There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction

by Saul Bellow, Benjamin Taylor (Editor)

"Bellow's nonfiction has the same strengths as his stories and novels: a dynamic responsiveness to character, place and time (or era) . . . And you wonder--what other highbrow writer, or indeed lowbrow writer has such a reflexive grasp of the street, the machine, the law courts, the rackets?" --Martin Amis, The New York Times Book Review

The year 2015 marks several literary milestones: the centennial of Saul Bellow's birth, the tenth anniversary of his death, and the publication of Zachary Leader's much anticipated biography. Bellow, a Nobel Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, and the only novelist to receive three National Book awards, has long been regarded as one of America's most cherished authors. Here, Benjamin Taylor, editor of the acclaimed Saul Bellow: Letters, presents lesser-known aspects of the iconic writer.

Arranged chronologically, this literary time capsule displays the full extent of Bellow's nonfiction, including criticism, interviews, speeches, and other reflections, tracing his career from his initial success as a novelist until the end of his life. Bringing together six classic pieces with an abundance of previously uncollected material, There Is Simply Too Much to Think About is a powerful reminder not only of Bellow's genius but also of his enduring place in the western canon and is sure to be widely reviewed and talked about for years to come.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Literary Criticism, Writing, Literature, American

544 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2015

About the author

Novels 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.

Reviews

[MihaElla · Rating 5 out of 5]

≪ Constiinta mea dintai a fost aceea a unui cosmos, iar in cosmosul acela, eram evreu. Dupa saptezeci de ani si mai bine, dintre care vreo cincizeci mi i-am petrecut scriind carti, nu mai pot face nimic altceva, decat sa descriu ce s-a intamplat, pot numai sa ma ofer pe mine insumi ca ilustrare. Istoria va demonstra ce-a priceput secolul XX in legatura cu mine si ce-am priceput eu din secolul XX. ≫

First about my family ( @ 22 years – In the spring of 1937 Bellow graduated from Northwestern with a B.A. in anthropology, and was awarded a graduate fellowship in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison…):
≪ Of course, there was an awful blowout before I left. My father, spongy soul, cannot give freely. His business conscience pursues him into private life, and he plagues those he loves with the scruples he has learned in that world I so detest. He started giving me a Polonius, berating all my friends, warning me, adjuring me, doing everything short of damning me. Of course, he damned all the things I stood for, which was the equivalent of damning me also. The night before he had made perfectly hideous for me. Art Behrstock had been over, and no sooner did the old man discover Art had been in Russia than he withered him with arguments and insults. When he started on me, on the instant of my leaving, I blew up and told him precisely the place he occupied in my category of character, what I thought of his advice, and that I intended to live as I saw fit. I told him all this as you may expect without faltering, and I didn’t do it in subdued terms. I told the old man that if he didn’t want to give me his measly allowance in Madison I would just as lief stay in Chicago and get a job and a wife and live independent of the family forevermore. The coalbins resounded with my shouts and imprecations, till the old man as a defense-measure decided that he was needed somewhere and swam off into the gloom. The next I hear of this is that the old man is heartbroken because I have not written to him. Did he expect a manifesto of love after such a clash? That is why the old woman [Bellow’s stepmother] called you up; to discover if I had made any disclosures to you.
I had a letter from Sam (my brother) this morning, in which he urged me to write, and I think I shall now. But what have I to say to him? He seems me as quite a different creature than I really am. To him I am a perverse child growing into manhood with no prospects or bourgeois ambitions, utterly unequipped to meet his world. (He is wrong, am not unequipped but unwilling). My father and probably all fathers like him have an extremely naïve idea of education. They think it is something formal, apart from actual living, and that it should give one an air of hig-brow eminence coupled with material substance (money). They do not expect it to have an effect on the moral life, on the intellectual life, and I doubt whether they have ever heard of an esthetic life. They are good folk, when they are not neurotic, and what after all can we expect? Such conflicts must come if we are to honestly follow out the concepts we learn or teach ourselves. What nexus have I with the old man? What shall I say to him? In his way he is a curio. For instance: he boasts of having read the complete works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoyevsky. I believe him. But how has he been able to look open-eyed at these men and act as he has shown himself capable of acting? [….]
So much for the family. ≫

