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Mueren más por desamor
El eminente botánico Benn Crader, hombre de sensibilidad peculiar e inteligencia bondadosa, más que capacitado para experimentar el amor verdadero, tiene ciertas dificultades cuando el mundo le exige habilidades más prosaicas.
Su sobrino Kenneth, profesor adjunto de literatura rusa, está dispuesto a hacer lo que haga falta para proteger a su tío y salvaguardar la magia y la pureza de un hombre tan excepcional. Y el monstruo primero, el que acecha a Benn detrás de cada esquina, es el amor, el impulso sexual, la necesidad de afecto, la eterna búsqueda que repiten hasta el fin cada hombre y cada mujer aun sabiendo que todo es mera esperanza.
El día menos esperado, Kenneth se entera de que su tío se ha casado con la hermosa y rica Matilda. "¿Puede reprocharse a alguien el hecho de que prefiera la belleza, ese júbilo eterno, como decía Keats?". Y aun así, el propio Benn es capaz de sostener en una entrevista que muere más gente por desamor que por radiactividad. Es ésta sin duda una plaga moderna: la búsqueda infructuosa de algo que no se puede lograr, una quimera. El absurdo autoengaño que hace ser a las personas algo distinto de lo único que saben ser.
Su sobrino Kenneth, profesor adjunto de literatura rusa, está dispuesto a hacer lo que haga falta para proteger a su tío y salvaguardar la magia y la pureza de un hombre tan excepcional. Y el monstruo primero, el que acecha a Benn detrás de cada esquina, es el amor, el impulso sexual, la necesidad de afecto, la eterna búsqueda que repiten hasta el fin cada hombre y cada mujer aun sabiendo que todo es mera esperanza.
El día menos esperado, Kenneth se entera de que su tío se ha casado con la hermosa y rica Matilda. "¿Puede reprocharse a alguien el hecho de que prefiera la belleza, ese júbilo eterno, como decía Keats?". Y aun así, el propio Benn es capaz de sostener en una entrevista que muere más gente por desamor que por radiactividad. Es ésta sin duda una plaga moderna: la búsqueda infructuosa de algo que no se puede lograr, una quimera. El absurdo autoengaño que hace ser a las personas algo distinto de lo único que saben ser.
480 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
91 people are currently reading
2772 people want to read
About the author
Saul Bellow
251 books1,954 followersNovels of Saul Bellow, Canadian-American writer, include
Dangling Man
in 1944 and
Humboldt's Gift
in 1975 and often concern an alienated individual within an indifferent society; he won the Nobel Prize of 1976 for literature.
People widely regard one most important Saul Bellow of the 20th century. Known for his rich prose, intellectual depth, and incisive character studies, Bellow explored themes of identity and the complexities of modern life with a distinct voice that fused philosophical insight and streetwise humor. Herzog , The Adventures of Augie March , and Mister Sammler’s Planet , his major works, earned critical acclaim and a lasting legacy.
Born in Lachine, Quebec, to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Saul Bellow at a young age moved with his family to Chicago, a city that shaped much worldview and a frequent backdrop in his fiction. He studied anthropology at the University of Chicago and later Northwestern, and his intellectual interests deeply informed him. Bellow briefly pursued graduate studies in anthropology, quickly turned, and first published.
Breakthrough of Saul Bellow came with The Adventures of Augie March , a sprawling, exuberance that in 1953 marked the national book award and a new direction in fiction. With energetic language and episodic structure, it introduced readers to a new kind of unapologetically intellectual yet deeply grounded hero in the realities of urban life. Over the following decades, Bellow produced a series of acclaimed that further cemented his reputation. In Herzog , considered his masterpiece in 1964, a psychological portrait of inner turmoil of a troubled academic unfolds through a series of unsent letters, while a semi-autobiographical reflection on art and fame gained the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1976, people awarded human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture of Saul Bellow. He only thrice gained the national book award for fiction and also received the medal of arts and the lifetime achievement of the library of Congress.
Beyond fiction, Saul Bellow, a passionate essayist, taught. He held academic positions at institutions, such as the University of Minnesota, Princeton, and Boston University, and people knew his sharp intellect and lively classroom presence. Despite his stature, Bellow cared about ordinary people and infused his work with humor, moral reflection, and a deep appreciation of contradictions of life.
People can see influence of Saul Bellow in the work of countless followers. His uniquely and universally resonant voice ably combined the comic, the profound, the intellectual, and the visceral. He continued into his later years to publish his final Ravelstein in 2000.
People continue to read work of Saul Bellow and to celebrate its wisdom, vitality, and fearless examination of humanity in a chaotic world.
People widely regard one most important Saul Bellow of the 20th century. Known for his rich prose, intellectual depth, and incisive character studies, Bellow explored themes of identity and the complexities of modern life with a distinct voice that fused philosophical insight and streetwise humor. Herzog , The Adventures of Augie March , and Mister Sammler’s Planet , his major works, earned critical acclaim and a lasting legacy.
Born in Lachine, Quebec, to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Saul Bellow at a young age moved with his family to Chicago, a city that shaped much worldview and a frequent backdrop in his fiction. He studied anthropology at the University of Chicago and later Northwestern, and his intellectual interests deeply informed him. Bellow briefly pursued graduate studies in anthropology, quickly turned, and first published.
Breakthrough of Saul Bellow came with The Adventures of Augie March , a sprawling, exuberance that in 1953 marked the national book award and a new direction in fiction. With energetic language and episodic structure, it introduced readers to a new kind of unapologetically intellectual yet deeply grounded hero in the realities of urban life. Over the following decades, Bellow produced a series of acclaimed that further cemented his reputation. In Herzog , considered his masterpiece in 1964, a psychological portrait of inner turmoil of a troubled academic unfolds through a series of unsent letters, while a semi-autobiographical reflection on art and fame gained the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1976, people awarded human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture of Saul Bellow. He only thrice gained the national book award for fiction and also received the medal of arts and the lifetime achievement of the library of Congress.
Beyond fiction, Saul Bellow, a passionate essayist, taught. He held academic positions at institutions, such as the University of Minnesota, Princeton, and Boston University, and people knew his sharp intellect and lively classroom presence. Despite his stature, Bellow cared about ordinary people and infused his work with humor, moral reflection, and a deep appreciation of contradictions of life.
People can see influence of Saul Bellow in the work of countless followers. His uniquely and universally resonant voice ably combined the comic, the profound, the intellectual, and the visceral. He continued into his later years to publish his final Ravelstein in 2000.
People continue to read work of Saul Bellow and to celebrate its wisdom, vitality, and fearless examination of humanity in a chaotic world.
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July 16, 2025
The novel More Die of Heartbreak is a dark intellectual satire written in Saul Bellow’s idiosyncratic highbrow style. It is a story of two modest savants – an uncle and his nephew.
The uncle is a shy widowed botanist…
And the nephew is a humble philologist, connoisseur of Russian culture of the turn of the century and the narrator of the story.
The uncle and his nephew are close, they seem to have no secrets to keep from each other… Unexpectedly, unbeknownst to his nephew, the uncle marries the woman from a rich family…
The world of corrupted love, the world of corrupted morals, the world of corrupted politics: the scientists find themselves in the alien milieu – they are like a pair of katydids fallen into a pond full of frogs.
Walking a straight road one should stick to what one knows – a single step sideways and one will be lost in the world of falsehood.
The uncle is a shy widowed botanist…
According to one of his colleagues, and colleagues are generally the last to say such things, Benn was a botanist of a “high level of distinction.” I don’t suppose that this will cut much ice with most people. Why should they care about the histogenesis of the leaf, or adventitious roots? I wouldn’t myself, if it hadn’t been for Uncle. Scientists? Unless they do cancer research or guide you through the universe on television, like Carl Sagan, what is there to them? The public wants heart transplants, it wants a cure for AIDS, reversals of senility. It doesn’t care a hoot for plant structures, and why should it? Sure it can tolerate the people who study them. A powerful society can always afford a few such types. They’re relatively inexpensive too. It costs more to keep two convicts in Stateville than one botanist in his chair. But convicts offer much more in the way of excitement – riot and arson in the prisons, garroting a guard, driving a stake through the warden’s head.
And the nephew is a humble philologist, connoisseur of Russian culture of the turn of the century and the narrator of the story.
Being busy, fully booked, having a flooded mental switchboard night and day, seems necessary for self-respect in certain circles. I have so many irons in the fire that if I had a hundred fingers I’d burn them all. Like my father before me, I do lots of traveling. Less than Uncle Benn, who is a demon traveler himself, but far too much. Knowledge of Russian will get you into politics (on the dark side) if you have a taste for thinking you’re behind the scenes. So many institutes, intelligence agencies, consultantships. I could do a conference a week if I wanted to.
The uncle and his nephew are close, they seem to have no secrets to keep from each other… Unexpectedly, unbeknownst to his nephew, the uncle marries the woman from a rich family…
Botany was the big thing. Yet it had a rival, which was female sexuality. He couldn’t leave the women alone. When he traveled around the world, his professional cover was roots, leaves, stems and flowers, but actually there was a rival force of great strength. Part of his Eros had been detached from plants and switched to girls. And what girls! A phoenix who runs after arsonists! was my spontaneous and startling thought. Burnt to the ground, reincarnated from the ashes. And after all, every return of desire is a form of reincarnation.
