Though one of the most significant American writers of the 20th century, Saul Bellow has continually elicited conflicting responses from critics. Some critics have seen him as America's greatest contemporary writer, while others have discounted him as discouragingly redundant. Not even his novel Herzog, generally considered his worthiest achievement, has gone unchallenged. The expansion of critical theory in the last decade has added to the controversy over Bellow's works. The reviews and essays gathered in this volume illustrate the many disparate critical responses and approaches to Saul Bellow over the last 50 years, from the late 1940s into the 1990s. Representative samples of criticism from the earliest reviews to the most recent assessments trace the different critical phases and approaches to Bellow's work over time. The selections included also reflect larger trends in literary criticism over the last half century and chart the history of the critical community's response to Bellow. The selections are arranged chronologically in clusters devoted to particular works.

A compelling intellectual and literary history of midcentury America In a midcentury American cultural episode forgotten today, intellectuals of all schools shared a belief that human nature was under threat. The immediate result was a glut of dense, abstract books on the "nature of man." But the dawning "age of the crisis of man," as Mark Greif calls it, was far more than a historical curiosity. In this ambitious intellectual and literary history, Greif recovers this lost line of thought to show how it influenced society, politics, and culture before, during, and long after World War II. During the 1930s and 1940s, fears of the barbarization of humanity energized New York intellectuals, Chicago protoconservatives, European Jewish émigrés, and native-born bohemians to seek "re-enlightenment," a new philosophical account of human nature and history. After the war this effort diffused, leading to a rebirth of modern human rights and a new power for the literary arts. Critics' predictions of a "death of the novel" challenged writers to invest bloodless questions of human nature with flesh and detail. Hemingway, Faulkner, and Richard Wright wrote flawed novels of abstract man. Succeeding them, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Flannery O'Connor, and Thomas Pynchon constituted a new guard who tested philosophical questions against social realities—race, religious faith, and the rise of technology—that kept difference and diversity alive. By the 1960s, the idea of "universal man" gave way to moral antihumanism, as new sensibilities and social movements transformed what had come before. Greif's reframing of a foundational debate takes us beyond old antagonisms into a new future, and gives a prehistory to the fractures of our own era.

A middle-age American millionaire goes to Africa in search of a more meaningful life and receives the adoration of an African tribe that believes he has a gift for rainmaking

Though one of the most significant American writers of the 20th century, Saul Bellow has continually elicited conflicting responses from critics. Some critics have seen him as America's greatest contemporary writer, while others have discounted him as discouragingly redundant. Not even his novel Herzog, generally considered his worthiest achievement, has gone unchallenged. The expansion of critical theory in the last decade has added to the controversy over Bellow's works. The reviews and essays gathered in this volume illustrate the many disparate critical responses and approaches to Saul Bellow over the last 50 years, from the late 1940s into the 1990s. Representative samples of criticism from the earliest reviews to the most recent assessments trace the different critical phases and approaches to Bellow's work over time. The selections included also reflect larger trends in literary criticism over the last half century and chart the history of the critical community's response to Bellow. The selections are arranged chronologically in clusters devoted to particular works.

A three-time National Book Award for Fiction winner, Saul Bellow (1915-2005) is one of the most highly regarded American authors to emerge since World War II. His 60-year career produced 14 novels and novellas, two volumes of nonfiction, short story collections, plays and a book of collected letters. His 1953 breakthrough novel The Adventures of Augie March was followed by Seize the Day (1956), Herzog (1964) and Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970). His Humboldt's Gift won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 and contributed to his receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature that year. This literary companion provides more than 200 entries about his works, literary characters, events and persons in his life. Also included are an introduction and overview of Bellow's life, statements made by him during interviews, suggestions for writing and further study and an extensive bibliography.

When he visited Israel in 1975, Saul Bellow kept an account of his experiences and impressions. It grew into an impassioned and thoughtful book. As he wryly notes, "If you want everyone to love you, don't discuss Israeli politics." But discuss them is very much what he does. Through quick sketches and vignettes, Bellow evokes places, ideas, and people, reaching a sharp picture of contemporary Israel. The reader is offered a wonderful panorama of an ancient and modern world city. Like every other visitor to Israel, Bellow tumbles into "a gale of conversation." He loves it and he makes the reader feel at home. Bellow delights in the liveliness, the gallantry of Israeli life: people on the edge of history, an inch from disaster, yet brimming with argument and words. He delights not in tourist delusions but with a tough critical spirit: his Israel is pocked with scars and creases, and all the more attractive for it. Simply as a travel book, the reader finds remarkable descriptions, such as one in which Bellow finds "the melting air" of Jerusalem pressing upon him "with an almost human weight" Something intelligible is communicated by the earthlike colors of this most beautiful of cities. The impression that Bellow offers is that living in Israel must be as exhausting as it is exciting: a murderous barrage on the nerves. Israel, he writes, "is both a garrison state and a cultivated society, both Spartan and Athenian. It tries to do everything, to make provisions for everything. All resources, all faculties are strained. Unremitting thought about the world situation parallels the defense effort." Jerusalem's people are actively and individually involved in universal history. Bellow makes you share in the experience.

Brings together three of Bellow's works of short fiction--"A theft," "The Bellarosa Connection," and "Something to Remember Me By."

Expecting to be inducted into the army, Joseph has given up his job and carefully prepared for his departure to the battlefront. When a series of mix-ups delays his induction, he finds himself facing a year of idleness. Dangling Man is his journal, a wonderful account of his restless wanderings through Chicago's streets, his musings on the past, his psychological reaction to his inactivity while war rages around him, and his uneasy insights into the nature of freedom and choice.

The son of the Nobel Prize-winning author of Humboldt's Gift describes the early, lighthearted years of his father's life, before his hardened social views created a rift that lead to a difficult relationship between them.

"A sweeping collection and a tribute to one of the most influential, daring, and visionary minds of the twentieth century The year 2015 marks several literary milestones: the centennial of Saul Bellow's birth, the tenth anniversary of his death, and the publication of Zachary Leader's much anticipated biography. Bellow, a Nobel Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, and the only novelist to receive three National Book awards, has long been regarded as one of America's most cherished authors. Here, Benjamin Taylor, editor of the acclaimed Saul Bellow: Letters, presents lesser-known aspects of the iconic writer. Arranged chronologically, this literary time capsule displays the full extent of Bellow's nonfiction, including criticism, interviews, speeches, and other reflections, tracing his career from his initial success as a novelist until the end of his life. Bringing together six classic pieces with an abundance of previously uncollected material, There Is Simply Too Much to Think About is a powerful reminder not only of Bellow's genius but also of his enduring place in the western canon and is sure to be widely reviewed and talked about for years to come"--