≪ How shall I help you? What can I do? Whatever I could I would do with all my heart. IF I were lying next to you in hell I would help you with all my power. But hell is for our ancestors. For us, nothing so simple. I can give you no advice because I am so different from you for one thing, and because, for another, my own problems are by no means settled.
I am a strange dog, Oscar. Strange things occur in me that I cannot account for. Just now I am deeply in love, and I think I shall continue in love, because it is my salvation. You, on the other side, could not find salvation in love. You see how different we are? Even our capacities for love are different.≫

[Jan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book club assignment included the following selections:

Up from the Pushcart: On Abraham Cahan, 1961--Two stars
The Civilized Barbarian Reader, 1987--Three-and-a-half stars
Machines and Storybooks: Literature in the Age of Technology, 1974--Two-and-a-half
The Nobel Lecture, 1976Two-and-a-half
A Jewish Writer in America, I--Five stars (Also see: http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/we... )
A Jewish Writer in America, II, 1988--Five stars
Before I Go Away: A Words and Images Interview with Norman Manea, 1999--Five stars
The Day they Signed the Treaty, 1979--Three-and-a-half stars

I liked what Saul Bellow said about education when writing in the second essay about Herzog: that he was making fun of pedantry. He was talking about the failures of education, and I second that emotion. My education to a great extent left me under-educated. Nobody explained to me what education was supposed to be, and I thought enduring it was what was required. That way society could maintain its status quo. Society could go through the motions of educating its citizens, who could pretend to be educated, while nothing changed. Perhaps my befuddlement was due in part to being in the first full generation of women participating in bona fide education instead of obtaining our "Mrs." So what Saul Bellow was saying here resonated with me.

But otherwise I found the first several essays overly abstract. (I looked up another article about Abraham Cahan, the subject of the first short piece.) Also, some of the writing in these first essays struck me as doctrinaire. He seemed to look down his nose at business and commerce; he talked about the decline of the educated class, the increase of "illiteracy," and the competition of science and technology with "art." Of course he thought that technology in the '70s was at its height. Could he imagine the present? Couldn't he have been less conventional? Books themselves are a technology. Must knowing one's own path mean casting aspersions on another possible path? Some of the stances he committed to the page smack of elitism.

I don't mean to critique those values at this point, though, as much as to comment on the pallidness of the writing. The right philosopher could have heightened the intensity, but in Saul Bellow's hands this got boring.

Likewise the Nobel lecture. I thought he felt the need to be inspirational when his muse was not in the mood.

Everything changed when I got to A Jewish Writer in America. I think the comparative improvement was due to his writing about the specific and concrete, rather than abstractions on the State of the Union, World, and Universe. (I read all these pieces in the order they happened to be listed by the person who recommended them to the book club, and not in chronological order.) A Jewish Writer, like Herzog, the only novel of his that I've read, was full of zingers winging their way to the mark. The first half of this is available online; see above.

He continues at his best in the interview Before I Go Away: the five months he spent in the hospital as an eight-year-old, his attempt to meet Trotsky in Mexico (he missed out on the meeting due to Trotsky's having been assassinated the previous day but still spent several months in the country), and his attitudes toward ideology.

I have perhaps a slavelike constitution which is too easily restrained by bonds. It then becomes rebellious and bursts out in a comic revolution.

The interviewer reported that quotation to him; he asked, "Did I say that?" and when told he had said it, added, "Well it's probably the truth."

So, let's hear it for humor!

The Day They Signed the Treaty, referring to the event of March, 1979 in Washington DC, strikes me as intermediate between the more abstract essays and the two I've just discussed. It's both essay and reportage, as he describes the scene.

Other resources:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

[Domenico Fina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ci sono troppe cose a cui pensare. È un’impresa disperata: le tipologie di preparazione specifica richieste sono infinite. In fatto di elettronica, economia, analisi sociale, storia, psicologia e politica internazionale la maggior parte di noi, data l’oceanica e proliferante complessità delle cose, rimane paralizzata dalla semplice idea di assumersi una qualunque responsabilità. Ed è questo a rendere tanto attraenti le opinioni preconfezionate. (1992)

Fortunatamente, tra la vita come la viviamo e come diciamo di viverla esiste ancora una differenza. Possediamo un’intelligenza segreta, che ci aiuta. Possediamo una discreta capacità di riconoscere la falsità dei postulati più diffusi e accettati. Ci sono delle intuizioni metafisiche e morali che ci allontanano da ciò che ci è stato insegnato, dal patrimonio di «conoscenze» che abbiamo accumulato. Condivido in questo la posizione di un dotto tedesco il quale, quando i suoi studenti gli dissero che le sue teorie non corrispondevano ai fatti, rispose: «Tanto peggio per i fatti». (1978)

