Ravelstein

Rating:
Summary: Modern Mannerism
Review: RAVELSTEIN. This novel is living proof of the viability of the mannerist temper for exploring in fiction the tensions and ambiguities of civilized life as it is currently being lived. I am not sure it is a masterpiece, but I suspect it is. Notice that I am not suggesting that this is a novel of manners. That would be a question of form, and with regard to form this is a roman a clef in which the author expects readers, or some readers, to recognize persons from real life in some of the characters. So Ravelstein is Allan Bloom, Chick is the author-narrator Saul Bellow, Davaar is Leo Strauss, Grielescu is Mircea Eliade, and so on. In other words, here we find some of the most important figures in American intellectual life in the late twentieth century. Even Paul Wolfowitz puts in a brief appearance under a name I can't remember right now.
Moving from form to style, this book is conceived in the great mannerist vision of John Donne, St. Teresa of Avila, most of El Greco's paintings, and Shakespeare's Hamlet, who, like Ravelstein, was sick in his obsession with a late-medieval sense of death. In the way the novel is structured, it is of small comparative importance that the main character is also sick, physically sick and dying of a terminal illness. This just intensifies the mannerist tendencies to the point that the attentive reader feels immersed for a time in "facile learning, abused ingenuity, witty affectation, a knowing pose, distortion through preciosity, and excessive freedom with conventional proportions, images, and attitudes." That's what I mean by mannerism. All these tensions and ambiguities are present in Ravelstein and brilliantly so, and no attempt is ever made to resolve them. After all, life doesn't resolve them. What life does, and what literature should do, is simply hold up to us, perhaps like a mirror, our very real sense of insecurity brought about by living in a world without a known order. In this sense, Ravelstein is an extraordinary accomplishment.

Rating:
Summary: a celebration
Review: This-perhaps Bellow's finest; certainly his most heart-felt-work is the celebration of a dear friend's life. In these pages you will find a sketch of a man who was a Jew, a philosopher, a lover of Western culture and ideals, an American, and a homosexual who was dying of AIDS while looking for love; while teaching. In it you will see a man who explained to his students (hand-chosen for their brains) the importance of Plato in a world where "you can't tell the wars from NBA events" (55).

This is a sketch of a Jew who, if given the choice between Athens and Jerusalem would have preferred to live in Athens but who mixed in Jewish jokes and expositions when expounding on Greek philosophers and who, at the end of his life, decided that a Jew "should take deep interest in the history of the Jews-in their principles of justice for example" (179). That these principles were contained in the Torah, the Talmud and Commentaries which the avowed atheist Ravelstein seems to have recollected literally on his deathbed did not seem to bother him. He was an atheist because philosophers had to be atheists; he "was following the trail of Jewish ideas or Jewish essences" (178) because he was a Jew and he still joked that "even God took his holidays in Paris" (which he loved).

This is a sketch of a man who protested against the cultural and ethical relativism of today's liberal society because this society keeps us childish; it doesn't force us to do the grown-up thing and make choices. And "it's up to you to make a choice. Either you continue to see as a child, or else" (98).

But above all, this is a sketch of a man in love with life itself. A man who was always searching for his "other half" who acquired HIV in his quest and who would not stop looking despite his illness. A man who loved to gossip but who never betrayed a confidence, never let a friend down. A man who was, above all, honest with himself and with those around him. Ravelstein was who and what he was: a Jew, a philosopher, a homosexual, a man questioning all "isms". Such a man, such a friend is indeed difficult to "give up... to death" (233).

And by writing this deeply moving book, Saul Bellow did not.

Rating:
Summary: Essence of a Controversial Philosopher
Review: 'Ravelstein' is not a biography of Allan Bloom, a political philosopher who gained noteriety for his 1986 polemic, 'The Closing of the American Mind.' Rather, 'Ravelstein' tries to capture the Bloom's essence, using a loosely fictionalized account.

Bloom's essence cannot be captured with a declarative sentence but rather as a string of adjectives: epicurean, polar, voracious, feisty, intellectual. As such, Bellow does not use a linearly narrative format, but frequently jumps in both setting and time, recounting Bloom's decadent trips to Paris, his ravaging homosexual appetite, his frankness, his strength, and his compassion. Bellow does not portray his friend as cultural superstar. Nor friend as philosopher. Nor friend as lover. Nor friend as superior nor subordinate. Rather, 'Ravelstein' is about friend as a human being, beset by the demons that plague all creatures.

