The Fictional World of Saul Bellow

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Dangling man. 3. The victim. 4. The adventures of Augie March. 5. Seize the day. 6. Henderson the rain King. 7. Herzog. 8. Mr. Sammler\'s planet. 9. Humboldt\'s gift. 10. The deans December. 11. More die of heartbreak. 12. A theft. 13. The Bellarosa connection. 14. Saul Bellow\'s short stories and his last Novel. Index.

Saul Bellow\'s writing exhibited the mixture of rich picaresque novel and subtle analysis of Western culture, pf entertaining adventure, drastic and tragic episodes interspersed with philosophic conversation all developed with wit and penetrating insight into the outer and inner complications that drive use to act, or prevent us from acting and that can be called the dilemma of our age.

Bellow has been a very popular writer and his books have attracted readers in large number. His popularity is not conditioned so much by his descriptions of American social disturbances or chaos in his books as by something that lies hidden behind the descriptions. Truly enough, bellow is a writer of an era of chaos and disillusionment but his approach is neither defeatist nor negative in nature, instead, it is something vigorously optimistic and positive in spirit.

Though realism and naturalism are the main factors in the making of his fictional imagination, yet romanticism too has a great influence over it. His insistence upon the uniqueness and importance of the individual, his stress upon the intuitional nature of knowledge, his realization of the insufficiency of science to explain the mystery of life, his call for a rebellion against the tyranny of social savagery, his belief in the infinite potentiality of human existence and his sense of obligation of every individual to live up to the very best in him, indicate his attitude and inclination towards romanticism. He drew nourishment and vigour from the great Russian writers, from Indian philosophy and religious though as well as from Jewish and American culture. (jacket)