jail cell, names an eagle Caligula, forsakes the steady career at every turn, and quotes Plato during their mental crises. A never-do-well and good-hearted philosopher, welcomed into homes while constantly searching for their own, who cannot describe their desire to others in a society-sanctioned manner but feels the constant pull of it on their soul.

\\n  I headed downtown right away. It was still early in the evening, glittering with electric, with ice; and trembling in the factories, those nearly all windows, over the prairies that had returned over demolitions with winter grass pricking the snow and thrashed and frozen together into beards by the wind. The cold simmer of the lake also, blue; the steady skating of rails too, down to the dark.\\n

Down into the dark, down into the laden senses, conveyed in a romantic style among the concrete jungle, a precious mental note of beauty amidst the tough old exteriors of cold and grit. There's no saving here. There's the thought. And, therein, lies the world.

The Adventures of Mimi Villars, now that's what I really wanted to read. It sounds like an exciting and engaging story that would take me on a thrilling journey. I can't wait to dive into the pages and discover the world that Mimi Villars inhabits.

The title alone gives me a sense of adventure and mystery. I wonder what kind of adventures Mimi will have, what challenges she will face, and how she will overcome them.

I'm also curious about the character of Mimi Villars herself. What is she like? Is she brave and bold, or perhaps a bit shy and reserved?

I'm sure that this book will be filled with interesting characters, exciting plot twists, and beautiful descriptions. I can't wait to start reading and find out for myself.

Video review

Bellow's third novel, which is what most people think of when he truly discovered his unique writing style and did so in a remarkable way, is a strong contender for the title of "the great American novel".

The Adventures of Augie March is a substantial, richly detailed, unrestrained, and slightly rough-around-the-edges masterpiece. The characters are incredibly memorable and distinct. I find Bellow's novels to be very clear, in the sense that I can recall many of the characters down to the tiniest details.

This was an exhausting read, yet it is definitely among the best books I've read this year. It takes the reader on a wild and wonderful journey through the life of Augie March, filled with vivid descriptions and engaging storylines. Bellow's writing is so powerful and evocative that it makes the reader feel as if they are right there with Augie, experiencing all of his joys and sorrows.

Overall, The Adventures of Augie March is a must-read for anyone who loves great literature.

This story commences in Chicago and is predominantly set during the 1920s, the Great Depression, and World War II. It serves as a coming-of-age narrative for the eponymous Augie. We are introduced to his family, which includes his pragmatic elder brother, Simon, his slow brother, George, and his overbearing grandmother. Augie drifts through life, ignorant of what he values or desires. He enters into numerous relationships, hops from one job to another, and engages in a series of escapades, mostly at the behest of his current relationship.

This picaresque book has been lauded as a contender for the “Great American Novel.” It is a must-read according to the Boxall List. However, perhaps my expectations were overly high, as I do not believe it has endured well. I appreciate certain aspects of it, particularly Augie’s adventures in Mexico. Nevertheless, the story feels outdated, especially in its portrayal of women. Published in 1953, it may be representative of its era, but young women are described by their physical attributes, and older women are characterized as shrewish. It was challenging for me to overlook these sections. The book is lengthy and detailed, meandering at times. The writing is competent, yet reading it seemed more like a chore than a pleasure.