Why read this book? Presumably, you are intersted about Allan Bloom as philosopher or person. You may find, however, that his life may have exhibited what many may deem "hyporcisy." Remember that in Bloom's seminal polemic, 'The Closing of the American Mind,' he rails against the pervasive hedonism and the anti-intellectualism that infects college students, and at the inability of the older generation to supply the spiritual nourishment requisite for the younger to enjoy "the good life."

In the light of this, how do we react to Bloom's insatiable desire for french prostitutes and 10 course meals? I suggest that we not automatically label Bloom a hypocrite. For the source of labeling Bloom as such stems from a unfounded assumption: the good life and the good things in life are mutually exclusive. Indeed, Bloom's bestseller argues that the American mind is closing because it enjoys the good things in life without seeking the good life. He thinks that the good things in life must be a necessary consequence of living the good life. A misreading of the book would yield the faulty conclusion that the good things in life are not work seeking. But as Bellow ably shows, Bloom lived a good life and enjoyed the good things in it. Rather than unearth a shattering hypocrisy, Bellow clarifies that Bloom was true to his work, for he truly lived the good life. For that reason alone, this book is worth a read.

Rating:
Summary: AN EXQUISITE ODE TO A FRIEND BELLOW CLEARLY LOVED
Review: I'm generally smitten by Bellow's almost effortless command of language. This thinly-veiled memoir based around an actual friend's life -- Allan Bloom, a professor at Chicago who died young -- doesn't disappoint on any count you can expect from a classy piece of writing.

A richly textured brush that looks at humanity, love, relationships has been a Bellow forte since I've known his work ("Something to remember me by" being my personal all time favorite) and in the case of this novel his passions coincide with his friend's. Several events that are known to have occured in reality are chronicled with the typical Bellow flair.

A couple of minor caveats before you set out...

One, for long stretches of the novel, Bellow relies on the reflected glory of his and Bloom's real-life fame to lend the novel light and heat...a somewhat tricky strategy that is occasionally a let down.

Second, the last one-third of the book (after Ravelstein, Bloom's character and the eponymous protagonist, passes away) is a little self-indulgent and slow paced while we are basically left with Chick's (Bellow's) ruminations about all and sundry.

Still, I recommend these 233 pages as a decent summer read. If you read Bellow for plot twists and cliff hanger suspense, you are reading the wrong guy anyway. What makes this book or any of his other works tick is his simple yet deeply moving looks at the biology of our lives and relationships under the prying lens of a writer who redefined the turn of a phrase.

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Summary: Ravelstein and Chick
Review: "Ravelstein" (2000) is a novel-memoir of the friendship between Allan Bloom and the author, Saul Bellow. In addition to exploring the friendship of the two men, the book's primary themes, to me, are the nature of love and facing death, one's own and those dear to one.

In the novel, Abe Ravelstein is based upon Allan Bloom, a professor of political philosophy at the University of Chicago and a student of Leo Strauss (called Davorr in the book). Professor Bloom became wealthy when his 1987 book, "The Closing of the American Mind" became an unexpected best-seller. Bloom's book stresses the importance of philosophy and the humanities, particularly the philosophy of Plato, if education is to meet its function of forming thoughtful, passionate, and autonomous persons. He sharply criticized higher education in the United States, together with most of pop culture, for its failure to acknowledge or to pursue these goals. Bloom grew up in a Jewish family in the midwest.

Like Bloom, Saul Bellow grew up in a Jewish family in the midwest. Unlike Bloom, recognition came to Bellow relatively early in his career as a novelist. Bellow received the Nobel Prize in 1976. He has won three National Book Awards and the Pulitzer Prize.

The two men became fast friends relatively late in life and "Ravelstein" (2000) is a record of their friendship written by Bellow (born 1915) in his mid-80s. A painter with words, Bellow in a short space gives the reader an unforgettable picture of Ravelstein. The book disclaims an attempt to deal with Ravelstein's thought. But I think Bellow captures a great deal of it when he emphasizes how students must learn to leave home and the familiar and try to think for themselves. The picture of Ravelstein is larger than life, as Bellow gives us a passionate, expressive individual with most expensive tastes, a strong ego, a ribald sense of humor, and a passion for promiscuous homosexual sex. The book poignantly shows the reader Ravelstein's lingering death from AIDS.

We meet Bellow (Chick) in the book in the midst of an unhappy marriage to a woman named Vela. Vela is a world-renowned physicist but, to hear Chick tell it, she has little time for or interest in him. Chick and Vela are in the midst of a divorce when one of Ravelstein's young students, Rosamund,falls in love with him. Chick suffers a near-miss with death in an illness and Rosamund helps pull thim through. The book presents a picture of the nature of love, I think, in the contrasts between the Chick -Vela and the Chick-Rosamund relationships. Ravelstein too has much to say about the nature of love, in his own voice and in the voice of his philosophical master, Plato, in the Symposium and the Phaedrus.

