Ravelstein
by Saul Bellow
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"Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously - and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas which sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein's surprise he does and becomes a millionaire. Ravelstein suggests in turn that Chick write a memoir or life of show more him, and during the course of a celebratory trip to Paris the two share thoughts on mortality, philosophy and history, loves and friends, old and new, and vaudeville routines from the remote past. The mood turns more somber once they have returned to the Midwest and Ravelstein succumbs to AIDS, and as Chick himself nearly dies."--Jacket. show lessTags
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I’m not entirely convinced that the roman à clef is a worthy vehicle for a great writer. And there is little doubt that Saul Bellow is a great writer. Nor is there much doubt that numerous characters in his novels have been modelled directly on people he knew intimately, friend and foe. However, only a few of his novels so explicitly take up this correspondence with the non-fictional that they typically get labelled in this manner. Ravelstein, Bellow’s last novel, is one of these. In it, he sketches the larger-than-life character of a professor by the name of Ravelstein, who is a thinly disguised stand-in for Bellow’s friend, Allan Bloom. These are Ravelstein’s last days. He is HIV-positive, subject to numerous rare and show more unrelenting infections, but determined to see his way out of the world in much the way that he lived in it: unapologetic, highly opinionated, self-centred (in every sense), and fiercely devoted to his close friends. It took Bellow some eight years after the death of Bloom to pen this fictionalized memoir. In the interim he himself came perilously close to death. And so the book as a whole became as much a meditation on death as it is a depiction of one particular death.
At least part of the novel holds up well. In particular, the first section, which was published as a standalone in The New Yorker, is tightly written and full of the flamboyance that ever after gets associated with Ravelstein (and now Bloom). Thereafter the novel begins to unravel. Arguments and anecdotes re-emerge almost without change from their first mention. It begins to seem like Bellow is circling his subject but can’t quite lock it down. He meanders. He is subject to only periodic lucidity. He falters under the weight of the burden that his friend has laid upon him in requesting that he take up this biographical task. Maybe it’s all a brilliant representation of decline. Or, less charitably, it might simply be a less than fully edited effort. At some point, at any rate, I began to lose interest both in the subject, i.e. death, and in the subject, i.e. Ravelstein.
Any writer who lasts as long as Bellow will produce works of varying quality. Fortunately there are many other titles in his oeuvre that will capture, challenge, and delight the reader even if this is not one of them. show less
At least part of the novel holds up well. In particular, the first section, which was published as a standalone in The New Yorker, is tightly written and full of the flamboyance that ever after gets associated with Ravelstein (and now Bloom). Thereafter the novel begins to unravel. Arguments and anecdotes re-emerge almost without change from their first mention. It begins to seem like Bellow is circling his subject but can’t quite lock it down. He meanders. He is subject to only periodic lucidity. He falters under the weight of the burden that his friend has laid upon him in requesting that he take up this biographical task. Maybe it’s all a brilliant representation of decline. Or, less charitably, it might simply be a less than fully edited effort. At some point, at any rate, I began to lose interest both in the subject, i.e. death, and in the subject, i.e. Ravelstein.
Any writer who lasts as long as Bellow will produce works of varying quality. Fortunately there are many other titles in his oeuvre that will capture, challenge, and delight the reader even if this is not one of them. show less
The overwhelming consensus appears to be that Bellow knows very much. In fact, he gives the impression of knowing very little.
Bellow understands very little about allusion. With respect to his use of copious references, the problem is not their esoteric quality, rather that they aren't references at all. When Bellow mentions a stoic philosopher, a brief quotation, or a turn of phrase in French, one must understand that these references are skin-deep. There is nothing being signified beyond the phrase itself. I know this is correct because an actual understanding of the referred object does not enhance the text. When Bellow wants us to know more, he bores us with an explicit (insulting) explanation. This is best exemplified in the show more multi-paragraph summary of the The Symposium. If Bellow expected anything at all from the reader (and if he were actually using references to communicate real ideas), a single sentence would have been enough. When Bellow mentions a brand of suit, or speaker, or kitchenware, we aren't even meant to know what this sort of thing conveys. What he is actually trying to communicate is the implication that the brand is expensive or that Ravelstein (the character) is particular in his tastes. That is, nothing of particular interest.
