What do you think?
Rate this book
Him With His Foot in His Mouth
'We were friends, somehow.But in the end, somehow, he intended to be a mortal enemy.All the while that he was making the gestures of a close and precious friend he was fattening my soul in a coop till it was ready for killing.'
Vital, exuberant, streetwise and philosophizing, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow is one of the undisputed masters of American prose. In this inspired novella an ageing man writes an apology for his rudeness to a librarian thirty-five years earlier, unleashing a dazzling, rancorous comic riff on growing old, regret, rudeness, smoking and 'the world's grandeur'.
Vital, exuberant, streetwise and philosophizing, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow is one of the undisputed masters of American prose. In this inspired novella an ageing man writes an apology for his rudeness to a librarian thirty-five years earlier, unleashing a dazzling, rancorous comic riff on growing old, regret, rudeness, smoking and 'the world's grandeur'.
ebook
Published February 15, 2011
About the author
Saul Bellow
264 books2,013 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 31, 2013
Coaxing the reader with the loosest of epistolary forms, and hiding behind the facade of an apology to a long-distant colleague, Saul Bellow's novella is in actuality a biography of Dr Shawmutt, successful academic, musician, husband, but, above all, expert in the cutting put down.
Ranging far and wide over topics including ageing, Americanism, philosophy, families, Jewishness, and Ginsberg, again and again, Ginsberg, it serves as a fast-paced jaunt over the terrain late twentieth century, and continually requires the reader to sit up straight, furrow their brow and force those cogs to turn that little bit faster, becoming some kind of cathartic prayer book for those without religion.
Perhaps if the back cover wasn't plastered with a picture of Bellow's sardonic smile stretching out from under his trilby, it'd be easier to pull some kind of structured critique out of a hat, but Bellow never meant to be easy, and this book is a solid reminder that easy reading is best left for dental waiting rooms, the khazi, or that rarest of beasts, the obstinately obtuse reader.
Ranging far and wide over topics including ageing, Americanism, philosophy, families, Jewishness, and Ginsberg, again and again, Ginsberg, it serves as a fast-paced jaunt over the terrain late twentieth century, and continually requires the reader to sit up straight, furrow their brow and force those cogs to turn that little bit faster, becoming some kind of cathartic prayer book for those without religion.
Perhaps if the back cover wasn't plastered with a picture of Bellow's sardonic smile stretching out from under his trilby, it'd be easier to pull some kind of structured critique out of a hat, but Bellow never meant to be easy, and this book is a solid reminder that easy reading is best left for dental waiting rooms, the khazi, or that rarest of beasts, the obstinately obtuse reader.
January 16, 2013
Culpa e auto-comiseração - as duas forças opostas da vida judaico-cristã, são tudo o que sobra dele, o que mete o pé na boca.
Não faltam, no texto falsamente epistolar, referências curiosas - como o Kaddish do Allan Ginsberg. Aliás, há um quê de Kaddish, de testamento moral, nessa carta que é um longo pedido de desculpas dirigido a uma bibliotecária, bestamente ofendida pelo narrador.
E o narrador-personagem de fato mete o pé na boca - não com a graça de quem o faz sem querer (como eu que, outro dia, comprando luvas com minha sogra e minha filha, vi esta última chorar, quando a vendedora disse que as luvas da sogra eram de couro de novilho, e emendei "ela se enganou, filha; essas luvas são de vaca velha!"), mas com a dor de quem o faz por impulso, por um incontrolável impulso, dirigido pelo Fatum.
É um livrinho curto e rápido, cheio do cabisbaixo humor de quem sabe que, raios!, isto é só a vida: we will get over it.
Não faltam, no texto falsamente epistolar, referências curiosas - como o Kaddish do Allan Ginsberg. Aliás, há um quê de Kaddish, de testamento moral, nessa carta que é um longo pedido de desculpas dirigido a uma bibliotecária, bestamente ofendida pelo narrador.