Friendship for Plato and Aristotle and for Bloom is the meeting of congenial minds with a common purpose. We see such friendship in "Ravelstein" in an interest in the life of the mind but we see something much more earthy too. Ravelstein and Chick are full of the life of the American midwest, of Vaudeville, of spicy humor, and of smutty language and stories. They enjoy each other's company and are able to be honest with each other -- even when each man has something painfully unpleasant to say about the other. They also share a common American Jewish heritage, both as it deals with secular American life and as a response to the Holocaust, which gets explored in substantial detail in this book. The two men reflect on death and on immortality, given Ravelstein's awareness of his own impending death and the aging Chick's close call with death.

This is a book of Bellow's old age. I think it will be remembered. The book will also, I think, keep alive the memory and teachings of Allan Bloom, as a person and as a teacher. The accomplishments and the names of Bloom and Bellow will be inextricably linked for many readers as a result of Bellow's story of their friendship.

Rating:
Summary: A fun little book
Review: Not sure anyone would call this one of Bellow's best. But it is fun to read (and doesn't take more than an afternoon or two, at that). The portrayal of Ravelstein/Allan Bloom was a delight -- the egoism, the hedonism, the materialism -- what fantastic contradictions in a man who helped foster a conservative revolution in the United States! Bellow's own self-portrait is quite moving, too, if only because it is so relentlessly deprecating.

Reading Ravelstein really made me what to dig up my old copy of The Closing of the American Mind, and to read more of Bellow.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: I first bought The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom and read the introduction without a second thought, but noticing its author. On a trip to the bookstore I found Ravelstein lying on the sale table and remembered that Bellow had written the intro for Bloom's book. I began reading it and was confused about the theme or premise of the novel. So I got online and tried to get a hint. When I found it was supposed to be based on Bloom and his book, my interest was peaked. I found it a little slow getting into but by the middle of the book I couldn't stop. I just had to know what was going to happen with Chick, more then I cared what would happen to Abe (you could see that coming). There really is no plot to the book, but I have found lately (by watching the recent new movie About Schmidt and reading this) that if the character(s) are strong enough, there doesn't have to be one. This book is all about character development. Bellow is a genius in putting together his characters, even the ones that show up only for a short time (like Vela and Grilescu).
I am majoring in political theory and found an abundous array of political analogies and connections. Of course how could you talk about Bloom (Ravelstein) without talking about politics!=-)
I found the Paris scene the most "iffy" but I guess that was only our first real introduction to the mysterious Ravelstein. I ended the book in awe of Bellow's genius, and also still a little mystified about Ravelstein. I am now currently in the midst of The Closing of the American Mind, and even though some find it very conservative I think it showcases modern America very well, and I can defintely see the relationship between Ravelstein and Bloom. Defintely companion books, you shouldn't read one without the other.

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Summary: Allan Bloom¿s Late Success
Review: Based on intellectual and historian of ideas Allan Bloom whose Closing of the American Mind stands as the meat to this ultimately gossipy, but not unrevealing, portrait of the man (closet gay, incorrigibly sloppy, resolutely positive, a big cigarette-smoking pizza-eating exquisite furniture-buying Saint Bernard of a man who plays Platonic soulmate matchmaker for his students, and gives his Chinese helpmate a car when he finally makes it big). Bellow apparently urged Bloom to write a book, the Closing of the American Mind (which despite its reputation as a narrow conservative tract is actually a brilliant example of applied Platonism) which became a huge best seller, and for which the novelist wrote the introduction. Apparently the favor was returned in Bloom's wish for Bellow (if anyone) to chronicle his life. Bellow's portrait is as much an homage as a novel; he is in awe of Bloom's intellect but appears to approach it only obliquely through the admittedly interesting story of the days surrounding the book's success up to and including Bloom's death. The personal touches and interaction between the two men, who have their own Platonic relationship, is closely observed, as one would expect from Bellow. Perhaps best read as an introduction to The Closing of the American Mind, showing in no uncertain terms the humanity of this latter book, whose arguments, often and easily dismissed as mere conservative drek, but in fact a careful indictment of the intellectual poverty and logically opposed ideals (e.g., equality and diversity) at the core of modern academia (particularly the humanities) are more pertinent now than ever.

