Bellow : A Biography (Modern Library)

Rating:
Summary: First-rate Bio For the Selective Bellow Fan
Review: Everyone who loves Bellow will need to read this book. It is breathtaking in its thoroughness. It is a very detailed, masterful description of Bellow's life and work, though perhaps a bit more "life" than "work". There is a question of whether quite as much life, especially love life, is really needed, but then the reader of this biography will get insights not only into Bellow's life but also into the life of our time. Atlas obviously has tremedous admiration for Bellow, and the reader of this biography -- THIS reader did-- will go away with a far greater appreciation of Bellow than he had before. And yet there is a problem in Atlkas's disapproval of aspects of Bellow's life. There are no doubt moments in Bellow's exhuberant public pronouncements where prudence would have required more tact and more taste, but Atlas surely goes too far when he accuses Bellow -- repeatedly ! -- of such non-PC lapses as "racism" and "misogyny". On the evidence, these accusations are unwarranted, in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: Expert and persuasive argument for a neglected writer
Review: For some reason many of the authors we read are very interesting people, more interesting then the books they write. Dickens and Hemingway to name just a few. In this case Bellow's books are way more interesting then his bio. There could of been a lot more about his books and a lot less of the author tip toeing around what a terrible selfish egotistcal and boring person Saul Bellow is. That he pretty much used relationships to get writing material and feed that ego. Any way read his books, Bellow is a great writer, I think, and wait for Bellow to pass on to his just reward. Hopefuly someone then will write a good Bio.

Rating:
Summary: First-rate Bio For the Selective Bellow Fan
Review: I am a Bellow fan, and aware of the upset this book caused with some, but thought Atlas's critique was very often on the mark. Bellow's early, short, novels are tightly-written, well-constructed American classics of alieanation - Dangling Man, Seize the Day and The Victim, for example. But Atlas zeroes in on the problems of the later, longer books that too often make up the core of university teaching lists - these longer books start off brilliantly, then pad out with a hundred extra pages or so of name-dropping and bizarre philosophizing (some of which belongs in the Chariots of the Gods category), and I think Atlas is right when he says Bellow's early, impoverished immigrant background left him with a strong desire to show off intellectually later in life, to the detriment of his work. Perhaps in his early days Bellow was insecure in a different way, in the right way, not allowing himself any self-indulgence in his early work and thus pulling off the indisputable classics that Dangling Man, et al, are.

This is a slightly odd biography in the sense that it will really, I think, most appeal to readers who pick and choose their fiction based more on the quality of the individual work, rather than those who have invested terms or years studying or teaching a particular author-personality - the most committed Bellow's fans will not like it, but those more detached will find this a very enjoyable and enlightening read. Newcomers to Bellow may wish to read a couple of his early, short books, before deciding if the later, more controversial novels, or this biography, are for them. I thought it a great read.

Rating:
Summary: A frivolous book by a frivolous writer.
Review: I am a big, atypical Bellow fan. I am about 65 years his junior. I suspect most of his devoted readers are a generation or two older than me, as I do not run into many young folk deeply engrossed in the struggles of Moses Herzog. This is a shame. The reason this book infuriates me is that while I am sure his writing it has helped Atlas pay off some lovely Upper West Side apartment in which he throws smashing soires for Brahmins of the publishing industry, his trashing Bellow ultimately detracts from people taking seriously very serious (and very funny) books. Shame on Atlas if Bellow loses potential young readers because of this book. Moreover, without entering the debate on the merits of literary biography, let me say that this is a book anyone could have written, it fails to substantively engage the meaning of Bellow's works. We only get the gossip that may or may not be the source of them. By all means, re-read Herzog or Augie March, do not waste your time or money on this book. Unlike Bellow and his protagonists, Atlas strkes me a very comfortable man and that is why he is an eminently replaceable writer.

Rating:
Summary: Too much of a good thing
Review: I thought that I would love this book because I love the work of Bellow,and love literary biographies. But the book proved to be too much of a good thing. It is one thing to have the guilty pleasure of finding out the details of the personal life of one's hero but when that takes one through five marriages and numerous affairs the soul begins to weary. Atlas also whether he wanted to or not gives the sense of Bellow as a kind of narcissistic, selfish person who does not really show proper consideration of those closest to him. This image was for me in a way disappointing and there is the sense that the person who has created so much vibrant, and life- giving literature must essentially be better than this. One thing however the book certainly does underline and that is Bellow's determination as a writer, his devotion to his work, the sense of his own special destiny which he bore with him all the time.

