«Io vado alla ricerca della realtà con il linguaggio. Forse vorrei cambiarla tutta in linguaggio».

Nevrotico, tortuoso, ribollente, verboso, magmatico.
Un viaggio interiore - altalenante tra angoscia ed ironia, tra narcisismo e autolesionismo, tra razionalità e farneticazione - per risalire la china dal baratro più profondo dello squallore, della solitudine, del fallimento di una intera esistenza. Di intellettuale, marito, figlio, amico, padre e individuo.
L'indagine e le argomentazioni sulle personali disavventure di Moses Herzog si dilatano ad ogni aspetto della realtà sociale, politica, religiosa, etica, esistenziale, attraverso una serie infinita di lettere - mai spedite - indirizzate ad amici, famigliari, conoscenti e personaggi celebri, viventi o scomparsi da tempo. Perché il linguaggio è per Herzog l'unico strumento idoneo a penetrare la realtà delle cose e il senso stesso della vita.
Romanzo di idee, quindi, più che di avvenimenti. Anche se l'intera vicenda che ha originato la crisi viene progressivamente rivelata attraverso una serie di flashback, situazioni, caratterizzazioni e dialoghi di volta in volta drammatici, intensi, assurdi, burleschi.
Così Moses, armato della sola forza della parola, compie il suo viaggio attraverso il Mar Rosso della depressione che rasenta la follia, verso la terra promessa di una nuova esistenza. E, forse, verso la felicità, che non richiede di pronunciare più "nulla. Neppure una parola".
Saul Bellow, attraverso Herzog, dà vita ad un'opera di straordinaria vitalità: estrosa, audace, complessa. Coltissima, originalissima e ricca di infiniti spunti di riflessione. Geniale sotto ogni aspetto.
E tutti gli aggettivi che ho usato, o potrei usare, non basterebbero a descriverla esaustivamente.
Capolavoro.
Grazie, Io.

Um livro que me deu muita luta… Agradeço-lhe por isso caro Sr. Moses E. Herzog.

Esta é a auto-análise obsessiva de um homem à procura de um rumo, um rumo que fatalmente encontra nas mulheres, um equívoco ao qual regressa sempre como se fosse um retorno ao útero materno. A tragicomédia de Herzog.

Herzog busca tranquilidade num mundo corrompido, num mundo que o encara como insano e escreve compulsivamente cartas sobre tudo e sobre nada para criar um ponto de equilíbrio e estabilidade na sua vida desmoronada. Desbrava o caminho escrevendo e no fim, saciado, regressado à origem possível, encontra, finalmente, a paz no silêncio.

“Posso não estar bom da cabeça, mas tudo me parece claro.” (P.366)

Admito que não seja fácil gostar deste livro. Talvez o tenha lido no momento certo.

"Herzog" will be a source of great entertainment for those with knife wounds in the back but will be of limited appeal elsewhere. In it Bellow assumes a stance of Olympian disdain for man's intellectual pretensions and biting cynicism about human relations as he settles scores with his second wife who in real life appears to have bested him in their conjugal war. Woody Allen of course achieved great success in the commercial cinema using the same approach that Bellows employs. in Herzog.
Herzog who appears to be Bellow' alter ego says little about his first marriage other than to suggest that his first wife was rather dimwitted. His second wife is another kettle of fish and manages to stick the knife in Herzog's back before he can maim her. Herzog asks the reader for pity. His romantic diversions with (if my count is correct) with three other women diverted his attention feeling to see that his wife was carefully preparing to strike. This could be seen as unfair.
Bellow's text is as lively and amusing as a Woody Allen monologue or a dialogue from one of his savage marital comedies. It is peppered with witticisms about writers and philosophers such as Spengler, Nietzsche, Proust, Balzac and Voltaire that are certain to appeal to anyone who did an undergraduate degree in the humanities.
I am however uncomfortable with his scurrilous parody of Martin Buber's "I and Thou" in which Buber urges his reader to look for God in the face of his fellow human being. Irate at his best friend who has stolen his wife, Bellow transforms Buber as follows:
"I'm sure you know the views of Buber.... By means of a spiritual dialogue, an I-Thou you relationship, God comes and goes in one's soul. And men come and go in each other's souls. Sometimes they come and go in each other's beds, tool. You have dialogue with a man. You have intercourse with his wife." (p. 72 edition Penguin edition.)
In this passage, Bellow is without doubt indulging in a parody of the worst taste. Buber simply deserves more respect than Bellow is giving him. I found Herzog to be very shallow intellectually for which I am unable to forgive it.