The world of corrupted love, the world of corrupted morals, the world of corrupted politics: the scientists find themselves in the alien milieu – they are like a pair of katydids fallen into a pond full of frogs.
Walking a straight road one should stick to what one knows – a single step sideways and one will be lost in the world of falsehood.
May 5, 2025
THE ADDAMS FAMILY…
The Husband Asks: “ARE YOU UNHAPPY, DARLING?”
Morticia Answers: “OH, YES! YES, COMPLETELY!!”
-Uncle Benn’s favourite Charles Addams Cartoon, quoted in More Die of Heartbreak.
I’m going out on a limb on this one.... It was one of my absolute FAVOURITES from the pen of Nobel laureate Saul Bellow!
It’s from the soul of a man who had seen all the incredible folly and pain of life close up - from the depths of a deeply hurt but all-forgiving Heart.
And he was not afraid to laugh out loud at it all!
I found its plot entirely believable - and you know, a LOT of outlandish things seem ENTIRELY credible to an old guy like me, after all I’ve been through.
Before I met my wife in 1977?
Heartbreaks galore.
So like Morticia!
Many of my readers may have been broken early on in life’s journey in a manner similar to my own experience...
For when life breaks you like a mere twig, what do you do?
You do like I did... You try to make good friendships for yourself! That helps to ease the pain.
But MY mistake was being a bit too friendly with my enemies, the social predators in the circle of my real-world acquaintances. That’s commonly known as ‘currying favour.’
What does that expression mean?
You may not know this, but it means to disarm our potential enemies by ‘grooming’ their strengths (as with a ‘curry-comb’ for horses). In other words, we FLATTER THEIR VANITY.
What started out sounding charitable NOW seems like a cowardly form of self-protection. Because in reality, we’re just feeding the fire.
We’re making our enemies STRONGER.
Just as trouble awaits us when we do this, so it always crouches for attack at Uncle Benn.
He creates much more trouble for himself than he ever had by currying favour with the predators around him. Like his craftily unscrupulous Uncle Vizzner. Or his wealthy fiancée herself - both ready to tilt unwary Benn’s wagon over - into A World of Hurt.
Love Bites. And love Bleeds (an’ it’s driving ole’ Benn to his Knees)!
Its main characters - Benn and Kenneth - are endearing, and the epic aporia at its core is universally true. Because it’s our very own first, lasting and ultimately untie-able Knot: Original Sin!
And that is universally true, because we’ve all forgotten we’re only human and we’re all castaways in life. We’ve got the misbegotten idea into our heads that LIFE SHOULD BE FUN.
Aporia, because we all keep creating inescapable spider webs of self-deceit out of the barren Fact of our Fall from Grace - to assuage our guilt at being born human!
It’s so true!
Benn and Kenneth’s story, though, may seem to you a bit TOO human and lost.
Like those chocolates in a box that surprise us by being hard on the outside but gooey in the middle....
In a busy, busy world like ours there’s minimal tolerance for people who overtly wear their hearts on their sleeves.
Know what? Bellow’s holding a MIRROR in front of our outwardly set but inwardly, endlessly emoting faces... hard but gooey!
Like us, neither Benn nor his young nephew Kenneth know themselves too well - or their own spider webs - so their emotions are at loose ends, when they’re alone.
And that’s most of the time.
And when they’ve found someone in their lives? MUCH WORSE.
Pessoa, at least, was honest enough to AGREE that he was at loose ends when alone - but acutely antsy in public!
Are WE so honest?
Like Benn & Kenneth, we know our chosen fields of work well, and we’re attracted to certain kinds of attractive people, but we don’t know themselves WELL ENOUGH to make relationships more than things that just don’t work.
Bellow portrays B&K exactly that way - and the result is devilishly comical.
I think he intended his story as a double-edged sword - that not only slices clean through Benn and Kenneth, but all those of us who tend to take ourselves too seriously!
And I’m no exception. I still SQUIRM when I think of Uncle Benn’s tragicomic tale.
But still, Bellow’s Human Comedy is so much easier to take than Balzac’s unsettled group of tragicomedies, because we are more likely to see ourselves in Bellow’s opus - with a dash of spicy fun.
And relatively happy endings.
Both Balzac and Bellow were in the same ballpark, though.
But Bellow downplays the sorrow - and because he sees Benn and his nephew as such decent, lost souls, and because all their close calls seem stage-managed by their Guardian Angels, Life seems to let them off lightly.
And they come out of these near- misses with evil-minded people IN ONE COMICAL PIECE.
If you have a crowded mind, you will get claustrophobia from this book.
It can suffocate you if you’re not relaxed.
But I’ve got an idea...
Read this gem during a getaway dream vacation after all this current fuss is over, when all your cares and anxieties have vanished, far from the madding crowd.
At a distance from all the hubbub, you’ll get a good chuckle over how HILARIOUS our own hard Human Comedy can be - ON THE EBULLIENT SURFACE.
And you may recover a bit of your lost, more sticky, side too, when you see your own hidden, sweet, gooey centre beneath - as if for the first time.
Don’t it make you squirm?
Good - Bellow’s done his job!
The Husband Asks: “ARE YOU UNHAPPY, DARLING?”
Morticia Answers: “OH, YES! YES, COMPLETELY!!”
-Uncle Benn’s favourite Charles Addams Cartoon, quoted in More Die of Heartbreak.
I’m going out on a limb on this one.... It was one of my absolute FAVOURITES from the pen of Nobel laureate Saul Bellow!
It’s from the soul of a man who had seen all the incredible folly and pain of life close up - from the depths of a deeply hurt but all-forgiving Heart.
And he was not afraid to laugh out loud at it all!
I found its plot entirely believable - and you know, a LOT of outlandish things seem ENTIRELY credible to an old guy like me, after all I’ve been through.
Before I met my wife in 1977?
Heartbreaks galore.
So like Morticia!
Many of my readers may have been broken early on in life’s journey in a manner similar to my own experience...
For when life breaks you like a mere twig, what do you do?
You do like I did... You try to make good friendships for yourself! That helps to ease the pain.
But MY mistake was being a bit too friendly with my enemies, the social predators in the circle of my real-world acquaintances. That’s commonly known as ‘currying favour.’
What does that expression mean?
You may not know this, but it means to disarm our potential enemies by ‘grooming’ their strengths (as with a ‘curry-comb’ for horses). In other words, we FLATTER THEIR VANITY.
What started out sounding charitable NOW seems like a cowardly form of self-protection. Because in reality, we’re just feeding the fire.
We’re making our enemies STRONGER.
Just as trouble awaits us when we do this, so it always crouches for attack at Uncle Benn.
He creates much more trouble for himself than he ever had by currying favour with the predators around him. Like his craftily unscrupulous Uncle Vizzner. Or his wealthy fiancée herself - both ready to tilt unwary Benn’s wagon over - into A World of Hurt.
Love Bites. And love Bleeds (an’ it’s driving ole’ Benn to his Knees)!
Its main characters - Benn and Kenneth - are endearing, and the epic aporia at its core is universally true. Because it’s our very own first, lasting and ultimately untie-able Knot: Original Sin!
And that is universally true, because we’ve all forgotten we’re only human and we’re all castaways in life. We’ve got the misbegotten idea into our heads that LIFE SHOULD BE FUN.
Aporia, because we all keep creating inescapable spider webs of self-deceit out of the barren Fact of our Fall from Grace - to assuage our guilt at being born human!
It’s so true!
Benn and Kenneth’s story, though, may seem to you a bit TOO human and lost.
Like those chocolates in a box that surprise us by being hard on the outside but gooey in the middle....
In a busy, busy world like ours there’s minimal tolerance for people who overtly wear their hearts on their sleeves.
Know what? Bellow’s holding a MIRROR in front of our outwardly set but inwardly, endlessly emoting faces... hard but gooey!
Like us, neither Benn nor his young nephew Kenneth know themselves too well - or their own spider webs - so their emotions are at loose ends, when they’re alone.
And that’s most of the time.
And when they’ve found someone in their lives? MUCH WORSE.
Pessoa, at least, was honest enough to AGREE that he was at loose ends when alone - but acutely antsy in public!
Are WE so honest?
Like Benn & Kenneth, we know our chosen fields of work well, and we’re attracted to certain kinds of attractive people, but we don’t know themselves WELL ENOUGH to make relationships more than things that just don’t work.
Bellow portrays B&K exactly that way - and the result is devilishly comical.
I think he intended his story as a double-edged sword - that not only slices clean through Benn and Kenneth, but all those of us who tend to take ourselves too seriously!
And I’m no exception. I still SQUIRM when I think of Uncle Benn’s tragicomic tale.
But still, Bellow’s Human Comedy is so much easier to take than Balzac’s unsettled group of tragicomedies, because we are more likely to see ourselves in Bellow’s opus - with a dash of spicy fun.
And relatively happy endings.
Both Balzac and Bellow were in the same ballpark, though.
But Bellow downplays the sorrow - and because he sees Benn and his nephew as such decent, lost souls, and because all their close calls seem stage-managed by their Guardian Angels, Life seems to let them off lightly.
And they come out of these near- misses with evil-minded people IN ONE COMICAL PIECE.