Rating:
Summary: BELLOW ALWAYS INTERESTING
Review: Ravelstein, a brilliant, blunt speaking and humorous professor at a midwestern university, having stretched himself beyond his teacher's salary, is persuaded by his friend, Chick, to write a book expounding his political and philosophical ideas. The success of Ravelstein's book has made him wealthy and famous - enough so that Ravelstein would now like Chick to write a biography or memoir of his life.

Chick and Ravelstein spend much time together, sharing memories, ideas and thoughts. Realizing that Chick is the fictional counterpart of Saul Bellow, and Ravelstein the counterpart of Allan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind, it seems apparent to the reader that many of those ideas belong to Bellow himself.

Although Chick finds himself unable to write a memoir of his friend, he reveals enough of Ravelstein's history, his personality and character, his philosophical and political ideas, his sexual identity, and finally his death by Aids, so that the reader must conclude that while the fictional Chick failed to write the fictional Ravelstein's memoir, the real Bellow did indeed write a memoir of his real life friend, Bloom.

Some readers may feel that Bellow's book is "anti-gay." I believe Bellow presents a non-judgmental view. Whenever Chick speaks of Ravelstein's sexual "irregular behavior," it is without censure or judgment. Bellow credits mythology in explaining the yearning of one person for another as he writes: "He (Ravelstein) rated longing very highly. Looking for love, falling in love, you were pining for the other half you had lost, as Aristophanes had said. Only it wasn't Aristophanes at all, but Plato in a speech attributed to Aristophanes. In the beginning men and women were round like the sun and moon, they were both male and female and had two sets of sexual organs. In some cases both the organs were male. So the myth went. These were proud, self-sufficient beings. They defied the Olympian Gods who punished them by splitting them in half. This is the mutilation that mankind suffered. So that generation after generation we seek the missing half, longing to be whole again." That, of course, explains man yearning for man but not woman for woman. However, in this case, it seems irrelevant as only the "gay" is at issue.

Bellow is always interesting and worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A touching memoir, although at points overly sentimental
Review: As far as its individual parts are concerned, Ravelstein shows Bellow at the top of his form. Bellow is a great thinker, and since most of the novel consists of his autobiographical narrator's reflections or discussions between the narrator and the Allan Bloom alter-ego Abe Ravelstein, the novel contains plenty of great thoughts. At points, Bellow tackles topics as diverse as lost love, the Holocaust, and a man's choice in cigarettes. He treats all of these as worthy of deliberate consideration, elaborating on them with erudite comparisons to Plato or Keynes or with intimate childhood memories.

Sometimes though, it seems that in a life spent honing a talent for deep discussion on any topic imaginable, Bellow may have lost the eye for discerning which topics are worthy of deep discussion. Bellow has a philosopher's eye: he can see meaning in places where most would find only triteness, and he can bring you to see that meaning, too. But sometimes, just sometimes, in Ravelstein Bellow transgresses some indefinite boundary and becomes less a philosopher and more a man who has become quite sentimental in his age.

Given the subject matter, this isn't surprising. Ravelstein is an elegy written for a dearly loved friend. It is filled with what seems like barely fictionalized accounts of Bellow's best times spent with that friend, especially towards the end of his life, and as such it should be sentimental. However, many of these memories simply consist of Ravelstein and the narrator gossiping about mutual acquaintances. Bellow makes a valiant attempt to make these discussions appear to be more than gossip (As one character puts it, "With him it's not gossip -- it's social history."), but really, gossip is all it is, and gossip about people I don't know can be rather uninteresting. As hard as Bellow may try to imbue deeper meaning into one minor character's use of green ink, another's haircut, or the cleaning lady's rough treatment of the crystal, that deep meaning does not adhere well to such shallow substrates.

I spent most of Ravelstein uncertain of whether I was enjoying reading it. Bellow is a master of his art, and he did infect me with his own concern for topics I do not care about and people I do not know. But really, Ravelstein contains too little of what is universal and too much of what is unique to Saul Bellow to capture me in a rapture of bibliovory. The last fifty pages, in which the narrator nearly dies of ciguatoxin eaten in a fish on a tropical vacation and credits his recovery to the love of his wife and his unpaid debt to write Ravelstein's memoirs, convinced me that I had been enjoying myself. It sets the bulk of the book not as something that would make great literature in its own right, but as memories and reflections that had to be expressed to honor a beloved friend. The subject matter might be trite, but Bellow's care for it is anything but.

If you only want to read one or two books by Saul Bellow, read Augie March or Humboldt's Gift instead. But for the devotee of Bellows works, Ravelstein is no disappointment.