E o narrador-personagem de fato mete o pé na boca - não com a graça de quem o faz sem querer (como eu que, outro dia, comprando luvas com minha sogra e minha filha, vi esta última chorar, quando a vendedora disse que as luvas da sogra eram de couro de novilho, e emendei "ela se enganou, filha; essas luvas são de vaca velha!"), mas com a dor de quem o faz por impulso, por um incontrolável impulso, dirigido pelo Fatum.
É um livrinho curto e rápido, cheio do cabisbaixo humor de quem sabe que, raios!, isto é só a vida: we will get over it.
May 11, 2013
The main character is a character!
April 8, 2023
"in highly structured situations traits like prudence and discretion are required, I always lose control and I am, as Arabs say, A hostage to my tongue"
April 7, 2026
Dear MISS ROSE: I almost began "My Dear Child," because in a sense what I did to you thirty-five years ago makes us the children of each other.
You say, smiling at me, "Oh, Dr. Shawmut, in that cap you look like an archaeologist." Before I can stop myself, I answer, "And you look like something I just dug up."
To Ginsberg's sexual Fourth of July fire-works I say, Tee-hee.
As a boy, Philip was very fat. We had to sleep together when we were children and it was like sharing the bed with a dugong.
I must have been afraid, because nothing satirical or caustic came to mind.
It wounds me desperately not to be fed.
Recreations of a crumbling mind
The world's grandeur is fading. And this is our human setting, devoid of God, she says with great earnestness. But in this deserted beauty man himself still lives as a God-pervaded being. It will be up to him—to us—to bring back the light that has gone from these molded likenesses, if we are not prevented by the forces of darkness.
I listen to this and have no mischievous impulses. I shall miss the old girl. After much monkey business, dear Miss Rose, I am ready to listen to words of ultimate seriousness.
You say, smiling at me, "Oh, Dr. Shawmut, in that cap you look like an archaeologist." Before I can stop myself, I answer, "And you look like something I just dug up."
To Ginsberg's sexual Fourth of July fire-works I say, Tee-hee.
As a boy, Philip was very fat. We had to sleep together when we were children and it was like sharing the bed with a dugong.
I must have been afraid, because nothing satirical or caustic came to mind.
It wounds me desperately not to be fed.
Recreations of a crumbling mind
The world's grandeur is fading. And this is our human setting, devoid of God, she says with great earnestness. But in this deserted beauty man himself still lives as a God-pervaded being. It will be up to him—to us—to bring back the light that has gone from these molded likenesses, if we are not prevented by the forces of darkness.
I listen to this and have no mischievous impulses. I shall miss the old girl. After much monkey business, dear Miss Rose, I am ready to listen to words of ultimate seriousness.
June 24, 2015
Old age (and I mean about-to-meet-your-maker-old here) is probably that stage in life where we return to how we first came into this world: stripped of pride, delusions, pretence, with the freedom to do anything your limited bodily functions would allow without harsh judgement from the world.
If you're lucky, you retain your memories and the ability to express yourself beyond mere gestures and baby cries. This was where the titular character, Professor Shawmut, stood; except that his candor had to first be triggered by a meticulously-timed (so he said) vindictive diatribe of steel-sharp criticisms from a jealous ex-colleague and friend.
Spurred by the attack on his character from said ex-friend, Shawmut proceeded to draft out a letter of apology to the one person he felt guilty of hurting by way of his knack of giving people a kick in the butt with his words. Guilty because in this case there was no provocation from the victim to warrant the wisecrack he'd usually dish out to people who he thought deserved to get their butts kicked.
So, this letter ended up becoming a passive-aggressive weapon of justification for Shawmut being Shawmut. Whereas in the past, social decorum and/or his wife had prevented him from launching a full counterattack against the injustices done to him, here Shawmut candidly shared his experiences of 'offending' people throughout his life, and at the same time exposing said people's jackassery, all the time with a jovial relish as would befit a plucky grandpa.
