Background
Saul Bellow, born of Russian immigrant parents in Lachine, Quebec, on July 10, 1915, grew up in Montreal, where he learned Hebrew, Yiddish, and French as well as English.
(The Adventures of Augie March is the great American Nove...)
The Adventures of Augie March is the great American Novel. Search no further. Martin Amis As soon as it first appeared in 1953, this novel by the great Saul Bellow was hailed as an American classic. Augie, the exuberant narrator-hero is a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Great Deptression. A born recruit, Augie makes himself available for a series of occupations, then proudly rejects each one as unworthy. His own oddity is reflected in the companions he encountersplungers, schemers, risk-takers, and hole-and corner operators like the would-be tycoon Einhorn or the would-be siren Thea, who travels with an eagle trained to hunt small creatures. This Penguin Classics edition, with an introduction by celebrated writer and critic Christopher Hitchens, makes a literary masterpiece available to a new generation of readers. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Saul Bellow, born of Russian immigrant parents in Lachine, Quebec, on July 10, 1915, grew up in Montreal, where he learned Hebrew, Yiddish, and French as well as English.
After two years at the University of Chicago, Bellow transferred to Northwestern University and obtained a bachelor of science degree in 1937.
Four months after enrolling as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, he fled formal education forever.
During the next decade after the studied Bellow held a variety of jobs - with the WPA Writers Project, the editorial department of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College, and the Merchant Marine.
His next novel, Herzog (1964), won him a second National Book Award and an international reputation.
Through a series of unposted letters, many of them highly comic, Herzog finally resolves his struggles, not in marital reconciliation but in rational acceptance and self-control.
In 1962 Bellow became a professor at the University of Chicago, a post which allowed him to continue writing fiction and plays.
The Last Analysis had a brief run on Broadway in 1964.
In her glowing review of his short story collection, Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984), Cynthia Ozick declared: "these five ravishing stories honor and augment his genius.
"Bellow's later novels have not received the same unequivocal praise.
His best fiction has been compared to the Russian masters, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The Dean's December (1982) and More Die of Heartbreak (1987) retained his distinctive style but some believed the cynicism of the characters signaled a lessening of Bellow's own trademark humanism. Since 1987, Bellow has released a number of novellas: A Theft (1989), The Bellarosa Connection (1989), Something to Remember Me By (1991), and The Actual (1997).
(The Adventures of Augie March is the great American Nove...)
The author's works speak to the disorienting nature of modern civilization, and the countervailing ability of humans to overcome their frailty and achieve greatness (or at least awareness).
Quotes from others about the person
Martin Amis described Bellow as "The greatest American author ever, in my view"
Bellow was married five times, with all but his last marriage ending in divorce. His son by his first marriage, Greg Bellow, became a psychotherapist. Bellow's son by his second marriage, Adam, published a nonfiction book In Praise of Nepotism in 2003. Bellow's wives were Anita Goshkin, Alexandra (Sondra) Tsachacbasov, Susan Glassman, Alexandra Ionescu Tulcea and Janis Freedman.