Ravelstein

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Summary: Rich comic detail of characters and a friendship
Review: It is great to read Saul Bellow's longer fiction again! To me its unimportant how fictional it is, (Ravelstein is a thinly disguised version of Bellows' University of Chicago Colleague Allan Bloom). Recall that Bellow's Humboldts' Gift was partly based on Delmore Schwartz. Perhaps fictionalizing, allow Bellow more freedom, or perhaps allow him to get beyond a writers block of a true biography. Ravelstein's surprising best seller, (like Blooms The Closing of the American Mind), presents his ideas .. who he is. Ravelstein is a man who "lived by his ideals", and directed them toward a circle of friends and colleagues.

What Ravelstein (the man and the book) is about is friendship ..that spans the passage of time, life and marriages. This is also a tale of the power of a strong personalty ("a character") on those around, and a man using his intelligence on his friends, colleagues, and tangentially on himself. There are rich details on character and comic detail, that no one does better than Bellow!

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Summary: what is the big deal?
Review: This is somehow the first Saul Bellow book that I have read. It would seem that I should read the earlier ones first and then come back to this one. That way I might know how the author's style has developed, which would make the stilted nature of this book more interesting. This is a fictionalized account of a writer's inability to write a memoir about a good friend. The reader has the feeling that Bellow has been asked to describe what "the color orange" means and is a bit non-plussed. His inability to commemorate Ravelstein is probably the point and I'm sorry that I didn't find it to be a particularly compelling one. Perhaps I would have understood this book better if I had lost close friends.

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Summary: Ramblings of an old man
Review: I would never have finished this book except my book club chose it and I felt obligated to finish. It was an utter waste of time. It portrayed academia at its worst - snobbish, cultish,name-dropping, using people, especially students, self-centered. It was disorganized and senile. What's the point of repeatedly putting in "the-ah, the-ah"? Just say he stammers. The professor's selfish, luxurious life was disgusting. Maybe it was supposed to be about old age and decripitude. Despite all the philosophical meandering, I saw nothing worth sharing. What a contrast to Tuesdays with Morrie! There someone shared a final journey and cared about people!

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Summary: Plotless Wonder
Review: It's the old "I'm a sidekick of this brilliant extrovert; let me tell you about him" plot. The narrator seemingly unconsciously repeats many facts about the extrovert's character, and that is more maddening than endearing. It's Bellow, of course, so there are many fine Kodak moments, but overall this book is a disappointment, with little plot to speak of, not as good as "The Actual," or even "The Dean's December" (but still better than a ton of books out there). One of the stars I'm giving it is just for the final radiant pages. Would that the rest of the book were as striking.

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Summary: A Touching Tribute
Review: This latest of Bellow's books is no great masterpiece of modern literature, nor do I believe it was intended to be. Instead, through the musings of Chick (Bellow), the veils are lifted off a touching portrait of Ravelstein (Bellow's close friend, the great professor, Allan Bloom). He was a wise and worldly man who lived life to its fullest, well in touch with the Dionysian. At once unafraid and uninhibited, prone to the more comic, Nietzschean view of life, he THOUGHT. He READ. Ravelstein/Bloom supplemented a love of life with works great literature and philosophy: a funny and idiosyncratic conversationalist, as we see from Saul Bellow's persistant descriptions, he had much to say about life, love and literature. A mix of supporting characters abound: Vela, Chick/Bellow's ex-wife who is criticized by Ravelstein/Bloom; Rosamund, who saves Chick/Bellow from his near death in the Caribbean; the Grielescu's, husband and wife, former friends of Chick and Vela, and people whose brand of anti-semitism is mulled over by Chick and Ravelstein; Felix Davarr, who does not really make an appearance but certainly deserves mention as he is a thinly disguised caricature of Bloom's great teacher, Leo Strauss; and many others. Ravelstein/Bloom, who buys and ruins Lanvin jackets without a second thought, stocks his lavish home with expensive Lalique crystal, and throws pizza parties with his students, dies of AIDS in the book as he did in life. He was a homosexual; really this is no term to describe the man (or anyone, for that matter) for it captures nothing but his sexual habits, a facet of anyone's character to be sure, yet not so crucial as other things. More fairly, Bloom was a devotee of Plato's Symposium, the book for all lovers, as he himself mentions in his own book: The Closing of the American Mind. Bellow's book is filled with allusions to Bloom's works. And really, that's the point of Ravelstein. It pays Allan Bloom his worthy tribute in the form of a novel. One should have thorough understanding of Bloom and The Closing of the American Mind before reading this book. It's very well done and, in fact, a splendid introduction to the style of the masterful writer Saul Bellow. Brush up on your Bloom beforehand and read or re-read your Bellow afterward.

