Liminal angst, the novel.

In a somewhat depressive episode for awhile now entering my 2nd year after college and the same age as the protagonist, I found this very relatable. It’s amusing and thought provoking in general, but so many particularities really resonate with me. It feels both like a relief and like a signal calling for resignation, though not at all as bemusing as that sounds. It’s just human.

Looking forward to more from this author and this “genre”. As much as I can say I’m looking forward to anything now, dare I say without sounding too dramatic. Ah c’est la guerre, c’est la vie.

Il tema della solitudine e dell'insoddisfazione a fronte del rifiuto degli schemi societari mi sembra ancora molto attuale.

(3.5)
Saul Bellow's short literary debut explores such themes as community and alienation in the words of Joseph, a young man awaiting induction into the Army in 1942-43 during World War II. The story is set in Chicago and is told exclusively by means of the main character's journal entries, between December 1942 and April 1943. As befitting diary entries, most of the book is recounted in the first person. But in several places, Joseph tries to study and describe himself and speaks of his life in the third person. In diary entries late in the story, Joseph holds lengthy philosophical discussions with an alter-ego "Tu as raison aussi."

Joseph is 27 years old and a Canadian citizen. As the novel begins, issues of citizenship have postponed Joseph's induction into the Army for seven months, during which he becomes the "dangling man" belonging neither to civilian nor military life. During this time, Joseph leaves his job working for a travel bureau. He gets supported by his wife Iva. He becomes increasingly resentful of his dependency on his wife.

As his diary entries reveal, Joseph had tried before he saw himself as the dangling man (which in fact had been his situation throughout his life) to make a balance between his work and his interests which are largely intellectual and scholarly. For a brief time, Joseph had been a communist. He left the party and his former comrades shun him. He tries to think through the nature of American society and its relationship to individualism. When Joseph loses his job, Iva encourages him to read and to pursue his writings on the Enlightenment and on Romanticism. But with his restlessness and his new-found if precarious liberty, Joseph is unable to do so. He sits for long hours in his room unable to do anything, takes short walks for meals, has an affair, fights with his family and former friends, and he broods.

Joseph wants to accept and function in American society and not to pursue the criticism and rejection which was common among intellectuals then and remains so today. He supports, however tentatively, the war effort and tries to make peace with capitalism and materialism. These efforts are unsuccessful as Joseph cannot avoid his condition of alienated outsider. Joseph finds he cannot make use of the freedom with uncertainty that has been offered to him as the draft board finally resolves Joseph's status. Because men cannot live with others, and not alone either. Happiness is a very thin line between the two opposites. Besides, few people can truly handle freedom; many prefer to be pushed around, patronised.

Despite its American setting, Bellow's novel is heavily influenced by the themes of European philosophy and existentialism. Dostoevsky's anti-hero in "Notes from the Underground" is a predecessor of Joseph. Joseph is also preoccupied with the writings of Goethe as an attempted counter-balance to his own situation.

The novel switches between scenes of American toughness ("hardboiled-dom" as he put it) and street life with long passages of philosophical meditations. The themes of alienation and freedom presented in this book cut deeper than the specific situation that confronts Joseph. As a narrator, Joseph is solipsistic and narcicistic. He also develops a certain aversion towards women, which gives the novel an unsettling tone of subtle misogyny. Although short, "Dangling Man" is a thoughtful and ambitious novel that captures something relevant about freedom, choice and the American dilemma.