If you have a crowded mind, you will get claustrophobia from this book.
It can suffocate you if you’re not relaxed.
But I’ve got an idea...
Read this gem during a getaway dream vacation after all this current fuss is over, when all your cares and anxieties have vanished, far from the madding crowd.
At a distance from all the hubbub, you’ll get a good chuckle over how HILARIOUS our own hard Human Comedy can be - ON THE EBULLIENT SURFACE.
And you may recover a bit of your lost, more sticky, side too, when you see your own hidden, sweet, gooey centre beneath - as if for the first time.
Don’t it make you squirm?
Good - Bellow’s done his job!
May 7, 2018
Lo zio d'America
"... certamente le radiazioni fanno male, ma muore più gente di crepacuore".
Un libro tutto da gustare, questo. E pensare che la partenza sembra così sottotono da risultare non molto incoraggiante. Invece merita la lettura, eccome!
Un giovane intellettuale lascia la Francia e raggiunge l'America per stare accanto allo zio, celeberrimo botanico, che pare bisognoso di protezione. Non sono affatto le questioni accademiche a tenerli uniti ; si tratta piuttosto di vita privata riguardante in particolare il rapporto con le donne.
Il giovane è proteso a riavvicinarsi alla madre della sua bambina. Il più maturo zio, da anni vedovo, deve districarsi, impacciato com'è, nella vita sentimentale, spesso intrappolato da donne scaltre e bellissime. Il nipote, più ne diventa il confidente, più rimane coinvolto in estenuanti apprensioni.
Fra le signore che ruotano intorno allo zio, Caroline è colta ed evanescente, forse era il litio a darle quest'aria di lontananza, una donna "che se avesse il baule del corredo, sarebbe pieno di cocaina". Poi Matilda, di famiglia molto ricca, brillante e di gran classe, una che "aveva tante lauree quanti capelli in testa", una creatura bellissima che però il mattino odiava svegliarsi.
Saul Bellow, come sappiamo, è un autore da premio Nobel. Il libro è irresistibile : man mano che si procede, si apprezza il valore di una scrittura sempre all'altezza, di un'ironia pervasiva sapientemente intrisa di sottile critica sociale. Ma c'è soprattutto il risvolto umano-esistenziale che ci avvicina i due protagonisti, uomini intelligenti e fragili, con un diffuso senso di inadeguatezza, in balìa di donne forti e volitive.
Eppure, fra tante donne che sarebbe bello evitare, c'è anche qualche eccezione, qualcuna che emana "una femminile promessa di calore, un calore fatto di intelligenza e di sensibilità, di comprensione e di delicatezza nel trattare un uomo". Com'è importante accorgersene!
"... certamente le radiazioni fanno male, ma muore più gente di crepacuore".
Un libro tutto da gustare, questo. E pensare che la partenza sembra così sottotono da risultare non molto incoraggiante. Invece merita la lettura, eccome!
Un giovane intellettuale lascia la Francia e raggiunge l'America per stare accanto allo zio, celeberrimo botanico, che pare bisognoso di protezione. Non sono affatto le questioni accademiche a tenerli uniti ; si tratta piuttosto di vita privata riguardante in particolare il rapporto con le donne.
Il giovane è proteso a riavvicinarsi alla madre della sua bambina. Il più maturo zio, da anni vedovo, deve districarsi, impacciato com'è, nella vita sentimentale, spesso intrappolato da donne scaltre e bellissime. Il nipote, più ne diventa il confidente, più rimane coinvolto in estenuanti apprensioni.
Fra le signore che ruotano intorno allo zio, Caroline è colta ed evanescente, forse era il litio a darle quest'aria di lontananza, una donna "che se avesse il baule del corredo, sarebbe pieno di cocaina". Poi Matilda, di famiglia molto ricca, brillante e di gran classe, una che "aveva tante lauree quanti capelli in testa", una creatura bellissima che però il mattino odiava svegliarsi.
Saul Bellow, come sappiamo, è un autore da premio Nobel. Il libro è irresistibile : man mano che si procede, si apprezza il valore di una scrittura sempre all'altezza, di un'ironia pervasiva sapientemente intrisa di sottile critica sociale. Ma c'è soprattutto il risvolto umano-esistenziale che ci avvicina i due protagonisti, uomini intelligenti e fragili, con un diffuso senso di inadeguatezza, in balìa di donne forti e volitive.
Eppure, fra tante donne che sarebbe bello evitare, c'è anche qualche eccezione, qualcuna che emana "una femminile promessa di calore, un calore fatto di intelligenza e di sensibilità, di comprensione e di delicatezza nel trattare un uomo". Com'è importante accorgersene!
November 30, 2020
No sabría si recomendar abiertamente este libro debido a que Saúl Bellow (1915-2005) es un autor que para muchos puede pasar por aburrido o bien puede no gustar su estilo lleno de cavilaciones y divagaciones con algún contenido filosófico y también con algunas referencias eruditas. Me parece que en cada párrafo hay inteligencia, ironía fina, alguna lección interesante, humorismo, reflexión de vida. Definitivamente es una lumbrera este escritor judío ganador del Nobel en 1976 quien es un maestro de la melancolía cómica que en sus disertaciones novelescas encuentra y abre cientos de ramificaciones para mantenernos siempre interesados y con buen ánimo.
De las páginas de este libro emana cierta filosofía cotidiana para sobrevivir con decoro y garbo en los maravillosos y tumultuosos años 80 del siglo XX: “La vida moderna, tomada en serio, deja a uno para el arrastre”. Parece que es la ciudad de Chicago en donde se desarrolla gran parte de la acción, aunque nunca se especifica; durante la narración el autor nos descubre y juega con algunas de las maravillas así como con algunas de las plagas que nos ha dejado la cultura norteamericana contemporánea.
La trama recae en Benn, botánico eminente, así como en su sobrino Kenneth, profesor de Literatura Rusa. La angustia existencial de Kenneth, quien narra la historia, está fundamentada en la vulnerabilidad de su tío ante el mundo cotidiano y también ante sus propias complicaciones sentimentales. A través de estos personajes conocemos de manera absorbente e irónica un cúmulo de reflexiones, titubeos, aciertos, ilusiones y experiencias, algunas que corresponden a la vida práctica y otras que caen dentro del terreno metafísico. Ambos hombres dudan y tropiezan continuamente en el ámbito de las relaciones interpersonales con las mujeres. Podríamos decir también que estamos ante un tratado de filosofía y psicología cotidiana que encuentra su germen en la complejidad de la era moderna y en las debilidades de carácter de estos dos personajes.
Benn es un hombre que va llegando a sus sesenta años, un prominente botánico viudo que se desenvuelve muy bien en el mundo de las ideas y de la ciencia, en la vida sencilla; una persona noble, íntegra y apasionada, sin grandes pretensiones materiales y con un gran talento para entender ese mundo silencioso de la plantas. La cuestión es si él mismo es capaza de valorar sus dotes personales y defenderlas. Es aquí en donde entra en acción su leal y cariñoso sobrino quien abandona la ciudad de París para permanecer al lado de su tío y defenderlo de caer en una vida opuesta y degradada.
Cuando el inocente e indefenso botánico tiene que desempeñarse en la vida cotidiana es torpe e inseguro y esta torpeza se acentúa cuando trata de pisar el terreno de las relaciones con mujeres: “Benn era un artista de las plantas que no estaba cualificado para convertirse en artista del amor”. Bellow con 5 matrimonios a cuestas seguramente tiene mucho que decirnos sobre este tipo de relaciones.
Durante la historia asistimos a los intentos de rescate de un hombre que es capaz de vivir totalmente al margen de su época y que no desea caer en los intereses predominantes. Su sobrino sospecha que lo quieren utilizar de trampolín para mejorar la existencia de Matilde, su futura esposa.
Una provocativa novela de ideas, una especie de mixtura entre novela y ensayo en donde encontramos poca acción, pero muchas ideas, muchas propuestas sobre la cultura occidental, sobre las interrelaciones humanas y temas conexos, todos ellos llenos de ramificaciones hacia el comportamiento humano, la historia, literatura, política, socialismo, capitalismo, arte, espíritu humano que agregan valor a la prosa de este admirado escritor.
A pesar de estas múltiples y variadas divagaciones, la estructura narrativa es inmejorable y no deja de fluir por las virtudes de Bellow para retratar el mundo moderno y la psicología humana del siglo XX. No sobra decir que su construcción de personajes es inmejorable, los pinta de cuerpo entero y de manera deliciosa.
Por último diré que el sugerente título del libro se debe a una frase utilizada durante el cuerpo de la novela en un diálogo entre Benn y un entrevistador, cuando hablan sobre el tema de Chernóbil Benn espeta: “Mueren más por desamor que por radiaciones nucleares” y podríamos apostrofar que también mueren más por desamor que por Covid 19.
De las páginas de este libro emana cierta filosofía cotidiana para sobrevivir con decoro y garbo en los maravillosos y tumultuosos años 80 del siglo XX: “La vida moderna, tomada en serio, deja a uno para el arrastre”. Parece que es la ciudad de Chicago en donde se desarrolla gran parte de la acción, aunque nunca se especifica; durante la narración el autor nos descubre y juega con algunas de las maravillas así como con algunas de las plagas que nos ha dejado la cultura norteamericana contemporánea.