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Summary: The Bellows of Beauty, Intelligence and Death
Review: Saul Bellow is back and his Ravelstein is great. We have in this book a double story, that of Ravelstein, an intellectual, a philosophy professor from Chicago, or somewhere, who suddenly becomes a millionnaire but dies of AIDS, and that of Chick, a writer, who has been chosen by Ravelstein to write a memoir about his life, and who nearly dies of a tropical disease. Those two stories are like mirrors, constantly entertwined and interlaced, both faithful to each other and distorting the image of the one or the other, and at times even the reality of the real persons. It is a quest for truth and understanding in a world where appearances or often more important than truth. This gives a very deep vista into human nature. This book is also about the role of Athens and Jerusalem as the bases of our vision of the world, of our ideology, of our history and political life. Plato and Socrates rhyme with Moses and Abraham, and they sing and act the most beautiful Song of Songs by the most eternal King Solomon. The book gets us beyond life and death, beyond any limit that could cripple our thinking that must be freed of all manacles and reins. And yet it is not finished. The book is also an assessment of the Shoah, of the Jewish people as the core and the heart of the human soul. How can we explain the attempt to destroy the Jews when they play that important a role in our civilization ? Suicide ? Folly ? Craziness ? Or just blood thirst, cannibalism, the need of blood on our shoes and feet to grow harder and stronger ? But it is only to wake up later on weak and guilt-ridden. There is no escape from that blood glut. It has to go through and then to be expiated, and it has taken more than half a century to just acknowledge the crime, try to appease it, look for an exit and a total cleansing of the mind. We still have some venon in our blood and our flesh and our thoughts, and Saul Bellow is tracking that venon and exposing it to our amazed eyes, blind-folded eyes, and we have to wake up from that satiated slumber to maybe become really human. The trip is not yet finished, because the bacteria is still in our tripe and our guts don't want to reject it. We displace it at times, but we always come back to the center of that vicious circle that says we must destroy the Jews to be rid of our incompetence and lack of longing, because inocence is in longing even if our world is trying to build itself on the negation of this fundamental feeling and attitude. If we do not long for something we will never struggle for it and we will never improve our nature. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Universities of Paris IX and II

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Summary: Review
Review: I was very disappointed in this book, the only novel of Bellow which I've read. Some of it, such as the characterization of the life-loving, awkward Ravelstein/Bloom is quite good, but Bellow lets off too easy the male companion, who is nothing more than an expensive prostitute, by describing him as an "Asian prince". The waterfall of red orchids is an interesting image, but Bellow keeps needlessly repeating it. Likewise, it's not exactly a profundity to observe with wonder how the human heart beats on ceaselessly etc. - this has been said many times before and with greater elegance. Also, we keep hearing how very beautiful and intelligent the narrator's wife is etc.- enough already. It is readable and workmanlike, but hardly the novel one might expect from a Nobel prize winner.

