Saul Bellow
eBook - ePub

Saul Bellow

"I Was a Jew and an American and a Writer"

  1. 602 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Saul Bellow

"I Was a Jew and an American and a Writer"

About this book

Saul Bellow: "I Was a Jew and an American and a Writer" offers a fresh and original perspective on the life and works of Saul Bellow, the Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1976. Author Gerald Sorin emphasizes Bellow's Jewish identity as fundamental to his being and the content and meaning of his fiction. Bellow's work from the 1940s to 2000, when he wrote his last novel at the age of 84, centers on the command in Deuteronomy to "Choose life" as distinct from nihilistic withdrawal and the defense of meaninglessness.

Although Bellow disdained the label of "American Jewish Writer," Sorin conjectures that he was an outstanding representative of the classification. Bellow and the characters in his fiction not only choose life but also explore what it means to live a good life, however difficult that may be to define, and regardless of how much harder it is to achieve. For Sorin, Bellow realized that at least two obstacles stood in the way: the imperfection of the world and the frailty of the human pursuer.

Saul Bellow: "I Was a Jew and an American and a Writer" provides a new and insightful narrative of the life and works of Saul Bellow. By using Bellow's deeply internalized Jewishness and his remarkable imagination and creativity as a lens, Sorin examines how he captured the shifting atmosphere of postwar American culture.

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Yes, you can access Saul Bellow by Gerald Sorin in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literary Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Introduction
  8. 1. In the Beginning
  9. 2. Adapting to America
  10. 3. The Education of Saul Bellow
  11. 4. Dangling Men
  12. 5. In the Shadow of the Holocaust
  13. 6. In the Land of the Holocaust
  14. 7. The Adventures of Saul Bellow
  15. 8. Fathers and Sons
  16. 9. Husbands and Wives
  17. 10. Friendships and Betrayals
  18. 11. Wealth, Fame, and Jewish Identity in 1960s America
  19. 12. Love and Death
  20. 13. Bellow’s Gift, Israel, and the Nobel Prize
  21. 14. Bellow’s December
  22. 15. A Whole New Life
  23. 16. Bellow Banished and Bruised
  24. 17. Life and Death
  25. Appendix
  26. Abbreviations
  27. Notes
  28. Sources and Selected Bibliography
  29. Index
  30. About the Author