La trama recae en Benn, botánico eminente, así como en su sobrino Kenneth, profesor de Literatura Rusa. La angustia existencial de Kenneth, quien narra la historia, está fundamentada en la vulnerabilidad de su tío ante el mundo cotidiano y también ante sus propias complicaciones sentimentales. A través de estos personajes conocemos de manera absorbente e irónica un cúmulo de reflexiones, titubeos, aciertos, ilusiones y experiencias, algunas que corresponden a la vida práctica y otras que caen dentro del terreno metafísico. Ambos hombres dudan y tropiezan continuamente en el ámbito de las relaciones interpersonales con las mujeres. Podríamos decir también que estamos ante un tratado de filosofía y psicología cotidiana que encuentra su germen en la complejidad de la era moderna y en las debilidades de carácter de estos dos personajes.
Benn es un hombre que va llegando a sus sesenta años, un prominente botánico viudo que se desenvuelve muy bien en el mundo de las ideas y de la ciencia, en la vida sencilla; una persona noble, íntegra y apasionada, sin grandes pretensiones materiales y con un gran talento para entender ese mundo silencioso de la plantas. La cuestión es si él mismo es capaza de valorar sus dotes personales y defenderlas. Es aquí en donde entra en acción su leal y cariñoso sobrino quien abandona la ciudad de París para permanecer al lado de su tío y defenderlo de caer en una vida opuesta y degradada.
Cuando el inocente e indefenso botánico tiene que desempeñarse en la vida cotidiana es torpe e inseguro y esta torpeza se acentúa cuando trata de pisar el terreno de las relaciones con mujeres: “Benn era un artista de las plantas que no estaba cualificado para convertirse en artista del amor”. Bellow con 5 matrimonios a cuestas seguramente tiene mucho que decirnos sobre este tipo de relaciones.
Durante la historia asistimos a los intentos de rescate de un hombre que es capaz de vivir totalmente al margen de su época y que no desea caer en los intereses predominantes. Su sobrino sospecha que lo quieren utilizar de trampolín para mejorar la existencia de Matilde, su futura esposa.
Una provocativa novela de ideas, una especie de mixtura entre novela y ensayo en donde encontramos poca acción, pero muchas ideas, muchas propuestas sobre la cultura occidental, sobre las interrelaciones humanas y temas conexos, todos ellos llenos de ramificaciones hacia el comportamiento humano, la historia, literatura, política, socialismo, capitalismo, arte, espíritu humano que agregan valor a la prosa de este admirado escritor.
A pesar de estas múltiples y variadas divagaciones, la estructura narrativa es inmejorable y no deja de fluir por las virtudes de Bellow para retratar el mundo moderno y la psicología humana del siglo XX. No sobra decir que su construcción de personajes es inmejorable, los pinta de cuerpo entero y de manera deliciosa.
Por último diré que el sugerente título del libro se debe a una frase utilizada durante el cuerpo de la novela en un diálogo entre Benn y un entrevistador, cuando hablan sobre el tema de Chernóbil Benn espeta: “Mueren más por desamor que por radiaciones nucleares” y podríamos apostrofar que también mueren más por desamor que por Covid 19.
October 10, 2020
“Towards the end of your life you have something like a pain schedule to fill out—a long schedule like a federal document, only it's your pain schedule. Endless categories. First, physical causes—like arthritis, gallstones, menstrual cramps. New category, injured vanity, betrayal, swindle, injustice. But the hardest items of all have to do with love. The question then is: So why does everybody persist? If love cuts them up so much....”
March 20, 2017
Read from March 14-18, 2017.
Reviewed March 19, 2017.
Shelved October 12, 2010.
More Die of Heartbreak is a novel of ideas which also manages to be a novel about vaginas. Our highly skilled writers can pull this off: The Magic Mountain was a novel of ideas which was also a novel about lungs.
The first person narrator, Kenneth Trachtenberg, is a 35-year-old Russian literature professor who grew up in Paris with a philandering father amid dinners with Alexander Kojève. He feels more of a kinship with his Uncle Benn, a botanist at a midwestern university, and moves to the same school. The focus of the novel is Uncle's failed romantic relationships after his wife's death, in particular his marriage to the much younger, beautiful and wealthy Matilda Layamon. Kenneth would like to marry the flighty mother of his toddler daughter, a woman who likes to be bruised, forming a secondary plotline along with Kenneth and Uncle's attempts to get some money out of another elderly uncle who sold a family plot of land where an enormous skycraper was subsequently built, bilking the relatives out of millions.
"In the Midwest, minds are slower," Uncle tells Kenneth, whose thoughts run to Karl Popper and Hegel, Swedenborg and William Blake, while Uncle's reside with arctic lichens. But both men can't stop thinking about the female morphology. The kind of woman Kenneth prefers "is built closer to the ground. For my taste, Matilda had too much elevation. To hold nothing back, I kept wondering, How long do those legs go on and where and how do they attach to the trunk; what happens at the point of attachment? You've got no truth to life if you omit such masculine conjectures, and you will see that even Uncle, for all his vegetable reveries, had entertained similar pictures."
Matilda's father, a doctor, had also given her anatomy a great deal of thought. At an expensive lunch he tells Uncle:
"I've always been curious about Matilda's biology. In the delivery room, when she was born - and I remember this well - we physicians had to puzzle over the baby. Was it a boy or a girl?"
"You've got to be joking," said Benn.
"I'm only saying that at first nobody was exactly sure. Some kids are smooth and beautiful at birth, others look as if they were delivered by an avalanche."
Uncle is subjected to much more than just talk about female genitals. In Kyoto, he and Kenneth are taken to a strip club where the women float above the rapt, silent crowd in plexiglas cages, dilating themselves with their fingers. This experience leaves Uncle shaken, and it is soon followed by one where he visits Dr. Layamon at his hospital. Matilda's father puts him in a white lab coat and takes him on rounds, where all his elderly female patients with hip injuries obligingly reveal their "mounds of Venus." Uncle begins to have arrhythmia as a result of Layamon's prank.
In a movie theater watching Psycho with Matilda, Uncle develops a sudden association of her shoulders with Anthony Perkins'. It is jarring. If only he can avoid views of her shoulders, perhaps the marriage will be a success. But several months later he cries to Kenneth, "Why are Matilda's breasts so far apart!" It turns out that perhaps Uncle isn't ready for love. "Hit me on the head with a hammer and I see ten Matildas. One of those I love passionately."
Along the way, Bellow paints yet another wonderful portrait of Chicago, with its grittiness, its political corruption, its neighborhoods, skycrapers, and expressways, the university where he taught. Unfortunately, for some reason he pretends this is not Chicago, but some other midwestern city much like Chicago, which is disorienting.
Reviewed March 19, 2017.
Shelved October 12, 2010.
More Die of Heartbreak is a novel of ideas which also manages to be a novel about vaginas. Our highly skilled writers can pull this off: The Magic Mountain was a novel of ideas which was also a novel about lungs.
The first person narrator, Kenneth Trachtenberg, is a 35-year-old Russian literature professor who grew up in Paris with a philandering father amid dinners with Alexander Kojève. He feels more of a kinship with his Uncle Benn, a botanist at a midwestern university, and moves to the same school. The focus of the novel is Uncle's failed romantic relationships after his wife's death, in particular his marriage to the much younger, beautiful and wealthy Matilda Layamon. Kenneth would like to marry the flighty mother of his toddler daughter, a woman who likes to be bruised, forming a secondary plotline along with Kenneth and Uncle's attempts to get some money out of another elderly uncle who sold a family plot of land where an enormous skycraper was subsequently built, bilking the relatives out of millions.
"In the Midwest, minds are slower," Uncle tells Kenneth, whose thoughts run to Karl Popper and Hegel, Swedenborg and William Blake, while Uncle's reside with arctic lichens. But both men can't stop thinking about the female morphology. The kind of woman Kenneth prefers "is built closer to the ground. For my taste, Matilda had too much elevation. To hold nothing back, I kept wondering, How long do those legs go on and where and how do they attach to the trunk; what happens at the point of attachment? You've got no truth to life if you omit such masculine conjectures, and you will see that even Uncle, for all his vegetable reveries, had entertained similar pictures."
Matilda's father, a doctor, had also given her anatomy a great deal of thought. At an expensive lunch he tells Uncle:
"I've always been curious about Matilda's biology. In the delivery room, when she was born - and I remember this well - we physicians had to puzzle over the baby. Was it a boy or a girl?"
"You've got to be joking," said Benn.
"I'm only saying that at first nobody was exactly sure. Some kids are smooth and beautiful at birth, others look as if they were delivered by an avalanche."
Uncle is subjected to much more than just talk about female genitals. In Kyoto, he and Kenneth are taken to a strip club where the women float above the rapt, silent crowd in plexiglas cages, dilating themselves with their fingers. This experience leaves Uncle shaken, and it is soon followed by one where he visits Dr. Layamon at his hospital. Matilda's father puts him in a white lab coat and takes him on rounds, where all his elderly female patients with hip injuries obligingly reveal their "mounds of Venus." Uncle begins to have arrhythmia as a result of Layamon's prank.
In a movie theater watching Psycho with Matilda, Uncle develops a sudden association of her shoulders with Anthony Perkins'. It is jarring. If only he can avoid views of her shoulders, perhaps the marriage will be a success. But several months later he cries to Kenneth, "Why are Matilda's breasts so far apart!" It turns out that perhaps Uncle isn't ready for love. "Hit me on the head with a hammer and I see ten Matildas. One of those I love passionately."
Along the way, Bellow paints yet another wonderful portrait of Chicago, with its grittiness, its political corruption, its neighborhoods, skycrapers, and expressways, the university where he taught. Unfortunately, for some reason he pretends this is not Chicago, but some other midwestern city much like Chicago, which is disorienting.
May 13, 2020
This is Saul Bellow at his best: witty, provocative, urbane, and wise, all rolled up in one rollicking plot. Unlike in some of Bellow's other novels where plot takes a back seat to character, this novel offers a compelling plot that keeps you breathlessly turning the pages to find out what comes next. Somehow, I had missed this novel when it came out way back when, and now I'm itching to read more of Bellow's novels that somehow escaped my attention.
December 7, 2018
Rating this is extremely difficult. Looking at it as a whole ......I think it is more of an OK than a good read. I wanted to figure out what the book was saying. This is what kept me reading. You cannot .
The book is about two men’s friendship, a nephew and his maternal uncle. The uncle is in his mid-fifties, the nephew two decades younger. The uncle, Benn, is a renown botanist specializing in arctic lichen. The nephew, Kenneth, is a professor of Russian literature, raised in France but now teaching at a university in the American Midwest, by his uncle’s side. The two men, both academics, have problems with women. We follow the thoughts they share and their conversations. Uncle Benn and Kenneth’s mother have been cheated out of a large sum of money. This is not important to them, but it is to the woman and to the family of the woman Uncle Benn plans on marrying.
The book is set in the 1980s, and it draws well the 80s. You can read the book as one of historical fiction; it captures so very well this decade--how people talked then and what they talked about then, how people behaved then and the cynical view of society that prevailed then.
Humor is an important element in the story. If you do not see the humor, you are not gong to get through this book. I will give you just one example:
“….and please, don’t get me wrong, I take very little pleasure in theories and I am not going to dump ideas on you. I used to be sold on them, but I discovered they were nothing but trouble if you entertain them indiscriminately.”
Kenneth, the thirty-five-year-old Russian literature expert, the nephew, says this. It is he that is the narrator of the story. He is caught up in ideas, continually analyzing and juggling them around. Reconciliation of one’s ideals with reality is a central theme of the book, but at the same time, I was never quite sure what I was to take seriously and what I was to laugh at. This isn’t necessarily bad; it kept me thinking. I believe the book scoffs at academia. Intellectualism is to be laughed at, well at least sometimes.
The second major topic after academia, or maybe the first if one considers that which primarily occupies the two men’s thoughts, is women. They cannot live without them but they certainly mess with their lives. What is shown is the male perspective; we are hearing Benn’s and Kenneth’s views. The views of women are heard too, but less frequently. One woman asks angrily what she should do with her sexuality. Men are inexorably attracted physically to certain women. There is just no denying of this. Physical attraction is a central component in the book. How does one deal with this attraction when everything else about the woman does not fit? What is prioritized? Here too, you can either chuckle or grimace. There is much in the book that leaves you smiling, grimacing or simply thinking.
However, the discombobulated reasoning becomes at times too much. The book has a very slow start. There are lines that leave you confused; it is not always easy to snap up what is meant when popular figures and films of the 80s are mentioned. World literature is referred to. If you are not welll acquainted with the books and the concepts referred to, you will not understand what is abstrusely implied. I didn’t catch everything.
The audiobook is narrated by Ramiz Monsef. On this I have very little to say. The narration is good.
***********************
The Victim 4 stars
Herzog 4 stars
Dangling Man 3 stars
Seize the Day 3 stars
More Die of Heartbreak 2 stars
The Adventures of Augie March 2 stars
The Actual TBR
Ravelstein TBR
The book is about two men’s friendship, a nephew and his maternal uncle. The uncle is in his mid-fifties, the nephew two decades younger. The uncle, Benn, is a renown botanist specializing in arctic lichen. The nephew, Kenneth, is a professor of Russian literature, raised in France but now teaching at a university in the American Midwest, by his uncle’s side. The two men, both academics, have problems with women. We follow the thoughts they share and their conversations. Uncle Benn and Kenneth’s mother have been cheated out of a large sum of money. This is not important to them, but it is to the woman and to the family of the woman Uncle Benn plans on marrying.
The book is set in the 1980s, and it draws well the 80s. You can read the book as one of historical fiction; it captures so very well this decade--how people talked then and what they talked about then, how people behaved then and the cynical view of society that prevailed then.
Humor is an important element in the story. If you do not see the humor, you are not gong to get through this book. I will give you just one example:
“….and please, don’t get me wrong, I take very little pleasure in theories and I am not going to dump ideas on you. I used to be sold on them, but I discovered they were nothing but trouble if you entertain them indiscriminately.”
Kenneth, the thirty-five-year-old Russian literature expert, the nephew, says this. It is he that is the narrator of the story. He is caught up in ideas, continually analyzing and juggling them around. Reconciliation of one’s ideals with reality is a central theme of the book, but at the same time, I was never quite sure what I was to take seriously and what I was to laugh at. This isn’t necessarily bad; it kept me thinking. I believe the book scoffs at academia. Intellectualism is to be laughed at, well at least sometimes.
The second major topic after academia, or maybe the first if one considers that which primarily occupies the two men’s thoughts, is women. They cannot live without them but they certainly mess with their lives. What is shown is the male perspective; we are hearing Benn’s and Kenneth’s views. The views of women are heard too, but less frequently. One woman asks angrily what she should do with her sexuality. Men are inexorably attracted physically to certain women. There is just no denying of this. Physical attraction is a central component in the book. How does one deal with this attraction when everything else about the woman does not fit? What is prioritized? Here too, you can either chuckle or grimace. There is much in the book that leaves you smiling, grimacing or simply thinking.
However, the discombobulated reasoning becomes at times too much. The book has a very slow start. There are lines that leave you confused; it is not always easy to snap up what is meant when popular figures and films of the 80s are mentioned. World literature is referred to. If you are not welll acquainted with the books and the concepts referred to, you will not understand what is abstrusely implied. I didn’t catch everything.
The audiobook is narrated by Ramiz Monsef. On this I have very little to say. The narration is good.
***********************
The Victim 4 stars
Herzog 4 stars
Dangling Man 3 stars
Seize the Day 3 stars
More Die of Heartbreak 2 stars
The Adventures of Augie March 2 stars
The Actual TBR
Ravelstein TBR
December 16, 2012
A great book. It is when I finish marvelous books like this that I miss my father and mother most. I would so like to share my reading experience with them. After all, they opened my eyes to the wonderful world of reading.
March 3, 2019
Don't think this is quite as good as his other, earlier novella, Seize the Day. But I read them so far apart, and never taught this one, though I did Carpe Diem several times--always translated the whole book into Latin NOT. Also taught his Mr Sammler, which I consider one of the best novels ever written, and certainly the best by my Ph.D. advisor's best friend. Pic of Leonard Unger and Saul Bellow in Rolling Stone, Leonard cracking up Saul. The University of Minnesota school culture held that Saul and Leonard (a TS Eliot expert, among other writers) translated the first four lines of the Wasteland at the Faculty Club, over lunch...into Yiddish.
April 5, 2007
This is another book that is hard to get into at first. I think that the beginning of this book is filled with a lot of academic philosophy in the guise of horticulture that it is hard to read the underlying message to love and humanity, but in the end Bellow ties all of it together in one fell swoop!
August 17, 2023
“ou se faz da nossa vida um ponto de viragem, ou não há razão de existir. Só que não se faz, encontra-se o ponto de viragem, que é a necessidade gritante da humanidade.”
Não será a primeira vez nem a última que lerei o PN da Literatura de 1976. Saul Bellow é um notável romancista que soube tão bem desenvolver a complexidade psicológica e social do mundo e do ser humano. Uma voz da literatura americana que tem um estilo próprio, satírico e existencial.
Como falar de “Morrem mais de mágoa?” Não há como explicar tão bem este livro. É singular, que deve ser lido para se entender. O título engana, não se direciona para uma tragédia, exceto, claro no sentido que o amor é a maior causa da morte ainda mais do que… radiação.
“Morre mais gente de mágoa do que de radiação.”✨
O narrador, Kenneth, é um professor de literatura russa, filho de emigrados em Paris, que retorna as suas origens na América, para seguir o seu ídolo, o seu tio. Ben Crader é um notável botânico e um personagem singular, excêntrico, cuja vida não passa despercebida a ninguém. Surpreende um dia o seu sobrinho ao casar com a bela e rica Matilde Layamonn, que em tudo difere do seu tio.
Os diálogos entre sobrinho e tio revestem-se de densidade psicológica, humor e inevitavelmente da comparação entre as suas vidas, o seu fracasso perante as mulheres, a incompreensão do amor, da fachada que o mesmo nos faz ter perante o ser amado. É um compêndio sobre a sexualidade, o desejo, e duelo paixão/amor.
Saul Bellow trouxe um livro que, como disse, não marca pela vulgaridade, mas pela sua riqueza de escrita e sabedoria contida nas suas palavras.
“(O amor) faz a beleza, a força; às vezes, para fins especiais, quando verdadeiramente inspirado, até produz novos órgãos. Sem ele, a consciência crítica reduz simplesmente quantos se aproximam a partes separadas, desintegra-os.”
Não será a primeira vez nem a última que lerei o PN da Literatura de 1976. Saul Bellow é um notável romancista que soube tão bem desenvolver a complexidade psicológica e social do mundo e do ser humano. Uma voz da literatura americana que tem um estilo próprio, satírico e existencial.
Como falar de “Morrem mais de mágoa?” Não há como explicar tão bem este livro. É singular, que deve ser lido para se entender. O título engana, não se direciona para uma tragédia, exceto, claro no sentido que o amor é a maior causa da morte ainda mais do que… radiação.
“Morre mais gente de mágoa do que de radiação.”✨
O narrador, Kenneth, é um professor de literatura russa, filho de emigrados em Paris, que retorna as suas origens na América, para seguir o seu ídolo, o seu tio. Ben Crader é um notável botânico e um personagem singular, excêntrico, cuja vida não passa despercebida a ninguém. Surpreende um dia o seu sobrinho ao casar com a bela e rica Matilde Layamonn, que em tudo difere do seu tio.
Os diálogos entre sobrinho e tio revestem-se de densidade psicológica, humor e inevitavelmente da comparação entre as suas vidas, o seu fracasso perante as mulheres, a incompreensão do amor, da fachada que o mesmo nos faz ter perante o ser amado. É um compêndio sobre a sexualidade, o desejo, e duelo paixão/amor.
Saul Bellow trouxe um livro que, como disse, não marca pela vulgaridade, mas pela sua riqueza de escrita e sabedoria contida nas suas palavras.
“(O amor) faz a beleza, a força; às vezes, para fins especiais, quando verdadeiramente inspirado, até produz novos órgãos. Sem ele, a consciência crítica reduz simplesmente quantos se aproximam a partes separadas, desintegra-os.”
February 4, 2011
This is a hard novel to get into. There is the usual Bellovian intellectual overload to be got through, and the eccentricities of the characters are something of a barrier. And then there's the feeling that maybe we've seen Bellow explore the male incomprehension of women once too often. But once you're into it, and have worked out the various relationships and conflicts, it's a rewarding novel not least because it is often very funny.
It's a novel about a man and his uncle. I don't recall having seen that central relationship in a novel before -- except maybe Tristram Shandy. Kenneth Trachtenberg is the son Benn Crader never had, and Benn is the father Kenneth perhaps wishes he had had. But there is something a smidge homoerotic about their closeness, too. Since this is Bellow we're talking about, both are intellectuals: Benn is a famous botanist whose only truly passionate relationship is with plants. Kenneth is a junior academic specializing in Russian studies. Benn is a widower remarrying after years of the solitary life; Kenneth has a daughter by a woman who won't marry him. And much of the novel deals with the very peculiar relationships that each has with women who seem to fling themselves at these very odd men.
The central plot deals with Benn's relationship with his younger, beautiful second wife, Matilda, who seems to have married him primarily for his celebrity -- she envisions herself presiding over a salon -- but also because there is a chance that he can become a millionaire. That involves winning over a shady politician who also happens to Benn's uncle -- there are layers of avuncularity in the novel -- and who may have cheated Benn and his sister (Kenneth's mother) out of a fortune.
Everybody in the novel wants something -- Kenneth wants to marry the mother of his daughter -- except Benn, who just wants to be left alone with his plants. And in the course of working things out, Bellow gives us reflections on sex, on death, on marriage, on botany, on being Jewish, on Europe and America, on academia, on law and politics and on the movie Psycho.
It's a novel about a man and his uncle. I don't recall having seen that central relationship in a novel before -- except maybe Tristram Shandy. Kenneth Trachtenberg is the son Benn Crader never had, and Benn is the father Kenneth perhaps wishes he had had. But there is something a smidge homoerotic about their closeness, too. Since this is Bellow we're talking about, both are intellectuals: Benn is a famous botanist whose only truly passionate relationship is with plants. Kenneth is a junior academic specializing in Russian studies. Benn is a widower remarrying after years of the solitary life; Kenneth has a daughter by a woman who won't marry him. And much of the novel deals with the very peculiar relationships that each has with women who seem to fling themselves at these very odd men.
The central plot deals with Benn's relationship with his younger, beautiful second wife, Matilda, who seems to have married him primarily for his celebrity -- she envisions herself presiding over a salon -- but also because there is a chance that he can become a millionaire. That involves winning over a shady politician who also happens to Benn's uncle -- there are layers of avuncularity in the novel -- and who may have cheated Benn and his sister (Kenneth's mother) out of a fortune.
Everybody in the novel wants something -- Kenneth wants to marry the mother of his daughter -- except Benn, who just wants to be left alone with his plants. And in the course of working things out, Bellow gives us reflections on sex, on death, on marriage, on botany, on being Jewish, on Europe and America, on academia, on law and politics and on the movie Psycho.
August 31, 2022
So two white men who can’t seem to figure out what woman they want or whether they should sleep with women, with crippling insecurity about performance, have a weird relationship with each other, low-key afraid that they might be homosexual, talk for hours and hours in the most intelligent manner and yet keep fucking up.
That’s it. That’s the book. And I didn’t spoil you because you know all of this from the first fucking page.
There were moments when I felt this psychological alarm blaring in my ears:
For instance, the protagonist tells a woman that she looks horrible because of her acne scar tissues and she goes and gets an excruciatingly painful facelift. When he finds out he’s like meh she went through all that trouble for me so I might as well, you know, like her.
The uncle runs out of the country the very same moment a woman is entering the church to get married to him. And he has no remorse/regret for this outrageously cowardly behavior.
I’m sorry Saul, I want to feel for middle-aged white men with penis insecurities but I can’t, because these particular white men are selfish, and self-absorbed and I think I’ve dated one of these and the very thought makes me wanna puke. No amount of quoting Schopenhauer is going to fix this.
That’s it. That’s the book. And I didn’t spoil you because you know all of this from the first fucking page.
There were moments when I felt this psychological alarm blaring in my ears:
For instance, the protagonist tells a woman that she looks horrible because of her acne scar tissues and she goes and gets an excruciatingly painful facelift. When he finds out he’s like meh she went through all that trouble for me so I might as well, you know, like her.
The uncle runs out of the country the very same moment a woman is entering the church to get married to him. And he has no remorse/regret for this outrageously cowardly behavior.
I’m sorry Saul, I want to feel for middle-aged white men with penis insecurities but I can’t, because these particular white men are selfish, and self-absorbed and I think I’ve dated one of these and the very thought makes me wanna puke. No amount of quoting Schopenhauer is going to fix this.
March 28, 2011
This book started out very slow, but ended up wonderful. It's really the story of two men, an uncle and his nephew, who have a wonderful relationship where they both understand each other and respect each other and communicate on every level (intellectual, social, emotional, etc.). The plot, which doesn't emerge until about halfway through the book, has to do with the two women they've become entwined with, the uncle with a rich, younger wife, whose family is using him in a get rich (get richer, really, they already have money) quick scheme, the nephew with a young woman who has had a child with him but prefers men who beat her up. The plot, though, is not nearly as interesting as the relationship. The writing, not surprisingly, is very, very fine.
February 23, 2023
Morrem Mais de Mágoa de Saul Bellow Nobel da Literatura
Com uma narrativa construída através de uma análise profunda do autor sobre a vida moderna e o dilema de dois homens [tio e sobrinho] cujas cabeças brilhantes não os salva dos erros mais banais que todos cometemos.
A obra mostra como pessoas inteligentes e dotadas se encontram muitas vezes atoladas numa vida sentimental miserável e como sobredotados, capazes desvendar mistérios da natureza, "são tão incautos".
Um livro escrito com uma sapiência que só um grande escritor consegue. Divertido e sufocante, tem um humor mordaz que o escritor utiliza para fazer uma crítica á sociedade moderna . Foi o meu primeiro livro de Saul Bellow para repetir sem dúvida
Com uma narrativa construída através de uma análise profunda do autor sobre a vida moderna e o dilema de dois homens [tio e sobrinho] cujas cabeças brilhantes não os salva dos erros mais banais que todos cometemos.
A obra mostra como pessoas inteligentes e dotadas se encontram muitas vezes atoladas numa vida sentimental miserável e como sobredotados, capazes desvendar mistérios da natureza, "são tão incautos".
Um livro escrito com uma sapiência que só um grande escritor consegue. Divertido e sufocante, tem um humor mordaz que o escritor utiliza para fazer uma crítica á sociedade moderna . Foi o meu primeiro livro de Saul Bellow para repetir sem dúvida
November 9, 2022
"Quando temos uma vista exterior do nosso comportamento, é insuportável. Seremos nós horríveis, ou quem nos vê?"
Bellow sabe tudo sobre a condição humana.
Bellow sabe tudo sobre a condição humana.