A volte mi diverto a prendere in giro gli americani colti. Herzog, per esempio, era stato concepito come un romanzo comico: un dottore di ricerca di un’ottima università americana ha un autentico crollo quando la moglie lo lascia per un altro uomo. Viene colto da una frenesia epistolare, e si mette a scrivere delle lettere dolorose, feroci, ironiche. Volevo che il romanzo dimostrasse quante poche risorse la «cultura superiore» potesse offrire a un uomo che si trovi in serie difficoltà. Alla fine, il protagonista si rende conto che nessuno gli ha mai insegnato come comportarsi nella vita. All’università, chi gli ha mai spiegato come fare i conti con i propri desideri erotici, con le donne, con le questioni di famiglia? Per usare una metafora presa dal mondo dei giochi, torna alla casella numero uno – ovvero, come mi dicevo scrivendo il libro, a un punto di equilibrio originario. (1987)

Quando mi chiedono un’opinione su alcune questioni particolarmente complesse dei nostri tempi, a volte rispondo dichiarando che sono a favore delle cose buone, e contro quelle cattive. Non tutti trovano la battuta divertente. Molti ne deducono che mi considero troppo buono per questo mondo che, senza alcun dubbio, è un mondo dominato dalle questioni pubbliche. (1992)

[Stetson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There Is Simply Too Much to Think About is a comprehensive anthology of Saul Bellow’s nonfiction, curated by Benjamin Taylor. Bellow, a literary giant, emerged from a somewhat humble Midwestern milieu as a child of Jewish immigrants and clawed his way by genius and tenacity to the forefront of literary repute. Spanning Bellow’s extensive career, this collection assembles 57 pieces, including essays, reviews, interviews, speeches, and memoirs, organized chronologically to trace his evolving perspectives on literature, politics, and culture throughout the 20th century. The volume features Bellow’s reflections on fellow writers like Ralph Ellison, Philip Roth, and J.D. Salinger; his impressions of cities such as Paris, Chicago, and Jerusalem; and his contemplations on American identity, Jewish heritage, and the role of the writer in society. Notably, it includes his lesser-known film criticism from the early 1960s, where he critiques Hollywood's shift toward psychological narratives and the influence of Freudian themes in cinema.

Because the collection is comprehensive and chronological, Bellow's evolution across his life become the main theme that emerges. He maintains a persistent commitment to intellectual independence and humanistic inquiry, but he also moves from a more optimistic left-liberalism to a more skeptical conservativism. It may be more appropriate to say Saul stayed the same, and the times change so perhaps the anthology reflects back to us the changes of the 20th century.

Early in his career, Bellow was thematically influenced by Modernist writers, emphasizing psychological complexity, individual alienation, and existential anxiety. Stylistically, he hardly strayed from a traditional social realism, working in the mold of a Proust or Henry James, but always maintained a sort of humorous or ironic sensibility. His literary perspective during his early period sought to assert the dignity of the individual against the backdrop of mass culture, bureaucratic power, and societal conformism. He was a true liberal novelist and believed in the liberalizing cultural power of the novel. Works such as The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog exemplify his exploration of self-definition amid shifting cultural values.

Saul Bellow’s later fiction, produced primarily from the 1980s onward, marked a shift toward reflective narratives that explore aging, mortality, and spiritual introspection. Unlike the youthful exuberance and expansive energy of his earlier novels, later works such as The Dean's December (1982), More Die of Heartbreak (1987), and Ravelstein (2000) are characterized by a more meditative tone, with protagonists typically confronting existential uncertainties, the losses that accompany aging, and the limits of intellectual and emotional understanding. Ravelstein, of course, is a notable roman à clef about the philosopher Allan Bloom who likely died of HIV/AIDS. Bellow's later fiction remained linguistically rich and intellectually vibrant, though noticeably quieter and more introspective. He had grown much more pessimistic about the prospects of the novel, advancing many theories of its decline. His earlier signature humor and irony persisted, but they became tempered by a sense of seriousness and gravity, reflective of a matured, seasoned worldview.

