Ravelstein (German Edition) Book

For most literary Americans of my generation, Saul Bellow has largely been forgotten. It seems that when he's thought of at all, it's as a hopelessly out-of-touch white conservative, someone whose artistic ability was ultimately clouded by his stance. While Céline, Hamsun, and other reactionaries have been rehabilitated, Bellow's unsexy Republican uncle attitudes are a tough nut to swallow. And consequently, we're not likely to pick up Herzog any time soon (and frankly, I think it kind of sucked).

But hey, Henderson the Rain King was OK, if a bit silly, and Augie March was downright fun.

But Ravelstein is a different matter altogether. A slender yet complex novel of ideas, featuring a very sympathetic total dickhead at its core, a character in whom we see a lot of Bellow mocking the cultural conservatism of his milieu, this is the best sort of modernist American writing. Forget what you thought you knew about Saul Bellow-- this is the novel that makes me think the Swedish medal around his neck wasn't a waste of gold.