Bellow understands very little about human relations. Take, for instance, the character representing his ex-wife, Vela, who is a 'chaos scientist.' (not a very subtle metaphor...) Vela and Ravelstein have a falling-out because, among other things, R. violates her privacy. R. then justifies himself with the following,
Bellow understands very little about the importance small detail. Bellow’s stumbling, off-the-cuff descriptions remind me of Perec’s brilliance by their lack. For Bellow only the signifier exists. The brand name is enough to communicate the Object. To him, small off-hand details are matters of complete indifference. Take, for instance, the following phrase which he uses to conclude a lengthy description of Ravelstein,
Maybe I'm being too harsh. show less
Bellow understands very little about allusion. With respect to his use of copious references, the problem is not their esoteric quality, rather that they aren't references at all. When Bellow mentions a stoic philosopher, a brief quotation, or a turn of phrase in French, one must understand that these references are skin-deep. There is nothing being signified beyond the phrase itself. I know this is correct because an actual understanding of the referred object does not enhance the text. When Bellow wants us to know more, he bores us with an explicit (insulting) explanation. This is best exemplified in the show more multi-paragraph summary of the The Symposium. If Bellow expected anything at all from the reader (and if he were actually using references to communicate real ideas), a single sentence would have been enough. When Bellow mentions a brand of suit, or speaker, or kitchenware, we aren't even meant to know what this sort of thing conveys. What he is actually trying to communicate is the implication that the brand is expensive or that Ravelstein (the character) is particular in his tastes. That is, nothing of particular interest.
Bellow understands very little about human relations. Take, for instance, the character representing his ex-wife, Vela, who is a 'chaos scientist.' (not a very subtle metaphor...) Vela and Ravelstein have a falling-out because, among other things, R. violates her privacy. R. then justifies himself with the following,
“As for Vela, he judged her even more severely. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have rushed into the bedroom.’ He granted that, but added, ‘There wasn’t all that much to be seen. Anyway, I wasn’t interested. She was far from exposed. She had on her slip, and all kinds of other stuff under that. So what’s all the hue and cry?’”Even in 2001, this would have been a bit on-the-nose and doesn't mean what Bellow intends. (Not to mention Ravelstein's description of Michael Jackson as a "glamour monkey" or his praise of black servicemen as "well-spoken.") Vela is cold, standoffish, and is always working on Chaos Science. She doesn't emerge into a real person from the collection of eccentricities, and it is here in which we see the negative of Bellow's actual relationship. It doesn’t take a particularly astute reader to recognize the cry, “What could she mean, that Chaos Scientist?” as the intellectual impotence which prevents understanding in human relations. (Side Note: Bellow spends a portion of the novel discussing his relationship with Grielescu, who likely was a Nazi during the War. Eventually, Bellow is put-off by G.'s interest in Jung and mythology, which he interprets as a proxy for anti-antisemitism. He never considers the implication of the more disturbing fact that G.'s Nazi ideology is entirely soluble in a discussion of the Classics which Bellow so enjoys.)
Bellow understands very little about the importance small detail. Bellow’s stumbling, off-the-cuff descriptions remind me of Perec’s brilliance by their lack. For Bellow only the signifier exists. The brand name is enough to communicate the Object. To him, small off-hand details are matters of complete indifference. Take, for instance, the following phrase which he uses to conclude a lengthy description of Ravelstein,
“...two long arms hanging over the sides of his chair and the strange shapes of his mismatched feet. One was three sizes bigger than the other.”The detail about the mismatched feet is impossible not to have mentioned earlier. I wonder if Bellow has ever seen the things he describes, considering such a drastic, surreal impression this would have made on anyone witnessing this deformity (something so bizarre it borders on the absurd). Though this is quibbling over small beans, it represents how Bellow has taken one of the few possible refuges in his work (pure delight in prose) and left it barren.
