Ravelstein

Rating:
Summary: Disappointment
Review: A real disappointment. I loved Humboldt's Gift and the subject matter here intrigued me. But it felt like such an undisciplined meander. Frequent repetitions, very many surface descriptions. I never felt like I got to know Ravelstein/Bloom in any real depth. Or maybe his love of expensive things was what he was all about. But without a serious examination of his learning and beliefs (because after all, isn't that what this man was really about) he remains a 2 dimensional popinjay.

Disappointed in Bellow's writing. At the end he goes in to that long passage about almost dying but never once relates it to what Ravelstein/Bloom must have been going through as he died. I thought there was such rich ground here for parallels/depth about dying and the human condition. But instead it all read very much like a "Dear Diary" rendition of his life. And I thought the book was supposed to be about so much more.

Rating:
Summary: Fact and Fiction: Either/Or/Both
Review: By now, most of those who are thinking about reading this book already know that the character of Abe Ravelstein is based on Bellow's friend Allan Bloom, and, that Chick serves as a persona for Bellow himself. Chick's approach to Ravelstein is described as a "piecemeal method": the provision of an ever-expanding accumulation of interactions between and among the most important people in Ravelstein's life as well as their interactions with Ravelstein himself. We learn that Ravelstein asked Chick to write a biography of him in the form of a memoir. Chick concentrates on countless memories of his friend. He and Ravelstein take turns being the focal point of the narrative. There is very little physical action...but a great deal of intellectual and emotional activity, especially as Ravelstein's health deteriorates. (He is dying of AIDS.) If you share my high regard for Bellow's previous works, this is a "must read." Other reviewers have referred to Oates's Blonde as "pathography" and the same can be said of Ravelstein. At which point does it cease to be a biography (or memoir) and becomes a novel? I couldn't care less. This may not be Bellow's finest work but I would be hard-pressed to suggest another which has greater intellectual depth and richer emotional texture.

Rating:
Summary: Unravelling Ravelstein, My Adventures with Bloom & Bellow
Review: I was fascinated by this book, especially because the subject of it ~ Allan Bloom ~ has flowed in and out of my own life over decades. In late 1993 early 1994 I wrote Saul Bellow about my experiences with two Allan Blooms, son and father, dating back to the mid-sixties at Rockford College with the older Allan Bloom. Then in 1989 immediately following a breakthrough in my own research [see, Clifford Brickman, "The Still Soft Voice."] my life again intersected with Allan Bloom, this time the son, and best-selling author of "Closing of the American Mind." Perhaps my writing Saul Bellow helped him with breaking through a writer's block, as he describes in his book. The circles and spirals of time flowing through my own life with the Blooms and Bellow further heightens my interest in Ravelstein.

Rating:
Summary: A resounding triumph
Review: How fortunate we are that Saul Bellow has the courage and adroit capability to perform this act of magic and love: here is a brilliant novel, a stunning biography of a friendship, and a journey through the centuries of dialogue of philosophy and poetry. Bellow is a gifted craftsman with the English language, Given. He understands character development and creates wholly credible players from the most bizarre and challenging gene pool, Given. That he is terse and succinct is well established. So on opening this rather short novel we settle into the knowledge that the journey ahead is secure, that whatever the story unfolding, it will be brilliantly crafted.

The utter joy for me is the fact that Bellow has gifted us on so many levels - fascinating reading, wholly memorable characters, an undercurrent of autobiography and memoirs, and at the same time he addresses the big questions we all face - the importance of love, the world view of our philosopher forbears and contemporaries, death and what follows, and true , that is to say TRUE friendship.

I love this book. I found myself marking certain pages that held memorable crystaline lines, such as "The simplest of human beings is, for that matter, esoteric and radically mysterious." I know I will return to RAVELSTEIN often, probably every time I choose to share it with someone I love.

Rating:
Summary: Good Subject Poorly Treated.
Review: I read both The Closing of the American Mind and Allan Bloom's lesser known book, Love and Friendship. I enjoyed both of them and wanted to know more about Bloom, so I got Ravelstein as soon as it came out. I was not as happy with it as I thought I'd be. Without going much into the plot, other reviews have done that, I will say that the book left me wondering about Saul Bellow's reputation as a great writer. There is undoubted insight into Bellow's literary biography of Allan Bloom, but the book itself is either poorly written or poorly edited. Bellow repeats himself word for word several times on different subjects. He also makes several mistakes in references. The "Nuts" response to a German surrender demand in WW2 was at Bastogne, not Remagen; and the Rose Bowl, not the Orange Bowl is played in Pasadena. These are little mistakes, but there are enough of them to become annoying.

Rating:
Summary: Ravelstein or Revelations?
Review: This an excruciatingly short review:

If you rearrange the letters in RAVELSTEIN and add an O, you will have REVELATIONS. Does this encoded word refer to the treatment of Bloom? Or does it reflect the author's feeling that his work is somehow God-given?

Rating:
Summary: An important but unpleasant book
Review: The low point in Allan Bloom's notorious Closing of the American Mind -- and what gave the lie to his being a serious thinker -- came when he showed his pride at what he considered a compliment from a talented former student, now studying in Europe: "You are not a political philosopher, but a travel agent." I don't doubt Bloom's student intended his comment as a compliment, which makes it all the more damning, for despite the praise heaped upon Bloom, I cannot help but see him as not just a popularizer, but a trivializer of the literary and philosophical tradition, and a man who truly corrupted the youth that studied under him by infecting them with his attitudes and misconceptions.

