Herzog

by Saul Bellow, Philip Roth (Introduction)

This is the story of Moses Herzog, a great sufferer, joker, mourner, and charmer. Although his life steadily disintegrates around him - he has failed as a writer and teacher, as a father, and has lost the affection of his wife to his best friend - Herzog sees himself as a survivor, both of his private disasters and those of the age. He writes unsent letters to friends and enemies, colleagues and famous people, revealing his wry perception of the world around him, and the innermost secrets of his heart.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Novels, American, Nobel Prize, 20th Century

371 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

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

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the book that started me reading everything this Nobel Prize-winning American had written till then...

It was one gorgeous summer in the sixties, in the back yard, sprawled lazily in the bright blue and red plastic hammock, oblivious to work, mosquitoes and rain clouds!

I remember reading Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night not long afterward. Yes - it was THAT summer - 1968.

George McGovern was the Dark Horse Democratic nominee in the Presidential election. The opposing Republican candidate? Richard Nixon. ‘Nuff said...

So it was another Long Hot Summer of riots, tear gas and anger. Herzog was my only escape.

And I was riveted to the story - as it should be.

Don’t know Bellow?

Sure you do!

He’s your uncle Sid, who grabs you by the lapel and snickers, ‘Listen up, kid! This is a real doozy. Have I got a story to tell YOU, son!’

And holds you breathless till he’s reached his riotous punch line.

Except there’s no punch line in Herzog - or rather, the punch line dawns on you only after you’ve been reading it a while.

Like being taken on that awful first trip down the garden path, only to come to the first sudden ‘UH-oh’....

It’s masterfully woven into Moses Herzog’s obsession with writing letters - endlessly.

Again, enough said.

But this book took America by storm back in the Kennedy era, and I was now hearkening back to that time of hope, and catching up.

Like Uncle Sid, it grabbed the literate nation by the lapels and said, ‘Look, Son - this ain’t a book - it’s LIFE itself, endlessly unrolling in new and unpredictable ways before your very eyes! Just keep your eyes on the bouncing ball - this could be you...’

How true are these words!

For if you follow Uncle Sid’s argument to the end, you’ll fall as into a Vortex. And from that vortex there’s no escape.

It’s like the characters in Patrick White’s Eye of the Storm.

As they say in the ancient myth, once you see the full face of a Gorgon you die.

And, as you probably remember, each character in White’s wonderful novel is slowly putting that complete Face together in their frantic minds...

Once Herzog sees that Gorgon, he too dies, figuratively.

But you know WHAT else?

Unless a seed DIES it cannot be reborn.

So each of us, like a seed, must die AGAIN AND AGAIN to this crazy world.

Without hope and trust, though - you won’t die, but burn. With hope and trust, you will regain the COURAGE to Live.

Again and again.

Until all the living’s done and all that’s left is LOVE.

Yes, this is a book of Life. And freedom.

And the NECESSARY risks of living in freedom - WITHOUT brutal coercion.

AND... this is a book with HEART.

A Heart that reveals the Eternal Sacrifice that Love entails.

[Dave Russell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dear Saul,
I'm afraid it's over. I can no longer have you on my favorite authors list. (No, no let go of F. Scott's sleeve. You're only making this harder than it needs to be.) I want to tell you how much I loved Henderson the Rain King. One of my favorites. It was so full of wit and energy. Then I had to go and read this piece of crap, Herzog. Whereas Henderson was an adventure, this was just a big long bitch session. (Hey, give Borges back his cane.) Yes, fine maybe it's me. In fact I'm sure it is. Just like songs with melodies I can easily whistle, I need books with plots where things happen. I'm just not smart enough to be satisfied with the philosophy laden interior monologues that comprise most of this book (416 pages, for chrissakes!) I mean I can't make heads or tails of this passage:

Whereas a man like me has shown the arbitrary withdrawal of proud subjectivity from the collective and historical progress of mankind. And that is true of lower-class boys and girls who adopt the aesthetic mode, the mode of rich sensibility. Seeking to sustain their own version of existen...

And it just goes on like that. Sorry I couldn't bring myself to type the rest of that paragraph. So it's me. I'm obviously not wise enough for this book. But still you gotta go. (And don't steal Nabokov's pen on the way out. Could someone send Dostoyevsky in here, please?)