Maybe I'm being too harsh. show less
When it was published critics called it one of Bellow's "minor" books. I disagree. It's softer and subtler than Augie March or Henderson the Rain King, but the narrative exuberance here is unsurpassed even by Bellow himself in earlier decades. Because the book is at its heart the story of friendship between two men who loved one another, Bellow's inability to write about women except in a misogynistic way is a minor flaw in this particular book, one that barely registered for me here, even though the same flaw made Herzog impossible going for me. Ok, I can do without women flaunting their pudenda in their ex-husband's faces as a mean way of saying goodbye, a scene that happens in Ravelstein, and in at least one other Bellow book. Augie show more March, I think. But even so. While reading Ravelstein I could forgive these trespasses, because I was swept along by the life force of these two main characters, Chick and Ravelstein. I was captivated by the depth of their friendship, and I was moved by this clear-headed, thoughtful, beautiful exploration of their own mortality as it played out in these pages. Only Henderson the Rain King came close for me to Ravelstein's moving and deep a portrayal of friendship and mortality. show less
Initially I thought this was a book with a limited appeal, mainly concerned with intellectual ideas but it broadened out into a colourful picture of an individual (based on Allan Bloom) in the shadow of mortality. I admired aspects of The Closing of The American Mind so I was sympathetic to him but less admirable was his lavish lifestyle and vanity. But he was a complex man and Bellow shows him as a charismatic personality who drew acolytes aswell as enemies. Along with the heavy-hitting philosophy there's plenty of gossip and probably contentious views on figures like Radu Grielescu and his anti-Semitic past (based on Mircea Eliade). Based on this I'd read more Bellow. His mixture of the 'high and 'low' culture is appealing though show more initially it felt like he was throwing the 'common reader' a bone. show less
With this novel, Bellow fulfils a promise made to his friend Allan Bloom to write his biography. The novel is autobiographical as well, with Bellow portraying himself in the character Chick. But to dwell on the identification of the thinly disguised cast of characters and real-world circumstances is to miss the power with which Bellow presents life-as-art, the proposition that we create ourselves through a peculiar collage of eccentricities and habits and friends and personal ideals and ways of being. This is a powerful, lyrical, metaphysical work on the honesty of friendship and the continued presence of the dead for the living. Ravelstein was listed among the New York Times Notable Books and Library Journal's Best Books in 2000. As show more for me, I give it 9 out of 10 stars. show less
This was my first Bellow and I could hear, over my shoulder, his fans saying, "This isn't his best work, you know?". Indeed, I found it to be somewhat repetitive and 'padded'. Unless it was his way of showing the decline of the aged first-person narrator? Still, a good quick read.
I've read all of Bellow, the best American novelist during my lifetime, though Updike became, in his last books, a close second--and a better reviewer.
I do not say this simply because Bellow's best friend at the U MN was my Ph.D. advisor Leonard Unger: a charming photo of them on a sofa smoking and laughing, with their wives framing it, was printed in Rolling Stone in the 50s. (In the pic I think Leonard was just cracking one of his myriad jokes, probably a Jewish joke, according to his wife Sherley who was there.) Bellow and Unger together composed, over lunch at the UMN Faculty Club,
a translation of the first four lines of the Wasteland by TS Eliot (Leonard's early specialty)--into Yiddish.
Ravelstein's a remarkable book partly bec show more Bellow wrote it in age, and partly bec it's nearly impossible to focus a gripping novel on the life of an academic, here Bloom. My line on the book: It would have been a much better, wittier book had Bellow written it about another of his friends, Leonard Unger. show less
I do not say this simply because Bellow's best friend at the U MN was my Ph.D. advisor Leonard Unger: a charming photo of them on a sofa smoking and laughing, with their wives framing it, was printed in Rolling Stone in the 50s. (In the pic I think Leonard was just cracking one of his myriad jokes, probably a Jewish joke, according to his wife Sherley who was there.) Bellow and Unger together composed, over lunch at the UMN Faculty Club,
a translation of the first four lines of the Wasteland by TS Eliot (Leonard's early specialty)--into Yiddish.