A very well written, humorous, character driven story of Moses Elkanah Herzog's mid-life crisis. He has been married twice and has two young children, one from each marriage. He is a college professor who has written a book that is respected for it's detailed research. He is in his late 40s. He has a rich, caring brother.
The novel begins when his second wife Madeleine decides to end their marriage and begin a relationship with Herzog’s best friend Valentine. Moses writes letters (that are mainly never posted) to people that have been involved in his life and also to past and present political, religious and philosophical figures. The story is told from Herzog’s viewpoint. He's unstable, does some silly things, is probably an unreliable narrator, witty, funny and ridicules himself. He is an endearing, unforgettable character. The people in his life are also interesting, memorable characters. The beautiful love goddess, Ramona and the beautiful, unpredictable Madeleine.
It's a clever, witty read and worth rereading. Highly recommended.

This book was published in the year I was born: 1964. I will also always remember this book in the years to come because I read in while struggling with my jet lag here in Columbus, Ohio. I started reading this while in the stopover in Nagoya, Japan on my way here.

This book has won a number of accolades: National Book Award in 1965, All-TIME Magazine 100 Greatest Novels and listed both in the 501 and 1001 Must Read Books. It is said to be the major reason for Saul Bellow's bagging of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.

What I like most about this book is its writing style. It is only in this book so far where the story is interspersed with the main protagonist thoughts via the letters (mostly unsent) he wrote and those covered varied trains of thoughts from political, scientific, sociological, psychological and even sexual. Moses E. Herzog (yes, the title of the novel is the surname of the main protagonist and his family) is a disturbed middle age professor who just came through his second divorce from Madeline. He is an absentee father not by choice but by circumstances.

I could have given this book a perfect 5-star rating because I enjoyed reading this. However, I was not able to relate to the author and there were many references to the setting of the story (New York/Chicago in 1964) that I could not understand. It must also be the jetlag though.

I am looking forward to reading Bellow's other works: The Adventures of Augie March and Humbolt's Gift. He seems to me like one of the American Masters of Literature.

Praznik je svaki put kada se podsetimo šta volimo da čitamo. Privilegija je kada nas naslov podseti zašto volimo da čitamo. Iako stoji teza da draž nekada leži u odlasku u druge svetove, ipak se velika većina nas okreće umetnosti ne radi potrage za kakvim portalom u drugačije, već radi reafirmacije sopstvenog stanja i pronalaženja sebe u melodiji, (pokretnoj) slici, kao i tekstu. Ta priča, kojeg god bila žanra, tona i strukture, uvek sadrži detalj, srebrnu nit za kojom tragamo, za koju se hvatamo, inherentnu našem životnom iskustvu.

Takođe postajemo svesni položaja čitaoca u odnosu na malo više od pola veka. Činjenica da je "Hercog" bio bestseler, a ljudi stajali u redovima kako bi došli do svog primerka, govori da se od nas danas očekuje znatno manje, te izdavačka industrija rizikuje da ode putem filma- rimejkovi i blokbasteri su se uglavnom gledali leti, danas čine okosnicu kinematografskog iskustva.

To ne znači da bi svaka knjiga trebalo da zahteva ogroman napor, naprotiv, predah je poželjan. Ali u čemu je svrha čitanja ako nas ne istera iz komfor zone i aktivira naše kapacitete? Pisanje zahteva rad, dobro pisanje zahteva mukotrpan rad. Stoga, očekivati neki stepen reciprociteta u pogledu uloženog truda kod nas, kao receptora stvaralaštva, je više nego opravdano.

U središtu "Hercoga" nalazimo sveže razvedenog univerzitetskog profesora sa dva propala braka i dvoje otuđene dece, u dubokom mulju krize srednjih godina. Većina romana se sastoji iz pisama koje Mozes Hercog adresira, ali nikada ne šalje, na stvarne i izmišljene pojedince: prijatelje, ljubavnice, poznate ličnosti, političke figure i poresku upravu.

Strah od gubitka identiteta kod modernog čoveka čini srž romana američkog nobelovca Sola Beloa. Kroz pisanje Hercog pokušava da iznova nađe sebe, snažnijeg, onakvog pre nego što su ga pojedinci u njegovom životu, pa i društvo kao celina, sveli na ovu anksioznu individuu.

Splet lične filozofije, dubokih uverenja, još dubljeg razočaranja, britkog humora, blage histerije, potere za drugom šansom ne čine Hercoga nužno dopadljivim, već bliskim. Jer svi plovimo na talasima životog nevremena na večitom balansu između digniteta i poniženja, u želji i nadi da više budemo heroji a ne žrtve sopstvenih okolnosti.

Za Beloa jezik je jednako gradivni blok koliko je kugla za rušenje. Književna velesila kakva jeste, postepeno gradi narativni tok ispresecan rečenicama koje nekada teku sporo i razgranato, a nekada udaraju poput teretnog voza, dok kroz celokupnu dinamiku i tekstualnu zahtevnost dominiraju velika srčanost, ljudskost i emocionalna snaga.

Ko će danas pisati ovako? Dati život književnosti? Svakako da ima plemenitih izuzetaka, ali bojazan leži baš u tome što su to retke zverke. Hoće li izumreti, zavisi od nas. Na kraju, publika će dobiti ono što traži, treba se trgnuti i tražiti više.

Herzog es un académico de Filosofía en búsqueda de una nueva síntesis que aspire a lo absoluto; menuda faena!
También es un hombre que ha sido humillado por su segunda ex-mujer, sufre y trata de huir del dolor a través de decisiones impulsivas.
Por último, también es como un niño, desamparado y egocéntrico.
Una buena novela, casi un clásico del Nobel Saul Bellow, cuyas "cartas" filosóficas pueden constituir un interesante plus o un escollo.

For a while Saul Bellow was poised to become one of the 20th century's most famous authors, but he seems to have faded into the second tier now. He doesn't have the visceral power of Steinbeck, Wright or Baldwin, or the technical ambition of Faulkner or Woolf; he just writes good books. Maybe that cost him. My reaction to Augie March was, well, there's certainly nothing wrong with this book, nor is it going to change my life. "That's a good book," I thought. "Moving on."

And now here's Herzog, Bellow's last classic and his final, most thorough statement, and it asked quite a bit more of me than I was prepared to give. If you've read other books by him you may not be prepared for this much heavy lifting.

It reminded me of Ulysses, in fact, and not just because the name Moses Herzog (hurts-og) was lifted from chapter 12 of that book. The talking, the constant trying to communicate: Bellow said it's about "the imprisonment of the individual in a shameful and impotent privacy." "Only connect," in other words, and that's what Leopold Bloom spent much of Ulysses trying to do. And the esoterical references, the mixing of viewpoints (first and third), the focus on mundane matters - Herzog and Leopold Bloom both spend a lot of time in the bathroom. Bellow himself, a realist, was "impatient with modernism," but it's hard not to see its influence here. It's not as difficult as Ulysses, but you might get the sense that it's Bellow's response to it.

The book operates on three layers, switching deftly and rapidly between them. In the present, Herzog takes a short trip; has a date with a woman he's considering marrying; visits his ex-wife. And considers shooting her and her lover, his former best friend. In the second, he flashes back along his life, his previous two marriages, his ramshackle house in the country, his Casaubon-esque career. (Sidenote: Casaubon sure does pop up a lot in literature, huh?) And in the third, he writes a multitude of letters - to friends and newspapers and Schrödinger and Nietzsche - expounding on his philosophy of life. (And a lot of talk about like Kant and Hegel and shit, and I don't know anything about any of that so if you want to unpack it you're on your own.)

The letters are boring and opaque:

Good is easily done by machines of production and transportation. Can virtue compete? New techniques are in themselves bien pensant and represent not only rationality but benevolence. Thus a crowd, a herd of bien pensants has been driven into nihilism, which, as is now well known, has Christian and moral roots and for its wildest frenzies offers a “constructive” rationale. (See Polyani, Herzog, et al.)

This doesn't make any more sense in context. They'll taper off throughout the book, as Herzog works through his midlife crisis and pulls himself together.

There are some beautiful thoughts here; Bellow is, if nothing else, a smart and gifted writer. "I thought I had entered into a secret understanding with life to spare me the worst," Herzog says. "A perfectly bourgeois idea." Me too!

But I found the experience of reading it frustrating, and not rewarding enough. Books like this - dense books, full of thoughts and philosophies and tangents and flashbacks - they ask a lot of the reader. They ask not just to be read but absorbed, focused on, made a part of one's life. I didn't expect Herzog to be this big of a deal, and maybe if I'd been ready for it I would have been more responsive to it - but it's also true that if a book asks a great deal of a reader, a reader is more likely to say "No" to it. "No, you are not the book for me. I choose not to commit as much of my brain to you as you demand." Your expectations for a summer romance are lower than your expectations for a long-term partner. These books are long-term partners, and many of them are not for us. We expect to have only a few long-term partners in our lives. Herzog will not be one of mine.

Οι σκεψεις ενός ανθρώπου που είμαστε όλοι μας.
Ο Χέρτσογκ κρύβει την κάθε μας σκέψη μεσα σε μια πλευρά του χαρακτηρα του.

Moses Herzog epistolomane, emailomane perseguita tutti con la sua memoria.
Scrive, scrive a tutti Herzog ai vivi e ai morti, al suo psichiatra al suo avvocato al medico, ai fratelli finanche al presidente degli Stati Uniti, agli amici d'infanzia e gioventù, scomoda anche i filosofi prediletti Nietzsche, Freud Spinoza Kierkegaard.
Lettere che non vengono spedite che restano nel cassetto, le scrive per se stesso per organizzare i suoi pensieri ma servono a Bellow per ricostruire, in un flash back con frequentissimi salti temporali, l'esistenza della sua creatura e della sua visione della vita.
Quel mondo costellato di decine e decine di personaggi che sta a metà strada tra l'ambiente yiddish della vecchia Europa e il nuovo mondo americano.
Ma Herzog si sente sempre un po' come un profugo, appena arrivato nell'America bianca anglosassone e protestante.

E' un uomo di mezza età i cui fantasmi dell'antica fierezza fisica sono ancora ben visibili in lui, mirabile espressione di Bellow per dire che è ancora un bel cinquantenne con la sua disordinata avvenenza.
Uomo in crisi Moses Herzog: due divorzi (Il secondo con una grandissima dispotica str...a) due figli, ricercatore, scrittore, professore universitario.
Ma Herzog, nell'istante in cui Bellow lo ritrae, é un marito che non fa più il marito un padre che non può più fare il padre un professore che non insegna perché, in fondo in fondo, sa che dietro ogni intellettuale c'è sempre una stronza testa di cazzo qualsiasi, un amante sgusciante e liberamente disimpegnato.
Un uomo in crisi che rotola lentamente verso il suo disfacimento, che per sapere quanti giorni sono passati dall'altro ieri non usa più il calendario ma trae informazioni dalla lunghezza della barba che gli cresce ispida sul mento.

Va per tentativi, da vero eccentrico, confusionario agisce sbaglia ma poi ricomincia ad agire e sbagliare.
Compra un mezzo rudere isolato e diroccato in un lembo di campagna isolata, lo ristruttura con abbozzi approssimativi che presto abbandona.
Si fa lasciare dalla moglie senza reagire: si alza dal sofà e continua a lavorare alle finestre, perché non può permettersi di sentirsi ridotto in pezzi.
Gli accordano una visita alla figlioletta, in affido alla madre, e fa di quel pomeriggio un capolavoro di disastro e tenerezza.

Gli é che io, quando sono iperstimolata, finisco per andare in confusione, ho un cervello che lavora in modalità parcellizzata e la caoticita'caleidoscopica di Bellow mi ha inizialmente totalmente spaesato.
Come un diesel che impiega tempo a ingranare, ho faticato a salire di giri ad entrare nella spezzata modalità bellowiana.
Devo ammettere che più volte ho pensato di lanciarlo non fosse che, essendo un ebook, nemmeno questo piacere ci è dato.
Ma il fatto di stare leggendo un Nobel ha anche fatto la sua e la seconda parte del romanzo mi ha conquistata, così come mi ha conquistata l'umanità, l'autoironia e la sapienza eccentrica di Moses Herzog e, last but not least, la penna del suo creatore con la sua instancabile mirabile abitudine metaforica smagliante e quel senso del grottesco che resta ben piantato dentro i confini dell'assolutamente credibile.

When I read this, I was living in the Berkshires not far from Herzog--or at least, not far from Norman Mailer in the summers. (Mailer would take his grandson-aged son to the Berkshire AA baseball games, in his Corvette.) Even closer than Herzog and Mailer lived two Russian BSO violinists and a Hungarian trombonist, in the summers. I improved my Russian through their aegis, but not my Hungarian. I was a college professor like Herzog, though not as sought-after by different institutions, nor yet abandoned by my wife. I was also, like Herzog, a compulsive letter writer; in fact, I had a monthly correspondence with one of the great letter writers, a Shakespearean at Amherst College who built the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in New England. His letters were eminently sane and funny; they drew out what sanity and humor dwelt in me. Or what I could muster to confront my own professional disaster and rebirth--through completing my 17C dissertation by use of the Chapin Rare Books Library miles away in Williamstown. My goal was to join the "English" profession in America--a paradoxical endeavor inherited from the role and decline of Latin education around the end of the 19thC.

Herzog was indeed an admonitory epistle, a series of them in fact, a warning against my whole purpose. But I did not take it that way. Herzog was equally a warning against academic marriage, though I did not take it that way, either. And finally, Herzog provided a prototype of the joking sufferer, which I attempted to be in rising above my defeats. The fact that he was insane did not discourage me. Sanity might be over-rated. Name a famous leader who was sane: Hitler? Stalin? Napoleon? Attila? Caligula? Commodus? Caesar himself, reportedly killing 100,000 Tencterii in a week? Of course, few of these avatars of insanity could be called joking sufferers. Herzog, and possibly Bellow, were. And I aspired to be.
Not Herzog, but one who wrote with Herzog's wit, a bit. After Henderson the Rain King, Herzog was from a whole different tribe. One could not picture Herzog lifting a heavy stone and gaining a village-full of wives. Henderson had trouble satisfying his fifty wives, and Herzog had not satisfied his one.
So I highly recommend this book to aspiring letter-writers and exiles from NYC recovering from marital and amorous defeats or from academic trials, to those who find insanity no bar, as they look around, to leadership and high office, or to those who discover humor in the midst of their suffering.

This is rightly perceived to be a classic (4.5 stars), published in 1964. Written well before Bellow became the curmudgeonly conservative of his older age, when he attacked multiculturalism and post-modernism, it was a joy to read.
It concerns the mid-life crisis of Moses Elkanah Herzog; when his second wife Madeleine elects to end their marriage and start a relationship with Herzog’s best friend Valentine. Moses writes letters to and about all those involved (letters that are never posted) and also to significant political, religious and philosophical figures (current and historical). It is clearly a little autobiographical as there are many similarities between Herzog and Bellow, including the number of marriages they are on. Everything is told from Herzog’s point of view, so we don’t really know if the description of the end of the marriage is accurate or if Herzog is an unreliable narrator; although he is endearing, if not entirely stable. Herzog has insight into his plight and his own faults and has a good line in self ridicule. Despite the disintegration of Herzog’s life, the story is life-affirming and at times very funny.
It is, of course beautifully written and we are taken through all the labyrinthine meanderings of Herzog’s mind as he does sensible things, monumentally stupid things and begins to work through his problems in his own unique way. There are some odd notes; the character of Ramona springs to mind. She is the new woman in Herzog’s life (we are not sure how new). Herzog is a small time college professor in his late 40s. Ramona is younger, a marvellous cook, a voluptuous sex goddess, she loves Herzog unconditionally and is willing to save him and she is happy to put up with some of his less endearing habits (No wish fulfilment here Mr Bellow?). Of course the ex-wife Madeleine is a restless thinker and striver; more cerebral than Ramona. Sex goddess who cooks as well, in opposition to restless intellectual; what is he trying to suggest?
Despite the rather primitive male perspective, it is a great book and Herzog is rather likeable despite his incompetence and absurdity (or perhaps because of it).