He came across as the same Shawmut from his younger days, the one without brakes such as hypocrisy or vanity holding him back from saying what he simply thought were due the people he said the words to (except Miss Rose, the letter's intended recipient), something which earned him the title of this story. This 'letter' is his grand finale of kicks for those people with other things coming out of their mouths: pride, delusions, pretence, the works; everything that made them label people like Shawmut as 'him with his foot in his mouth*', when all he did was point out the true form of the emperor's new clothes.
*Disclaimer: Note that this foot-in-mouth is not the same as the real foot-in-mouth situations often committed by our politicians, leaders, etc.
If you're lucky, you retain your memories and the ability to express yourself beyond mere gestures and baby cries. This was where the titular character, Professor Shawmut, stood; except that his candor had to first be triggered by a meticulously-timed (so he said) vindictive diatribe of steel-sharp criticisms from a jealous ex-colleague and friend.
Spurred by the attack on his character from said ex-friend, Shawmut proceeded to draft out a letter of apology to the one person he felt guilty of hurting by way of his knack of giving people a kick in the butt with his words. Guilty because in this case there was no provocation from the victim to warrant the wisecrack he'd usually dish out to people who he thought deserved to get their butts kicked.
So, this letter ended up becoming a passive-aggressive weapon of justification for Shawmut being Shawmut. Whereas in the past, social decorum and/or his wife had prevented him from launching a full counterattack against the injustices done to him, here Shawmut candidly shared his experiences of 'offending' people throughout his life, and at the same time exposing said people's jackassery, all the time with a jovial relish as would befit a plucky grandpa.
He came across as the same Shawmut from his younger days, the one without brakes such as hypocrisy or vanity holding him back from saying what he simply thought were due the people he said the words to (except Miss Rose, the letter's intended recipient), something which earned him the title of this story. This 'letter' is his grand finale of kicks for those people with other things coming out of their mouths: pride, delusions, pretence, the works; everything that made them label people like Shawmut as 'him with his foot in his mouth*', when all he did was point out the true form of the emperor's new clothes.
*Disclaimer: Note that this foot-in-mouth is not the same as the real foot-in-mouth situations often committed by our politicians, leaders, etc.
May 31, 2015
Memorable Quotes
“...in the life to come we will feel the pains that we inflicted on others. We will suffer all that we made them suffer, for after death all experience is reversed.”
“If I am to believe Walish, you have trembled from that day onward like a flame on a middle-class altar of undeserved humiliation. One of the insulted and injured.”
“Human beings can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.”
“Miss Rose never was pretty, not even what the French call une belle laide, or ugly beauty, a woman whose command of sexual forces makes ugliness itself contribute to her erotic power.”
“On a good day I can be acute for about half an hour, then I start to fade out and anybody can get the better of me.”
“Walish, however, assumes that every clever modern man is his own avant-garde invention. To be avant-garde means to tamper with yourself, to have a personal project requiring a histrionic routine – in short, to put on an act.”
“If people are offended, it’s by the ‘hostile intent’ they sense, not by the keenness of the words.”
“It’s a short step from lip service to ass kissing.”
“The body, she says, is subject to the forces of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.”
August 1, 2021
This novella was previously bundled with other short stories, but I read the edition that has the novella alone. It is my first Bellow, and I enjoyed it very much. Very witty, and a wonderful character study. My favourite bit was a comment he makes when talking about how much people love dogs.
Today's psychiatrists would not be shocked. Asked whom they love best, their patients reply in increasing numbers, 'My dog.' At this rate, a dog in the White House becomes a real possibility. Not a pit bulldog, certainly, but a nice golden retriever whose veterinarian would become Secretary of State."
This is a very long letter to write to someone as an apology over a minor rude remark made 35 years prior! And for an apology he does of course talk almost exclusively about his own life and troubles. It's some way in to the novel until he even speaks of what the cutting remark was. But it all adds to the character of course and teases out the neuroticism and curiosities of the character. It's very enjoyable.