Ravelstein's a remarkable book partly bec show more Bellow wrote it in age, and partly bec it's nearly impossible to focus a gripping novel on the life of an academic, here Bloom. My line on the book: It would have been a much better, wittier book had Bellow written it about another of his friends, Leonard Unger. show less
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ThingScore 67
"Ravelstein" ist ein Roman von Saul Bellow, der das Leben von Allan Bloom, einem realen Philosophen und Autor von "The Closing of the American Mind", fiktionalisiert. Erzählt wird der Roman von Chick, einem engen Freund von Ravelstein, einer Figur, die auf Bloom basiert.
Die Geschichte dreht sich um die komplexe Beziehung zwischen Chick und Ravelstein und behandelt Themen wie Freundschaft, show more Sterblichkeit und das Streben nach intellektueller und persönlicher Erfüllung. Ravelstein, ein charismatischer und einflussreicher Professor, wird wohlhabend und berühmt, doch sein Gesundheitszustand verschlechtert sich. Chick denkt über ihre Freundschaft, Ravelsteins Ideen und die Auswirkungen des Erfolgs auf das eigene Leben nach.
Der Roman befasst sich mit philosophischen und existenziellen Fragen, untersucht das Wesen des Glücks, die Folgen des Erfolgs und die Unausweichlichkeit des Todes. Bellows "Ravelstein" ist eine Reflexion über das intellektuelle Leben, die Freundschaft und die conditio humana, die von realen Ereignissen und Menschen aus dem Leben des Autors inspiriert wurde. show less
Die Geschichte dreht sich um die komplexe Beziehung zwischen Chick und Ravelstein und behandelt Themen wie Freundschaft, show more Sterblichkeit und das Streben nach intellektueller und persönlicher Erfüllung. Ravelstein, ein charismatischer und einflussreicher Professor, wird wohlhabend und berühmt, doch sein Gesundheitszustand verschlechtert sich. Chick denkt über ihre Freundschaft, Ravelsteins Ideen und die Auswirkungen des Erfolgs auf das eigene Leben nach.
Der Roman befasst sich mit philosophischen und existenziellen Fragen, untersucht das Wesen des Glücks, die Folgen des Erfolgs und die Unausweichlichkeit des Todes. Bellows "Ravelstein" ist eine Reflexion über das intellektuelle Leben, die Freundschaft und die conditio humana, die von realen Ereignissen und Menschen aus dem Leben des Autors inspiriert wurde. show less
added by Peter_MacTroy
American English departments have proven themselves unworthy stewards of what is noble in human nature, in the great public.
added by fglaysher
Das Entstehen dieses Romans kann man (je nach Blickwinkel) aus moralischen Gründen ablehnen oder begrüßen, doch für den Leser steht letztlich der Text als künstlerisches Produkt im Vordergrund; auch die Frage, wie stark sich Fakten und Fiktion mischen, hat nur nachrangige Bedeutung. Es dreht sich um zwei befreundete Intellektuelle - einen Philosophieprofessor namens Ravelstein und den show more Schriftsteller Chick. Beide verbindet ein starker Mitteilungsdrang. Sie philosophieren über Gott und die Welt, aber dies geschieht bei Bellow - trotz des betont intellektuellen Vokabulars - in einer oberflächlichen Art, die an Tresengespräche über Fußball, Wetter oder Urlaub erinnert....