Bellow's Ravelstein is supposed to be a thinly veiled portrait of Bloom, and despite the affection and respect its narrator, Chick, shows for Ravelstein, if the details Chick gives of Ravelstein bear even the slightest resemblance to Bloom, one can only conclude that Allan Bloom was the most frightening and extreme example of Nietzsche's cultivated philistine that we may ever see. That Ravelstein is a homosexual is, as one of William Gaddis's characters quipped, just opera; the real scandal is Ravelstein listening to Baroque and Renaissance music "played on the original instruments" -- as if that were a novelty these days! -- on $10,000 dollar loudspeakers at volumes that overwhelm his neighbors despite specially installed soundproofing. Or Ravelstein elevating his taste in clothing designers to world-historic importance. Or Ravelstein spouting the same nonsense about Celine and Flaubert that Bloom put forward in Closing of the American Mind -- Celine's amoral Robinson lived and died by a code? Flaubert's Emma Bovary, spendthrift and social climber, capable of grand passion?

There is a hint of critical irony near the beginning of the book, where Ravelstein holds court in the same Parisian hotel that Michael Jackson, excoriated by Bloom in Closing of the American Mind, is staying in. The idea that Bloom was more kin to the rock stars he criticized is a delicious one, but remains undeveloped.

Theodor Adorno, a real philosopher and musician, might have made some very acid comments on Ravelstein's "listening" habits if he'd been unlucky enough to live to read this book, and if we had his comments, we'd be spared the chore of reading Ravelstein. But Adorno died in 1969, a victim of student harassment for his real commitment to philosophy despite his left leaning sympathies. So it falls upon all of us to examine this depressing catalog of luxury items and received ideas and consider the fate of culture in our time.

Rating:
Summary: A journey through life and death
Review: Saul Bellow has a great talent for describing the daily details of life, and understanding some of the deeper meanings behind those details. Ravelstein is a novel about a close friendship; the kind of friendship that you might treasure and want to keep for all of your life. The two main characters in the novel are Ravelstein and his friend Chick. Ravelstein is a well known professor, and he knows that the time of his death is approaching. He asks his friend to write a memoir about him. Chick is a writer, and he agrees to write the memoir. Ravelstein believed that longing was an essential necessity; a deep sense of longing for the best of love and life. That sense of longing is often reflected in the novel. For Chick that sense of longing was fulfilled through the beautiful love of his wife Rosamund: another important character in the story. But what of Ravelstein? Chick struggles to find the best way to write about Ravelstein. He writes about moments that are sometimes compassionate, funny, eccentric, and always memorable. He writes about the joy and sorrow that comes from a close friendship, and the lasting effect that lives have upon each other. He also writes about the ultimate moment of death that we all must finally face. As I read about Ravelstein and Chick, I found myself being swept along by their thoughts and the story of their lives. By the time that you finish reading this novel, you will find that it was a journey worth taking.

Rating:
Summary: Slow.....Dull......
Review: Can someone explain to me why this book has gotten glowing reviews and high praise? I've read half of the book and so far, nothing has happened. So OK, Ravelstein is supposed to be Allan Bloom and he's brilliant and witty and Bellow loved him. I am not charmed by Ravelstein/Bloom's charm and scintillating conversation, alas. Bellow also is taking the opportunity to trash his ex-wife in a very nasty and unpleasant way. (Do we really need to hear about her pubic hair? ) My recommendation: if you're curious and want to read it, DON'T pay big bucks for the hardcover. Get it from the library because you probably won't be able to finish it any way.

Rating:
Summary: Ravelstein Unraveled
Review: Saul Bellow's fictional account of the life of educator Allan Bloom, author of the critical bombshell, "The Closing of the American Mind," is a discursive, non-sequential account of one of the most interesting minds of the last half of the twentieth century. Bellow's Ravelstein is revealed through conversations with Chick, his appointed biographer, and through Chick's musings and conversations with his wife. While Ravelstein is portrayed in bursts of Technicolor (as one might expect after reading Bloom), the reader should be warned: this novel is mostly a modest black-and-white; more a letter than a memoir.

A good part of Bellow's appeal has always lay in his ability to top himself, to spin out his thought until something new and remarkable appears, and this ability, while unabated, is nevertheless disappointing in the context of the life of Ravelstein. One has the feeling throughout that Bellow is easing off or holding back--or perhaps simply tired. While we are given elaborate lists of the luxurious paraphernalia of Ravelstein's lifestyle, the most we actually learn of the man is that he had a passion for classical works, good food, and any sort of intellectual excitement. His reported opinions, while bombastic and entertaining, have the tinny echo of sound bites in this novel in which not much actually happens.

The narrator's own story within the novel reads as a thinly fictionalized account of Bellow's recent years, complete with a long (and disappointingly realized) account of an incident of food poisoning that leaves Chick/Bellow with a partially deadened lip--see author dust jacket photo for a glimpse of the lip.

But even as the novel shrugs to a close one can still admire Bellow's intellect and the sharpness and intellectual courage of his writing. And if the only thing a reader comes away with is a desire to read "The Closing of the American Mind," that will have been a noteworthy accomplishment.