The academy has shoved his novels down the memory hole. Bellow is off the syllabus, and has been since before today’s undergraduates were born. He is “problematic,” and in these days of what his Artur Sammler calls “this present shallowness,” problems can be forgotten about if you put your mind to it. All anyone with ambitions in the English department of an American university need remember about Saul Bellow is the remark attributed to him by his ex-friend Alfred Kazin: “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I’d be glad to read him.”Well, most of the current literature educators whom I have met would have been regarded as sub-literate in my day, so their opinion is unimportant. Read what you want; enjoy what you enjoy.
Occasional Holy Man and Luthier Who Offers Stray, Provocative, and Insouciant Thoughts About Religion, Archaeology, Human Foible, Surfing, and Interesting People. Thalassophile. Nemesis of all Celebrities [except for Chuck Norris]. He Lives Vicariously Through Himself. He has a Piece of Paper That Proves He's Laird of Glencoe.
Saturday, November 24, 2018
The Coracle's Saturday Literary Corner
Mr. Bellow’s planet