Dem eigentlichen Thema, Ravelsteins tödlicher verlaufender Aids-Erkrankung, weicht Bellow aus. Mehr als vage Andeutungen erlaubt sich der angeblich so weltoffene Autor nicht, und Einblicke in die Psyche des dahinsiechenden Freundes sind äußerst rar. Stattdessen begegnen wir allerlei (und zumeist schon bekannten) biografischen Marginalien aus Bellows bewegter Vita, die mal mehr und mal weniger getarnt in die Handlung eingeflochten werden. Bellows Roman liest sich wie eine missglückte, moderne Form von "Narziß und Goldmund": Chick als ratiogesteuerter Narziß und Bloom als lebensfroher, den Sinnenfreuden zugewandter Goldmund. show less
Dem eigentlichen Thema, Ravelsteins tödlicher verlaufender Aids-Erkrankung, weicht Bellow aus. Mehr als vage Andeutungen erlaubt sich der angeblich so weltoffene Autor nicht, und Einblicke in die Psyche des dahinsiechenden Freundes sind äußerst rar. Stattdessen begegnen wir allerlei (und zumeist schon bekannten) biografischen Marginalien aus Bellows bewegter Vita, die mal mehr und mal weniger getarnt in die Handlung eingeflochten werden. Bellows Roman liest sich wie eine missglückte, moderne Form von "Narziß und Goldmund": Chick als ratiogesteuerter Narziß und Bloom als lebensfroher, den Sinnenfreuden zugewandter Goldmund. show less
added by Indy133
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Author Information
142+ Works 33,753 Members
Saul Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec, Canada on June 10, 1915. He attended the University of Chicago, received a Bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology from Northwestern University in 1937, and did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin. He taught at several universities including the University of Minnesota, Princeton show more University, the University of Chicago, New York University, and Boston University. His first novel, Dangling Man, was published in 1944. His other works include The Victim, Seize the Day, Henderson the Rain King, Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories, To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account, Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories, More Die of Heartbreak, and Something to Remember Me By. He received numerous awards including the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt's Gift, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and three National Book Awards for fiction for The Adventures of Augie March in 1954, Herzog in 1964, and Mr. Sammler's Planet in 1970. Also a playwright, he wrote The Last Analysis and three short plays, collectively entitled Under the Weather, which were produced on Broadway in 1966. He died on April 5, 2005. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Ravelstein
- Original title
- Case of love
- Alternate titles
- Case of Love
- Original publication date
- 2000
- People/Characters*
- Abe Ravelstein; Chick
- Important places*
- Paris, Île-de-France, France
- Dedication
- A la bella donna della mia mente.
To Janis,
The Star without whom I could not navigate.
And to the real Rosie. - First words
- Odd that mankind's benefactors should be amusing people.
- Quotations*
- Presto la vita sarebbe tornata, e io avrei preso posto sul treno della vita. La morte si sarebbe rincantucciata dov'era prima, ai bordi del paesaggio. Il desiderio del paziente è di tornare - strisciando, zoppicando o arrang... (show all)iandosi in tutti i modi - alla vita che precedeva la malattia, e di trincerarsi e fortificarsi nella vecchia posizione.
Ravelstein era un educatore. Non si presentava mai come un filosofo: i professori di filosofia non sono dei filosofi. Aveva una preparazione filosofica e aveva imparato come la vita dovrebbe essere vissuta. Di questo si occup... (show all)ava la filosofia, e questo era il motivo per cui si leggeva Platone. Se avesse dovuto scegliere tra Atene e Gerusalemme, le due fonti principali di vita superiore, avrebbe scelto Atene, pur con tutto il rispetto per Gerusalemme. Ma negli ultimi giorni era degli ebrei che voleva parlare, non dei greci.
Ho sempre avuto un debole per le note a piè di pagina. Più di un testo , secondo me, è stato riscattato da un 'intelligente o perfida nota a piè di pagine.
Per avvicinarsi a un uomo come Ravelstein il metodo migliore forse è farlo a spizzichi. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)You don't easily give up a creature like Ravelstein to death.
- Original language*
- Anglais (USA) (USA)
- Disambiguation notice
- Pre-publication/working title: Case of Love
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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