Politically, Bellow's views were nuanced, often resisting simple categorization. Initially sympathetic to leftist ideals prevalent among mid-20th-century intellectuals (The Partisan Review crowd is frequently named checked), he later became critical of ideological rigidity and collectivist politics. His writing increasingly questioned utopianism and grand political narratives, turning instead to an appreciation for individual experience, morality, and personal responsibility. By the 1970s and 1980s, he was openly critical of both left-wing dogmatism and the excesses of consumerism, emphasizing a conservative skepticism about the transformative power of politics. Although never openly declared a neoconservative, many of his friends and associates were of this ilk. His close friendship with Allan Bloom, the author of The Closing of the American Mind, is not prominent in this collection, but is an undercurrent to some of the content that appears.

Culturally, Bellow positioned himself as both observer and participant, frequently engaging with intellectual debates about modernity, identity, and the role of the writer but often separating himself off from their stakes. He challenged simplistic notions of cultural identity, especially regarding his own Jewish heritage, asserting that literature should not be confined by ethnic or cultural boundaries. He eschewed this inclination for taxonomy. Throughout his nonfiction and fiction alike, Bellow maintained a consistent interest in the tensions between tradition and modernity, the individual's place in society, and the responsibilities of the intellectual.

This collection provides a window onto Bellow’s intellectual rigor, his deep humanity, and his resistance to collectivizing forces whether they the social programs of utopian progressive or the bland pabulum of mass, consumerist production. He often challenged the notion of being categorized solely as a "Jewish writer," asserting that such classifications limited the broader themes of his work. Bellow’s essays reveal his deep engagement with the complexities of modern life, characterized by a dynamic responsiveness to character, place, and time. His nonfiction, much like his fiction, is marked by a keen observation of the human condition and a commitment to exploring the moral and philosophical dilemmas of his era. This anthology not only complements his fictional works but also stands on its own as a testament to Bellow’s profundity and his enduring influence on American letters.

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book as a preparation to reading the new critical biography of Bellow that came out earlier this year. I have read Bellow's work from time to time and enjoyed it, most recently Ravelstein. Bellow always struck me as a curious mix of intellectual vigor, penetrating insight, cynicism, and grumpiness. This was not always a positive reaction. This book collects about 60 pieces up until close to his death. These pieces range from short reviews and commentary to longer essays on politics, intellectual life, the state of literary life across the century, life in Chicago, life as an American Jewish writer, and lots of other topics. This collection seemed like a good preparation for approaching the biography.

The book is superb and I am glad to have read it. Bellow is sharp and interesting throughout. His critical skill remains throughout and his cynicism is just fine. I was engaged most by the essays on intellectual life and life in Chicago. The literary criticism and the observations on writing and other writers are less engaging - perhaps because I am less familiar with the authors he mentioned. These essays help clarify how Bellow could be such a mix of intellectual insight and somewhat cynical self-criticism and honesty. The honesty comes through clearly, especially on the role of art and culture in the midst of the traumas of the current age and its political and technological changes. I am happy to have worked through these essays and look forward to the new biography.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bellow's been hard done by because the humanist notions that he espouses have become so clearly out of date. His books are hard to read today because of misogyny (the most apparent thing) and racism (less apparent, perhaps, but still visible depending on which texts you pick).

In this bunch of essays -- a really large collection! -- we get to see Bellow's extraordinary struggles to reconcile ideas with which we are still struggling. The divide between high and low culture, the relation between 'the aesthetic' and lived reality, the reaction to modernism, the reaction to late capitalism. It is a struggle -- you can feel the tension as Bellow attempts to mix these unmixable things together. One might view his humanism as an (unsuccessful) attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Either way it's very productive struggle, especially if one looks at Bellow's current unpopularity and Stoner's (John Williams's) popularity. Both conservative, but Williams is nowhere as ambivalent (or ambitious!) as Bellow, and doesn't try to reconcile anything. That tells you something doesn't it? Writing my chapter on Bellow will be interesting...

[Peter Amos · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is simply too much to think about. The phrase, splashed across the cover, suggests a sweeping scope to which this collection doesn’t quite measure. But the title comes from an essay of the same name. In it, Saul Bellow laments the classification of writers as intellectuals and berates intellectuals as phonies and philistines. Writers – essayists, but mostly fiction writers – have a higher calling than the order of the day. The beautifully poetic title may leave the reader with a false impression of the book’s contents but it fits perfectly a collection of essays written by a fiction writer, largely about writing and fiction. It’s not awe-struck murmuring of a bookish kid walking for the first time into The Strand but the grumbling of an old man rolling his eyes at the candy-colored tables en route to the dusty first editions.