Today's psychiatrists would not be shocked. Asked whom they love best, their patients reply in increasing numbers, 'My dog.' At this rate, a dog in the White House becomes a real possibility. Not a pit bulldog, certainly, but a nice golden retriever whose veterinarian would become Secretary of State."
This is a very long letter to write to someone as an apology over a minor rude remark made 35 years prior! And for an apology he does of course talk almost exclusively about his own life and troubles. It's some way in to the novel until he even speaks of what the cutting remark was. But it all adds to the character of course and teases out the neuroticism and curiosities of the character. It's very enjoyable.
June 21, 2023
There aren't any other stories in this edition, just "Him With His Foot In His Mouth", which I enjoyed but which doesn't amount to much. The narrator struck me as a blend of Humbert Humbert (smart, self-indulgent) and Charles Kimbote (pompous, narcissistic, unreliable) and I wondered what Bellow thought of Nabokov. (Nabokov considered Bellow "a miserable mediocrity" and his work "a puff of smoke".)
Anyway, it's a divertissement which I enjoyed for the narrator's put-downs and the occasional bits of Jewish (or Eastern European?) humour, such as:
A traveller sees a man beating his horse, which has balked at pulling a cart up a hill. "Be reasonable," he says. "The horse is old, the load is heavy, the hill is steep. Why beat him so cruelly?"
The man looks at him. "Being a horse was his idea."
Anyway, it's a divertissement which I enjoyed for the narrator's put-downs and the occasional bits of Jewish (or Eastern European?) humour, such as:
A traveller sees a man beating his horse, which has balked at pulling a cart up a hill. "Be reasonable," he says. "The horse is old, the load is heavy, the hill is steep. Why beat him so cruelly?"
The man looks at him. "Being a horse was his idea."
Read
November 29, 2015I acquired this as part of the Penguin Mini Modern Classics 50-volume box set. Sadly as I write this I can see that this out of print box set is only now available via Amazon at a huge prize so don’t bother looking for it, but do watch out for future similar efforts by Penguin.
It is a great way of pushing you to read outside one’s comfort zone as you feel obliged to read them all as you have bought them and their small size means they take hardly any time to read. This is the first Saul Bellow text I have ever read and I am very glad I did. When I get time and space I will have to read more of his work. But my wife shouldn't worry as it won't be for sometime yet- so much else to read yet!
It is a great way of pushing you to read outside one’s comfort zone as you feel obliged to read them all as you have bought them and their small size means they take hardly any time to read. This is the first Saul Bellow text I have ever read and I am very glad I did. When I get time and space I will have to read more of his work. But my wife shouldn't worry as it won't be for sometime yet- so much else to read yet!
July 19, 2016
this was bumped from three stars to four by the last page - overall I was not taken in immensely by the title character, but he reports a really beautiful bit of theological insight at the very end which I found justified the whole novella. I definitely liked the writing enough to want to read more by Saul Bellow.
August 22, 2024
The most incisive portrayal or neurotic regret one could encounter.
Witty, erudite, cloying and impossibly claustrophobic. Would you like to spend an evening Herschel Shawmut? That’s another question entirely.
Witty, erudite, cloying and impossibly claustrophobic. Would you like to spend an evening Herschel Shawmut? That’s another question entirely.
August 8, 2014
Not very impressed, wouldn't read again or recommend. The writing style is just bland and the characters were all completely unlikeable.
September 29, 2013
It's been almost a year since I read this thing, and I can't remember anything from it. I was either not ready for the book, or it was an absolute waste of time.
January 13, 2013
I enjoyed it. The device of the letter of apology to tell his story of failure and misery was interesting. Didn't realise it was so short though.
August 3, 2014
unique voice and interesting, but not for me. I think I expected too much from this, since its a penguin classic
July 21, 2018
“The Philistine idiosyncrasy of the rich American brute. But you can no longer be a philistine without high sophistication, matching the sophistication of what you hate.”
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews