Moments of brilliance, but lacking overall cohesion. Bellow structured the chapters like entries in a journal, but the style wavers between short, journalist reports and more rich and literary chapters. Given this was written very early on his career the meandering is understandable.

A thought that occurred to me while following the 'dangling' protagonist through the book: you really didn't need much money in the 1930s & 1940s to be a complete loaf.

I few of the many nuggets I highlighted:

"For legal purposes, I am that older self, and if a question of my identity were to arise I could do nothing but point to my attributes of yesterday. I have not tried to bring myself up to date, either from indifference or from fear. Very little about the Joseph of a year ago pleases me. I cannot help laughing at him, at some of his traits and sayings."

"I started back, choosing unfamiliar streets. They turned out to be no different from the ones I knew."

Not really a novel but a predicament: Joseph waits in limbo to be drafted and loses all sense of himself - with nothing to do, no energy, his alienation alternates with fits of anger. He resolves the predicament by joining up, trading a place and regimentation for the ‘freedom’ of nothing to do. I wonder if the existentialists read this? I bet not. There aren’t many novels in America that deal so nakedly with the emptiness of freedom.

If I could give half stars I would have given this 3.5. What keeps it from 4 stars for me is the writing style. This is the first and only book I've read by Bellows and I have to believe that since it was his first novel his writing greatly improved after completing this. But judging by just this work I found his writing style a bit un-engaging and sometimes awkward.

However the ideas he presents through his main character, with sometimes brilliant sentences and philosophical thoughts, definitely add value to this short novel. In fact, when I finished reading this I experienced a feeling of disappointment overall, but I have to be honest, in the weeks since finishing I have thought back on this story and Bellow's thoughts more and more. The book has come to mind in numerous conversations and when contemplating the world and existence in general. Whatever my initial impression, this book has sticking power.

A very modernist and almost existential work, Bellow explores the condition within which we might find ourselves if all previously held beliefs and structures suddenly vanished. In short, it is a story about the horrors of freedom that authors like Sartre and Camus would fully appreciate. The main character doesn't go so far as to no longer believe in god, but that belief makes so little difference to his state of being that he just as well might have. This is a story of man left completely to his own devices, with no beliefs or structures or have-to-do's available for guidance.

And in the end, that proves terrifying for the main character who eventually runs to the structure of the army with open arms.

Oh the horror of true freedom!
The unbearable burden.
The dreadful slack created by being left to dangle...

Impressive, pithy, aggressive, sharp. The narrator reminded me of a more type A version of the narrator from Notes from Underground. Joseph is a wonderful representation of someone who is caught between worlds with way too much time to think about his situation, and the means to exist without worrying about working (well, he worries quite a bit about working, but the job is always just out of reach for one reason or the other). My first reading of Bellow, his first novel, is a fantastic start. I look forward to undertaking more.

"Conosciamo noi stessi troppo bene per non condividere la cattiva opinione che gli altri hanno di noi." (p. 77)

"Noi lottiamo perpetuamente per liberare noi stessi. O, per dirla in altri termini, mentre sembriamo così attentamente e anche disperatamente aggrappati a noi stessi, preferiremmo di gran lunga abbandonarci. Non sappiamo come. Così, talvolta, ci buttiamo via, quando in realtà quello che veramente vogliamo è cessar di vivere così esclusivamente e vanamente per noi stessi, impuri e ignari, volti a osservarsi nell'intimo e incatenati al nostro io." (p. 141)

In seinem ersten, 1944 erschienenen Roman Der Mann in der Schwebe erzählt Saul Bellow die Geschichte eines Mannes, der während des Zweiten Weltkriegs in einem Chicagoer Pensionszimmer auf seine Einberufung wartet. In dieser Zeit der Unsicherheit führt er Tagebuch, unterwirft sich einer grüblerischen Selbstbeobachtung und muss dabei feststellen, dass er höchst unzeitgemäß ist. Er gehört nicht zu den hartgesottenen Typen und patriotischen Helden, die die Idole seiner Epoche darstellen. (amazon)

Not bad, just not really my cup of tea.

نسخه چاپی کتاب را به سختی پیدا کردم. کتاب کوچک و جمع و جوری است. راوی بسیار خوب توانسته وضعیت را شرح دهد و بی سامانی دوران گذار را به نمایش بگذارد. ایدههای فلسفی جالبی هم دارد.
برای یک کتاب خوانی تر و تمیز یکی دوروزه جذاب است.

Ugh. Very rarely have I disliked a book's protagonist this much. Self-absorbed, American narcissist men almost never hold my interest, and especially in the middle of WWII, I'll save my compassion for people who deserved it.

Οι σκέψεις ενός μάλλον καταθλιπτικού ανθρώπου στο ημερολόγιό του ενώ περιμένει να καταταγεί στο στρατό κατά τη διάρκεια του Β' Π.Π. Είχε κάποια ενδιαφέροντα σημεία αλλά γενικά πολύ φιλοσοφικό για τα γούστα μου.

این کتاب را در گردش بین قفسه‌های کتاب‌فروشی بزرگی انتخاب کردم. یک صفحه‌ی اتفاقی باز کردم، این بند را خواندم:
«راجع به کار فکر کرده‌ام. اما مایل نیستم بپذیرم که نمی‌دانم چگونه از آزادی‌ام استفاده کنم و مجبورم به دلیل نداشتن اندوخته به هر کار خفت‌باری تن دهم. به عبارتی به خاطر عوضی بودن.»
گفتم این حال من است، خواندن هم دارد. این کتاب، یادداشت‌های روزانه‌ی چند ماه از زندگی سال بلو است. سراسر پربار نیست، اما به یک بار خواندن میارزد.

یادداشت‌هایی از متن کتاب:
- با اینکه از کشیدن سیگار لذت می‌برم حتا نمی‌توانم برای رفتن به فروشگاه و خریدن آن خود را تکان بدهم، منتظر می‌مانم.
- پس از تجدید قوا به مدد خواب و ورود مجدد به زندگی در بیداری، مثل اغلب این اوقات، از بدنی لخت به بدنی پوشیده و از ذهنی نسبتاً پاک به ذهنی آلوده راهی می‌شوم. پنجره را بال‍ا می‌برم هوا را محک می‌زنم، روزنامه را باز می‌کنم، جهان را می‌پذیرم.
- من باید نسبت به حقایق وفادار می‌بودم و فساد یکی از آن‌ها بود.
- ارزیابی خودمان یک چیز است و بها دادن دیوانه‌وار به خود چیزی دیگر.
- ترس از عقب افتادن ما را به خود نمی‌گذارد و دیوانه‌مان می‌کند. ترس همچون ابری در ما اتراق می‌کند. جوّ درونی تیره‌ای می‌سازد و گاه‌به‌گاه طوفانی، کینه‌ای، زخمی از ما سرریز می‌شود.
- چشم‌انداز من به دیوارها ختم می‌شود. هیچ‌چیز از آینده به ذهنم خطور نمی‌کند، جز گذشته‌ی مندرس و معصومیت‌اش.
- بهای تجربه؛ بهایی که بهتر است فوراً پرداخت شود چون به هر حال باید بپردازی.

“We are afraid to govern ourselves. (…) We soon want to give up our freedom. (…) It isn’t love that gives us weariness of life. It’s our inability to be free.”