There is simply too much to think about – so just leave me alone.

It’s not the only contradiction on the cover. A blurb from the New York Review of Books adorns the top-right corner: “A milestone of twentieth-century criticism.” It takes only three pages for Bellow to assert that “the career of a critic, when I am feeling mean about it, I sometimes compare to that of a deaf man who tunes pianos.” (“Starting Out in Chicago”) Bellow’s nonfiction is everything his fiction would suggest. He’s alternately succinct and prolix, colorful and abstract, gracious and didactic – but always sharply creative and uncompromisingly imaginative. What emerges in 500 pages is a Saul Bellow of glorious contradiction.

He has no time for critics, but the longest essay in the volume is his “Recent Fiction: a Tour of Inspection,” in which he critiques the recent work of everyone from Philip Roth to James Baldwin over almost thirty pages. He is not a critic – but a writer who criticizes. He saves his hottest anger for public intellectuals – the sort of anger that burns slowly on the back of the tongue and invades the sinuses to hide from any bread or water that might otherwise quench it. It’s difficult to tell which he resents more: writers being asked to comment on politics or political pundits and intellectuals passing themselves off as writers. Putting aside that commenting on the vacuous nature of political discourse is its own sort of punditry, some of his most extraordinary writing stems from examinations of Jewish politics and culture: “I refused to agree with them that my life had been illusion and dust. I do not accept any interpretation of history that declares the deepest experience of any person to be superfluous.” (“Americans Who Are Also Jews”) He’s not a public intellectual – but a writer who comments on matters of public interest.

The orneriness and mercury of his writing are refreshing. He’s unapologetically certain of the validity of his thoughts and voice even when he’s aware of their inherent contradictions and equally certain that they might be wrong or change later. The arrogance and sure-footedness of his voice seem to contradict the nuance and uncertainty of his ideas. But they don’t.

[Gagne · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who initially picked this up as the only work by Saul Bellow I've read, the collection felt deeply personal. While most pieces were prepared speeches or lectures, it is easy to tell, particularly with the final two sections: "The Eighties" and "The Nineties and Beyond" how Bellow turned back toward himself in writing, how he began to reflect on his work as a writer, lecturer, and of course, Jewish American writer, son of Russian immigrants, born in Montreal, raised in Chicago. Looking forward to reading other works by him, taking in these essays.

[Exapno Mapcase · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a Goodreads First Reads review.

This is an interesting compilation of articles showcasing a tremendous literary light. Bellow covered a range of different subjects from cityscapes to character profiles to himself, both in the past and his current self. Most are fairly short but none are tedious and all are intriguing.

[SkipO · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was from Good Reads giveaway program.....Thank you.
I am a lover of all things written by H L Mencken, so this was a fairly easy reading transition.
I have never read Mr Bellow until this book and, in a word, it is delightful.
It is grouped with articles from the 50's 60's 70's 80's and 90's
which I found very well organized.
I highly recommend this book.

[Ugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this over a year or so of plague, and most of it feels too long ago for a proper review. I dimly recall liking passages on how artists and writers shouldn't bow to intellectuals, but being a bit disappointed that the entries weren't more essay-like than ruminative. I highlighted an absolute fuckload, though, so it must have been pretty good. 3.5 stars if I could.

[Dave Peticolas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really good essays, but also a lot of repetition and hand-wringing over modernity. Sometimes you just want to shout "Deal with it!".

[Jerrodm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection, but the essays got a bit repetitive. I've never read any of Bellow's fiction (which seems like a rather large lacuna in my 20th century American writers experience), but it's obvious from his non-fiction writing that Bellow was an author of uncommon talent. He reminds me a bit of Nabokov, in that I feel like he writes on a higher level than I can comfortably read--I read this book like a short man trying to keep step with his long-legged friend.

On the slightly less positive side, the subjects of much of the writing in this collection just didn't strike home for me...in the first place, Bellow apparently spent an inordinate amount of time in his career arguing against the idea that "the novel as an art form is dead". I know this is my relative (and getting more relative all the time!) youth speaking, but I just can't believe this is a discussion that required much effort--great novels that move forward human understanding about life, meaning and themselves have been written continuously since Cervantes wrote Don Quixote--but there are at least three essays or talks transcribed in this collection that take this question as their jumping-off point.

