Ravelstein

Saul Bellow

Editions

Review

I started this novel with some trepidation: a flurry of publicity had emphasised the book's invasive nature.  Ostensibly fiction, it is autobiographical in many details – an account of the friendship between Bellow (‘Chick’) and Alan Bloom (‘Ravelstein’).  Criticism focused especially on Bellow’s ‘outing’ of Bloom, who died several years ago of AIDS.  Within ten pages, Bellow had won me over: this is a remarkable book, written by a man in his ninth decade; it is warm wise, moving and funny.

It might be called an elegiac novel – but it is an energetic elegy – for a remarkable man, for a troubled century, for a persecuted people.  Above all, the author gives us an exuberant portrait of a friendship.  “You don’t easily give up a creature like Ravelstein to death,” he writes – and you know he is writing about his own death as well. - review by Karen Wadman