Rating:
Summary: Arrogant Biographer
Review: James Atlas has complained that the reviews for this biography have been heterogenous, noncommittal and inconclusive, as well as self-contradictory. For my part, I found this distinguished and important work to be mediocre and insignificant. It is prolix, intelligent, concise, superficial, obtuse and profound. But I could be wrong.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing first half... then the rest.
Review: Saul Bellow is an icon. Deconstructing an icon has a price, and Atlas risks it bravely. For the most part, he succeeds. The first half of the book dealing with Bellow's youth and his beginnings is jaw-dropping. The amount of painstaking research that Atlas has done for this biography pays off handsomely. He does a gorgeous job of recreating the environments, the ambition/inspiration/frustration of the young Bellow. Then the latter half recounts Bellow's inability to commit to women, his petulance, triumphs and mild failures, etc... and the book becomes cyclical to the point of repetitiveness. One cannot help but feel that Atlas was sick of his subject and his flaws. More often than not, the irascible, conservative old Bellow is portrayed in a thinly-disguised disdain. And as a reader, you share that disdain whether you like it or not. I did not like it, but the beginning half of the book was so luminous, I didn't regret having read the rest of it.

Rating:
Summary: A joke, signally unfair
Review: This biography of one of America's greatest writers is a colossal joke. Atlas takes pot shots at Bellow througout the book and actually attempts to psychoanalyze him several times! Instead of focusing on the brilliant works Bellow has produced, Atlas whacks Bellow over the head time and again for being a womanizer.

Fortunately, a couple of knowledgeable and appreciative authors have come forward and set the record straight concerning Bellow's unmatched contribution to American letters. Most recently, Charles Simic wrote a fabulous appreciation of Bellow in the New York Review of Books (May 31, 2001, "The Thinking Man's Comedy"). A recent Harper's magazine piece (February or March 2001 issue, I believe) also takes Atlas to task for producing such a pile of dung.

I refer Bellow fans and other interested readers to the above-mentioned articles.

Rating:
Summary: An Atlas of Bellow
Review: This is one biography that was really worth the wait. One almost had the impression over the last ten years that, like Truman Capote with In Cold Blood, Atlas was waiting for his character to die so he could be sure of how the story ended. Fortunately, Atlas did not wait and we still have Bellow and this book!

There have been comparisons already to Richard Ellman's work on James Joyce. Of course, Ellman's Joyce bio is a towering monument of scholarship and perhaps a harder book to write, but that is also a harder book to READ and not nearly as much fun as this one. I would compare Atlas's Bellow to Quentin Bell's Virginia Woolf, also a very fun book and a book that is both a passionate defense and an exasperated apology for its subject.

Now, I am not necessarily comparing Bellow and Woolf except to say they are both prickly and deep. Like Bell, Atlas has the advantage of knowing his subject personally and like Bell, is not above occasionally letting his frustration show. Bellow is not an easy man to like, or even tolerate, but his gifts are prodigious and Atlas never resorts to bitter stereotypes.

This is a book written with a deep sense of the American vernacular. There are currents of Chicago-ese, Canadian, and Yiddish running through it in a delightful mix. Atlas writes a very clear, lucid style and quotes from Bellow's letters and unpublished manuscripts freely.

It is hard to imagine a Stanely Elkin or a Philip Roth without first a Saul Bellow. This book is a great introduction to the Nobel laureate's work.

Rating:
Summary: Expert and persuasive argument for a neglected writer
Review: Who reads Saul Bellow nowadays? He is yet another American writer who has fallen into neglect now that he is no longer able to dominate by force of personality. And that is a shame for Bellow at his best was a genuine artist.

Fortunately, James Atlas is there to serve as a fervent, if critical, champion. I'm tempted to say that he has tried to do for Saul Bellow what Tim Page has done for Dawn Powell (although Bellow was once highly popular, so a better comparison might be to Richard Lingeman and his recent book on Sinclair Lewis). He does not shy away from the less attractive aspects of Bellow's personality, and he is devastating in his portrayal of the nattering clique of self-obsessed "New York intellectuals" who turned the author into a not-so-secular demi-God.

And yet one comes away from the book with a renewed respect for Bellow and his work. If Atlas cannot quite restore him to the pantheon, it is not for lack of trying. This is an intelligent, well-researched and brave book.