More generally, I just felt like a lot of what Bellow was trying to get across in his writing was too high-brow for me--maybe I'm not smart enough to pick up what he was laying down, but I can't help but think that some of it was his effort to come across as smart and highfalutin'.

In any case, I enjoyed parts of the book and often recognized his gifts, but I can't say it was a real joy for me, though finishing it certainly was. I'll probably get around to reading some of his fiction in the future, and maybe it will help his other writing to click for me a little more.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many readers of iconic American authors will tell you that they have read Herzog and The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. They are classics, and Bellow has written many exquisite novels-Dangling Man (My favorite) and Seize the Day readily come to mind. The Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel Laureate has left behind a large amount of non-fiction works as well. Editor Benjamin Taylor has compiled an excellent collection of Saul Bellows' Interviews, Speeches, criticism and other non-fiction, which when read front to back, turns out to be somewhat of a grand tour of the mind of Bellows, as the writing spans five decades. If this is not enough enticement, There is Simply Too Much to Think About also contains a good amount of uncollected writings. I cannot recommend this book more, whether you are a devourer of Bellows'canon of work, or a college student who has just read Augie March for the first time.

[Umar Tosheeb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saul Bellow discusses major social and literary trends starting from the 1950s. The first short essay discusses Spain under the military dictator Franco after World War II. The next essay is about the western part of his home state of Illinois, in which he discusses the poor state of the city of Galena past its glory days. Each decade has essays about the major social, economic, and literary events in that decade, including the books written during that time. Bellow compares the literary trends during the 50s and 60s with the historical literary trends. Bellow spends a lot of time discussing the role of books and authors in society. Universities, professors, and students are increasingly starting to have an outsized influence on books as readers, teachers, and critics. Overall, Bellow is concerned with and uncertain about the role played by literature.

Many articles and essays are about the Jewish experience in America. A few are specifically about Israel. One is about Israel's war against Arab nations in the 1960s, which Below reports on the ground from Israel. Another is about the peace treaty ceremony held in the US capital by the Cater administration between Egypt and Israel. Bellow, being Jewish himself, has a lot to say about what has historically happened to the Jews and how he and others continue to face questions and even discrimination.

Bellow's views in the 1950s and 60s were leftist, but later, they increasingly shifted rightward. Writing about Chicago, he called it the city of blacks and Hispanics as opposed to the city of Europeans, who no longer dominated the old neighborhoods. In one article, Bellow attempts to defend his assertion that Zulu and Papauan haven't been able to produce authors like Proust and Tolstoy.

The readers not only learn about Bellow and the making of Bellow as an author, but they also learn about the social, political, and artistic history of the United States during the five decades after World War II.

[Socrate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ce anume a fost, în anii treizeci, care să atragă un adolescent de la Chicago la scrisul de cărți? Cum a decis un tânăr american din perioada Marii Crize Economice că era, din câte ar fi putut fi, artist literar? Folosesc termenul acesta pretențios – artist literar – numai ca să subliniez contrastul dintre o asemenea ambiție și factorii exteriori. Un centru industrial și de afaceri colosal, pus la pământ de șomaj, cu fabricile și chiar școlile închizându-i-se, a hotărât să organizeze o Expoziție Mondială pe
malul lacului Michigan, cu turnuri, călușei, exponate, ricșe chinezești, un sat pitic, în care se organiza câte o nuntă de pitici zilnic, plus alte atracții însuflețitoare, care includeau prostituate, bandiți și dansatoare exotice. Puțină, veselia; nenumărate, cazurile de dizenterie bacteriană. Prosperitatea nu s-a întors. Câteva milioane de dolari investite în van de oamenii de afaceri și de politicieni. Dacă ei puteau fi donquijotești, de ce n-ar fi putut și studenții să se dovedească lipsiți de simț practic? Și care putea fi opțiunea cea mai lipsită de simț practic, într-o metropolă sumbră, greoaie, înverșunată, pri­mitivă, precum Chicago? Păi, cum? – aveai să fii repre­zentantul frumosului, interpretul sufletului uman, eroul inventivității, al candorii, al libertății personale, al generozității și al iubirii. Nici acum n-aș putea spune că era greșit să fii un astfel de excentric.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Un'opera scritta è una forma di offerta. La porti sull'altare e speri che venga accettata. O preghi almeno che un eventuale rifiuto non scateni la tua rabbia, trasformandoti in un Caino. In modo forse ingenuo, tiri fuori i tuoi tesori preferiti e li impili uno sull'altro, lasciando che vadano a formare una massa indiscriminata. Chi non ne riconosce il valore oggi potrà farlo in un secondo tempo. E non sempre senti di scrivere per i tuoi contemporanei. Può anche darsi che i tuoi veri lettori non ci siano ancora, e che saranno proprio i tuoi libri a farli materializzare." (Barbarie e civiltà: un percorso di lettura, pp. 245, 246)