September 13, 2025
I enjoy anything by Bellow but I don’t always know how to review his books. In this case I’m not going to try. Instead I’m going to say that two of my favourite authors are Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov. Their styles are so very different but there is a lot of common ground especially in this book: big egos, Edgar Allan Poe references, St. Petersburg, debts to Proust (more so with Bellow but Nabokov in Lectures On Literature as well). Bellow writes like he is casting magic spells while blazing at high speed down a mountain while Nabokov is the calculating trickster but they both seem to have very similar underpinnings.
December 24, 2025
Foreshadowing Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History, this book takes “post-historical” America as its setting. "That’s where the action is." The protagonist, Kenneth, has moved all the way from Paris to be there – to be closer to his uncle Ben, the brilliant, world-famous botanist. Kenneth thinks Ben has something to teach him, and the novel is composed almost entirely of their conversations as they fret about their romantic problems, interspersed with the meandering, stop-start reflections of Kenneth as he thinks through his life, philosophy, and the predicament of man after “enlightenment, science, and democracy” have triumphed. Man should be happy, but instead he is sucked into the ever-expanding vortex of ideas, obsessions, sexual neuroticism, money mania, and second-rate art. It’s a novel of ideas:
“The U.S.A. … that terrific posthistorical enterprise carrying our destinies, lost momentum, sagged, softened. There threaded itself through me the dreadful suspicion that the costs of its dynamism were bigger than I had reckoned. I was warned to keep away. My parents both told me I was making a mistake. My father especially said I was too ambitious and wanted to put my ill-hidden hubris to the ultimate test by taking on America itself. I could, and did, fill in the details for myself. Your soul had its work cut out for it in this extraordinary country. You got spiritual headaches. You took sexual Tylenol for them. It wasn't an across-the-counter transaction. The price was infinitely greater than the easy suppositions of the open society led you to expect. … There seems to be a huge force that advances, propels, and this propellant increases its power by drawing value away from personal life and fitting us for its colossal purpose. It demands the abolition of such things as love and art ...
Of course, we all have these thoughts today instead of prayers. And we think these thoughts are serious and we take pride in our ability to think, to elaborate ideas, so we go round and round in consciousness like this. However, they don't get us anywhere; our speculations are like a stationary bicycle. And this, too, was dawning on me. These proliferating thoughts have more affinity to insomnia than to mental progress. Oscillations of the mental substance is what they are, ever-increasing jitters.”
An almost Platonic dualism runs throughout the book as it works out the disastrous consequences of Uncle Ben descending from on high into the messy particularities of contemporary life and contemporary sexuality. The contrast is an amusing one: how can a man this brilliant be so useless with women? Bellow takes a keen eye to all this, and as always there are so many quotable passages:
“…maybe a man does lie to himself when he's in love, but … in love he lies well and it transfigures him, it makes him rich, more powerful, fuller, it makes him an artist. Without it, only a fraction of him is alive and that fraction isn't enough to sustain a real life.”
We’re in a bind; we search admirably for love and kindness, but more often than not we find instead “two psychopaths under one quilt”. Nevertheless, we must go on striving, for otherwise there is little of us left:
“And what if she wasn't the woman of his heart? He probably wasn't the man of her heart, either. There are people who advise you to leave the heart out of it altogether. It shouldn't figure, it's untrustworthy. In some cases the heart takes early retirement. A philosopher over at the university surprised me once by saying, ‘Your heart also can be a sophist.’ That one puzzled me for some time, but I think now that I perfectly grasp his idea. It's not a dependable criterion. Everybody pays the heart lip service, of course, but everybody is more familiar with the absence of love than with its presence and gets so used to the feeling of emptiness that it becomes ‘normal.’ You don't miss the foundation of feeling until you begin to look for your self and can't find a support in the affects for a self.”
The book’s talkiness and its high-brow, digressive musings will try the patience of some readers. But this is precisely the point: in a world where history has supposedly ended, all that remains is consciousness turning on itself, desperately trying to locate something solid to stand on. Bellow gives us that predicament without sentimentality and without despair. The result is a novel that is wry, restless, and wholly alive.
“The U.S.A. … that terrific posthistorical enterprise carrying our destinies, lost momentum, sagged, softened. There threaded itself through me the dreadful suspicion that the costs of its dynamism were bigger than I had reckoned. I was warned to keep away. My parents both told me I was making a mistake. My father especially said I was too ambitious and wanted to put my ill-hidden hubris to the ultimate test by taking on America itself. I could, and did, fill in the details for myself. Your soul had its work cut out for it in this extraordinary country. You got spiritual headaches. You took sexual Tylenol for them. It wasn't an across-the-counter transaction. The price was infinitely greater than the easy suppositions of the open society led you to expect. … There seems to be a huge force that advances, propels, and this propellant increases its power by drawing value away from personal life and fitting us for its colossal purpose. It demands the abolition of such things as love and art ...
Of course, we all have these thoughts today instead of prayers. And we think these thoughts are serious and we take pride in our ability to think, to elaborate ideas, so we go round and round in consciousness like this. However, they don't get us anywhere; our speculations are like a stationary bicycle. And this, too, was dawning on me. These proliferating thoughts have more affinity to insomnia than to mental progress. Oscillations of the mental substance is what they are, ever-increasing jitters.”
An almost Platonic dualism runs throughout the book as it works out the disastrous consequences of Uncle Ben descending from on high into the messy particularities of contemporary life and contemporary sexuality. The contrast is an amusing one: how can a man this brilliant be so useless with women? Bellow takes a keen eye to all this, and as always there are so many quotable passages:
“…maybe a man does lie to himself when he's in love, but … in love he lies well and it transfigures him, it makes him rich, more powerful, fuller, it makes him an artist. Without it, only a fraction of him is alive and that fraction isn't enough to sustain a real life.”
We’re in a bind; we search admirably for love and kindness, but more often than not we find instead “two psychopaths under one quilt”. Nevertheless, we must go on striving, for otherwise there is little of us left:
“And what if she wasn't the woman of his heart? He probably wasn't the man of her heart, either. There are people who advise you to leave the heart out of it altogether. It shouldn't figure, it's untrustworthy. In some cases the heart takes early retirement. A philosopher over at the university surprised me once by saying, ‘Your heart also can be a sophist.’ That one puzzled me for some time, but I think now that I perfectly grasp his idea. It's not a dependable criterion. Everybody pays the heart lip service, of course, but everybody is more familiar with the absence of love than with its presence and gets so used to the feeling of emptiness that it becomes ‘normal.’ You don't miss the foundation of feeling until you begin to look for your self and can't find a support in the affects for a self.”
The book’s talkiness and its high-brow, digressive musings will try the patience of some readers. But this is precisely the point: in a world where history has supposedly ended, all that remains is consciousness turning on itself, desperately trying to locate something solid to stand on. Bellow gives us that predicament without sentimentality and without despair. The result is a novel that is wry, restless, and wholly alive.
May 24, 2020
Naisista lörpötteleviä miehiä. Addiktiivinen kasvitieteilijä-eno ja hänestä riippuvainen vaaleansiniaurainen sisarenpoika.
Kasvitieteilijä harmittelee, ettei hänellä ole samanlaista lahjaa nähdä ihmisiä kuin kasveja. Sisarenpoika osallistuu enon naissotkuihin analyyttisella diskurssilla.
"Sydänkin voi olla sofisti." "Voitko rekonstruoida keskustelusi? " "Rakkaudella ihminen tunkeutuu olemisen essenssiin."...ja niin etenee eeppisen aneeminen keskusteleminen sydänasioista läpi satojen sivujen...
Keskustelut pilkkovat ja luokittelevat naiset tuhannesosiin. Voi apua, jos sivistyneillä miehillä ei ole elämässä mitään muuta keskusteltavaa. Tai hetkinen olihan heillä: oma isä, seksuaalisuuden suurvalta.
Rasittava, ärsyttävä ja ennen kaikkea tylsä kirja. Loppuhuipennuksena skitsopsykologinen (!) käänne, jonka aiheuttaa Psykon katselu liian leveäharteisen naisen kanssa.
Lisäksi mahtaileva kasvitieteilijä osoittautui pelkuriksi. Toivon, että siinä kohti sisarenpoika sai hankittua edes uuden ystävän, sillä enosta jai jälkeen vain Helsingissä asuvan professorin yhteystiedot.
Bellow ei todellakaan ole minun kuppini teetä!
Kasvitieteilijä harmittelee, ettei hänellä ole samanlaista lahjaa nähdä ihmisiä kuin kasveja. Sisarenpoika osallistuu enon naissotkuihin analyyttisella diskurssilla.
"Sydänkin voi olla sofisti." "Voitko rekonstruoida keskustelusi? " "Rakkaudella ihminen tunkeutuu olemisen essenssiin."...ja niin etenee eeppisen aneeminen keskusteleminen sydänasioista läpi satojen sivujen...
Keskustelut pilkkovat ja luokittelevat naiset tuhannesosiin. Voi apua, jos sivistyneillä miehillä ei ole elämässä mitään muuta keskusteltavaa. Tai hetkinen olihan heillä: oma isä, seksuaalisuuden suurvalta.
Rasittava, ärsyttävä ja ennen kaikkea tylsä kirja. Loppuhuipennuksena skitsopsykologinen (!) käänne, jonka aiheuttaa Psykon katselu liian leveäharteisen naisen kanssa.