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Summary: It's really about Saul Bellow.
Review: Ostensibly Ravelstein is about the late professor of political philosophy, Allan Bloom, who became a star late in his career when he published his best-selling book, The Closing of the American Mind. Chick, the narrator, gives us a long sketch about Ravelstein/Bloom, particularly focusing on his opulent, rock-star life style, which Chick rationalizes away because Ravelstein doesn't really care about it. But then why does he insist on this decadence? Why does he spend money like throwing it from the back of a train? Also, Ravelstein's homosexuality (his 'irregular' sex) doesn't bother the broad-minded Chick because Ravelstein can't stand effeminate men (we're told of this fact several times). All this explaining away of what Chick sees as Ravelstein's foibles is ironic because Ravelstein himself constantly points out to Chick that he (Chick) regularly explains away the bad characters of other people he finds useful (e.g. - the shallowness of his beautiful ex-wife Vera; the grim past of the amusing fascist Grielescu). So the book, is really about Chick/Bellow, about his musing on the plight of the Jews, his reflections on his own mortality, the pains and joys he shares with his much younger, very beautiful wives. We get much more clinical information about Chick's infection with cigua-toxin poisoning than we do with Ravelstein's plight with AIDS. His illness is detailed to a much greater degree than is Ravelstein's. The book has the usual urbane discourses that are a hall-mark of Bellow's novels. I found it enjoyable reading. It is an impressive achievement for an octogenarian. But I wasn't taken in by Ravelstein the way Chick was. But than again, how can we be taken in if he is just a lens through which we view Chick?

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Summary: Another Bellow Achievement!
Review: Has Saul Bellow written an AIDS novel? I would say no. This is a disguised portrait of his friend Allan Bloom's (Ravelstein's) life, a University of Chicago professor who became an overnight success with the publication of his book. However, Bellow's remains mute on how he really feels about gay people, etc. We are only told that Ravelstein despised "gay pride" and effeminate men.

Bellow's certainly is a unique voice and writes quite brilliantly about the human experience. He does tend to wander off in all directions at times, though. This is an interesting and very good book, and quite an outstanding work for an 84 year old author. Therefore, I would recommend it because I enjoyed this otherwise fine story.

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Summary: Vintage Bellow But Maybe Even Better
Review: Dying of AIDS, internationally renowned professor, Abe Ravelstein commissions his friend, Chick, to write his biography in the form of a memoir.

A bold and brash novel, Ravelstein is reminiscent of Humboldt's Gift; each contains an admiring narrator and each is based on actual persons in Bellow's life.

Ravelstein, however, is more of an extravert than is Humboldt, becoming almost a comic figure who lives the high life on a grand and glorious scale. He tosses his hand-tailored clothes about with abandon, orders lavish meals, and in general, has a passion for material possessions while maintaining an utter disdain for money.

Ravelstein is certainly a far cry from the dour figures that usually people Bellow's novels; in fact he is just the opposite: flamboyant, perverse, bizarre, passionate and material. Considering what fate has in store for him, perhaps his personality simply adds to the overall tragedy of the novel.

The other characters in Ravelstein are vintage Bellow. The men are removed academics, the women devouring and unreasonable.

It is Chick, however, who comes to dominate the book. A big-city, Jewish type, he is still unprepared for his disastrous marriage to Vela, a stereotypical Bellow female straight out of Herzog. His second marriage, however, to Rosamund, one of Ravelstein's former students is more successful, but since Bellow seems averse to giving us anything resembling a fulfilling relationship and a sympathetic female character, Rosamund remains little more than background music.

Fighting demons of his own, Chick decides to escape the pessimism surrounding Ravelstein and leaves the gloomy Chicago winter for the sunnier climes of the Caribbean where he comes face to face with his own mortality.

If one accepts Herzog as the benchmark against which to weigh Bellow's work, then Ravelstein succeeds. The characters are, for the most part, larger-than-life, the mood is sufficiently pessimistic and the setting depicted with meticulously accurate details. The thing Ravelstein lacks are the cast of secondary figures and the braided running subplots. This is, however, not a criticism, and Ravelstein is all the better for its clean and crisp narrative.

Ravelstein is, at its heart, vintage Bellow, and it shows us that this master writer has lost none of his power to observe life with both sympathy and cool irony. If anything, he is even better than before.