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Upon completion i have to admit that I am intrigued enough that i will likely have to pick up some of Bellow's novels to ascertain that his fiction writing reflected what has been said about him by himself and others. I think it is safe to say that this may be the first thing i've read, other than parts of book reviews, involving him. What might I have missed?

[desperatez · Rating 5 out of 5]

在不知道多久的通勤时间里读完，Saul Bellow真是个严肃的犹太老头。这本书里包含了大量的文本信息和Bellow自己的见解和看法，主要提到的地点有：蒙特利尔、芝加哥、巴黎和托斯卡纳。可以看出他对自己的身份认同有着不一样的看法，他是一个复杂的人，他从未提到自己如何“成功”，好像一切都是顺其自然。他有个性，花费了大量金钱修缮一座摇摇欲坠的房子，他说写作好像就是他必须做的，当然本书还讲述了大量关于作家的看法。很难想象八十多岁的他躺在病床上回忆起年轻时的事，但我想这是写作赋予他的想象力，他又回馈出来。/真的想说：翻译很糟糕，校对真的不仔细，有的地方是自相矛盾的，不知原文如此还是…？

[Anogoya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bump it up, ti's worth it.

[Tim Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

It means, perhaps, that the artist must pray to be possessed by spirits so that he may utter in his rapture the truth that patient reason can no longer hope for.

[Dave Moyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a pleasure to read Bellow again. Makes me want to go back and re-read his books. Few could write like him.

[Michael Joseph]

Simply too much to write about.

[Serge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some extraordinary essays. Others are included as filler to capture the Zeitgeist of a decade (the Seventies with the exception of the Nobel Lecture were somewhat weak)

[Jay · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was getting into this but found out that Bellow turned out to be a huge jerk. Anyone who could feud with Terkel is not for me. Zero compunction putting it down.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are essays in here which are essential reading for everybody, but reading Bellow’s prose is time well spent, even if some of the later pieces tend to repetition and memories of the past.

[Greg Taylor]

Benjamin Taylor edits a chronological tome to capture Bellow’s recurring desire for “illumination of the surrounding world by art,” [492] but also his angst that because so much specialized preparation is required to speak intelligibly about cultural history, technology, economics, politics, and religion, “[T]here is simply too much to think about.” Taylor succeeds in showing Bellow’s lifetime work of art was, in the words of Defoe, “not to preach but to relate.” [504] If there is a flaw in this book it is in its conflicted goals: is it to preserve and promote most of Bellow’s non-fiction in one source, or is it truly as Taylor proposes, “editing this all-purpose education and book of wonders”?

[Ginni · Rating 4 out of 5]

(I won this book through a Goodreads giveaway.)

I was not familiar with Saul Bellow prior to receiving this book, and I imagine I would have a different take on it were I a fan of his. This seems like a great collection for someone who is interested in Bellow's writing already.

It's hard to know how to rate this. The essays are very well written, and I enjoyed reading them, but there's no theme or sense of congruency from one essay to the next. They're about travel, or books that I haven't read, or interviews, or writing, or history. And again, they're very well written--but it's not the sort of book you sit down and read straight through.

[Richard Epstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's okay, and that's about it. I didn't find much to get excited about. If you're already devoted to Bellow's novels, you'll want to read this, of course: we can never get enough of the authors we love. But if not, probably not. The essays and lectures and articles are middle-of-the-road stuff; though widely read, Bellow hasn't anything surprising to say; and the gusto which animates his novels and their characters is largely absent here. The prose is flat.

I should mention that I was provided a review copy in exchange for this review.

[Julie Witte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recieved this book through GoodReads First Reads.I had to work to get through this, most of this book was great reading but at times it got deeper and I had to stop to digest and really think about things. Mr. Bellow was one of the great minds of our time. I really enjoyed this book.