Lisäksi mahtaileva kasvitieteilijä osoittautui pelkuriksi. Toivon, että siinä kohti sisarenpoika sai hankittua edes uuden ystävän, sillä enosta jai jälkeen vain Helsingissä asuvan professorin yhteystiedot.
Bellow ei todellakaan ole minun kuppini teetä!
June 19, 2022
Dit is een boek van een Amerikaans schrijver. Veel schrijvers zijn er in de VS niet. Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Henri Miller, Richard Powers en nog een wiens naam ik vergeet, dat zijn ze zowat. Dit boek is groots en meeslepend, universeel haast. De hoofdstukken zijn nogal lang uitgesponnen, dat ontraden de schrijfscholen tegenwoordig, maar ik had er geen last van. Het boek leest niet echt vlot, je moet er nu eenmaal moeite voor doen om er in te geraken. Pittig detail: de vertaling is niet opgenomen in de lijst van vertaalde boeken van Bellow; ze dateert bovendien van voor 2000 en bevat dan ook geen fouten.
October 31, 2014
"Morrem Mais de Mágoa" foi o primeiro título que li do Nobel da Literatura, Saúl Bellow, e apesar de avaliá-lo com 4 estrelas, não me parece que seja o melhor para nos iniciarmos na sua leitura, dada a complexidade das suas personagens e da sua prosa, algo elíptica e densa, tendo por base a relação entre Benn e o seu sobrinho Kenneth (ou Ken, numa alusão à cumplicidade existencial entre um e outro) que, desde cedo percebemos que é bem maior do que seria de esperar entre pai e filho. Kenneth, talvez um alter ego de um Benn mais novo, é o apoio psicológico do tio, cujos comportamentos, estilo de vida ou filosofias sempre encontraram no sobrinho a atenção própria de um amigo. "Além disso eu era um ouvinte mais do que atento e um consultor entusiasta. Acho até que teria dado um bom padre. Podiam vir ter comigo e contar-me os vossos problemas. Muitos o faziam e eu raramente recusava a ouvir e nunca negava um conselho. Ou sou muito bisbilhoteiro ou estou predestinado a curar almas".
Reconheço que também me atraiu bastante o título deste romance, tendo encontrado a sua explicação e concordado em absoluto com ela, num dos vários diálogos estabelecidos entre as personagens. "As mágoas têm matado muita gente. E pode seguramente calcular-se que morre mais gente de mágoa do que as radiações atómicas, mas não existem movimentos de massas nem manifestações de rua contra elas".
O livro dá-nos também algumas pistas de reflexão, entre tiradas filosóficas ou psicológicas que nos remetem para estados de identificação, ora com um ora com outro e que nos ajudam a compreender melhor determinadas situações, opiniões, estados de alma ou comportamentos que podem inclusive reverter para a nossa própria conduta: "Contudo, a autoconsideração é uma preocupação cansativa, tem de se fazer algo para limitar o número de pessoas cuja opinião nos pode afetar. A não ser que gostem de nós, que nos tenham feito qualquer bem ou que constituam uma promessa, porque nos havemos de nos importar com os seus pontos de vista?"
Também não resisto a partilhar mais uma citação: "A dificuldade reside no facto de, hoje em dia, o despertar da consciência ser muito pobre. O barulho do mundo é tão terrível que só conseguimos suportá-lo couraçado por uma camada de sono".
Reconheço que também me atraiu bastante o título deste romance, tendo encontrado a sua explicação e concordado em absoluto com ela, num dos vários diálogos estabelecidos entre as personagens. "As mágoas têm matado muita gente. E pode seguramente calcular-se que morre mais gente de mágoa do que as radiações atómicas, mas não existem movimentos de massas nem manifestações de rua contra elas".
O livro dá-nos também algumas pistas de reflexão, entre tiradas filosóficas ou psicológicas que nos remetem para estados de identificação, ora com um ora com outro e que nos ajudam a compreender melhor determinadas situações, opiniões, estados de alma ou comportamentos que podem inclusive reverter para a nossa própria conduta: "Contudo, a autoconsideração é uma preocupação cansativa, tem de se fazer algo para limitar o número de pessoas cuja opinião nos pode afetar. A não ser que gostem de nós, que nos tenham feito qualquer bem ou que constituam uma promessa, porque nos havemos de nos importar com os seus pontos de vista?"
Também não resisto a partilhar mais uma citação: "A dificuldade reside no facto de, hoje em dia, o despertar da consciência ser muito pobre. O barulho do mundo é tão terrível que só conseguimos suportá-lo couraçado por uma camada de sono".
April 1, 2024
P.S. Reading it again...and again. Not because it's a good novel, but rather because it's something of a chimera. An interesting book about the near eternal conflicts among eros, scholarship, friendship, the idea that the search for peace of mind only ends with an imperfect compromise, and the pain of concluding that wisdom lies in acknowledging there can be no satisfactory balance among them, only denial and resignation that our reach is egocentric while the world is an obstacle course that is forever dooming us to disappointment. A Freudian perspective that demonstrates how efficacious the psychoanalyst's paradigm was too brilliant to ever be disproved although tried by many. The book meanders as do the main characters. There isn't much of a plot. Bellow worked on editing the Encyclopedia Britannica; there are references--both modern and classical; arcane and popular--throughout the book.
February 17, 2024
It's Bellow, so it's well-written. But it gets caught on itself. The character development is par excellence, which is good because that is all the novel is. While there is the semblance of a plot floating around the philosophical musings and name-dropping, Bellow would rather just tell you about the two main characters. And they are lovely; complex, comical, and quite tragic. Tell us also the wrong word; he shows them to you. You experience these men. They don't do anything, though. And so reading this book always feels like you are always on the edge of getting to the story, yet you never reach it. You leave the book, accordingly, wondering what just happened. The answer is nothing. Nothing happened. And that is mostly okay. Mostly.
April 15, 2023
Bellow is one writer that when i read him, i'm hooked, even if nothing is happening in the narrative, the ideas, thoughts and detail keep it interesting. There's storys that have been told how a writer like Hemingway would take so much time just to get a single page right. Looking at a single page of Bellow with the amount of style and information you get is amazing. More Die of Heartbreak, more of a later Bellow, still holds a power punch and a consistency of quality not seen by many writers.
May 15, 2016
Very good, but I wanted more.
May 30, 2017
It's always a pleasure to read Bellow, his characters are wonderful, but this will not be one of my favorites.
October 13, 2021
La tecnica di scrittura di Bellow l'ho trovata originale... questa sorta di digressioni continue che si rincorrono. Però, effettivamente la lunghezza del romanzo fa stancare il lettore, ad un certo punto la storia principale è poco interessante (almeno questa è la mia impressione), sono molto meglio le digressioni!
October 24, 2022
男的唧唧歪歪就那点儿事 老头书读得多也就吊着书袋子犯俗 无聊死了 偶尔偶尔有零星几个妙啊的金句 但更多时刻真就只想捂嘴 女的 爱情 性 老天爷真是够了 我看明明是更多的人死于阳痿。不喜欢。
January 21, 2019
Saul Bellow is a high-brow intellectual graduate of the school of hard knocks. The books I have read of his are both philosophical and often comic with the pits and falls of everyman.
In More Die of Heartbreak, Bellow reverts to his tried and true subject “the flawed man”. The narrator is Kenneth who grew up in Paris and whose parents are arrogant phonies. Ken moves to the USA to be near his much beloved Uncle Benn, a renowned doctor of botany, who Ken admires and emulates. Uncle Benn gets Ken a job teaching Russian literature at the same school he teaches botany so they are together constantly. They are very smart and completely absorbed in their field of study but somehow they both manage to miss the boat then it comes to understanding women. They often confuse beauty with love and it gets them in all sorts of trouble.
These two over intellectual academics try to navigate the world of street smart men and women and seem to get taken advantage at every step. Bellow is at his comic best when describing physical characteristics through the biased eyes of another character: The very anxious, newly married Uncle Benn, begins to notice his new wife as having sharp eye teeth and shoulders like those of Norman Bates in the shower scene from Psycho. The comic scene is reminiscent of a Seinfeld skit.
Typical of Bellow, there are many philosophical diversions which at times can weigh the book down a bit but if you are a Bellow lover you’ll love it.
In More Die of Heartbreak, Bellow reverts to his tried and true subject “the flawed man”. The narrator is Kenneth who grew up in Paris and whose parents are arrogant phonies. Ken moves to the USA to be near his much beloved Uncle Benn, a renowned doctor of botany, who Ken admires and emulates. Uncle Benn gets Ken a job teaching Russian literature at the same school he teaches botany so they are together constantly. They are very smart and completely absorbed in their field of study but somehow they both manage to miss the boat then it comes to understanding women. They often confuse beauty with love and it gets them in all sorts of trouble.
These two over intellectual academics try to navigate the world of street smart men and women and seem to get taken advantage at every step. Bellow is at his comic best when describing physical characteristics through the biased eyes of another character: The very anxious, newly married Uncle Benn, begins to notice his new wife as having sharp eye teeth and shoulders like those of Norman Bates in the shower scene from Psycho. The comic scene is reminiscent of a Seinfeld skit.
Typical of Bellow, there are many philosophical diversions which at times can weigh the book down a bit but if you are a Bellow lover you’ll love it.
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