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

An authentic intellectual thinker is always an outsider or even an outcast...
Is solitude a cause of eccentricity? Is solitude an effect of eccentricity?

He didn’t feel that Poggioli had done full justice to certain important figures – Rozanov, for instance. Though Rozanov was cracked on certain questions, like the Jewish ritual bath, still he was a great figure, and his erotic mysticism was highly original – highly. Leave it to those Russians. What hadn’t they done for Western Civilization, all the while repudiating the West and ridiculing it!

Like a hermit crab one should find a shell and hiding in it live in estrangement and alienation – an ultimate thinker.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Herzog is one of Bellow's most enduring characters and this is one of his best books. When not screwing up his life, his letters to people real, dead and imaginary kept me laughing the entire time. I loved how despite everything, there is a feeling of exuberance about life in this book and it made me want to go back and read it again in a year. Highly entertaining, there is never a dull moment and lots and lots of humor. I would say for those that have not read Bellow that this is an excellent jumping off point before, say, Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Sammler's Planet...a must read! Having now read almost all of Bellow's novels, Herzog still stands out as one of my favorites.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

During the time I was reading "Herzog," NPR coincidentally ran one of its "You Must Read This" pieces, this one by Jeffrey Eugenides and touting Saul Bellow's novel. In the piece, Eugenides says:

There's a little thing I do when I can't write: When I'm feeling sleepy, when my head is in a fog, I reach across my desk, digging under the piles of unanswered mail, to unearth my copy of "Herzog" by Saul Bellow. And then I open the book — anywhere — and read a paragraph.

It always works. Right away I'm restored to full alertness and clarity. Style, in literature, has gone out of style. People think it's just ornament. But it's not: The work that goes into a writer's style, the choices that are taken, the cliches that are chucked, represent a refining of thought and feeling into their purest, most intelligent, most moral form.

The danger with great stylists such as Bellow, Eugenides says, is that the style can overshadow the substance. Bellow, he argues, successfully avoids this potential pitfall. "His sentences pack maximum sensual, emotional and intellectual information into minimum space — all the while generating an involving, deeply moving story." Eugenides goes on to say:

The impulse here is to quote. Every single page of "Herzog" teems with jokes, apercus, deep-thinker riffs — little genius moves every other sentence. The impulse is to read the entire book out loud.

I quote Eugenides at length here because I think he hits the nail right on the head. While "Herzog" is the only Bellow book I've read so far (Eugenides, in the New York Times, called it "the best of Bellow’s great novels") I feel I can already say that he's one of the great ones — one of the great 20th century prose stylists, along with such writers as Nabokov. (I single out Nabokov mostly because I just read "Pnin" for the first time a few weeks back, and find him to be another novelist, like Bellow, who truly loves and makes the most of the English language.) Just as I plan to read more Nabokov almost solely for his prose style, I'll be reading more Bellow as well.

So why four stars rather than five for "Herzog?" While Bellow's prose style is wonderful, and serves the story well and the character of Moses Herzog perfectly, the story itself felt a bit thin at times. That caused the novel, even at just 350 pages, to be a bit of a slog to get through at some points. (And I say this even though I was reading the almost 1,500-page "Count of Monte Cristo" at the same time. It'd be an overstatement to say that book seemed shorter than "Herzog," but they perhaps felt close to the same length.)

"Herzog" is nevertheless worth reading by anyone who enjoys great prose stylists — writers who know how to match their style to their story, while avoiding the use of verbal gymnastics simply to show off. Such writers are a rare find.

[Guille · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Me elevé desde unos orígenes humildes hasta el… completo desastre”

Vargas Llosa lo ha vuelto a clavar en su prólogo, tanto es así que siento la fuerte tentación de transcribirlo por completo, pero me conformaré con traer aquí algunos de sus clavos principales: “vestir con las alegres prendas de la comedia, una historia que es, de un lado, trágica y del otro, un severo cuestionamiento de la cultura intelectual como instrumento para enfrentar la vida corriente…”; “Herzog, antes que cornudo o masoquista, incluso antes que judío, es un intelectual… Es un hombre hecho de ideas, como otros lo son de instintos o convenciones… el fracaso de Herzog… es su impericia para funcionar normalmente en el mundo, su ineptitud para adaptarse a la vida tal como es”; “buena parte de sus problemas se los ha buscado él mismo; e, incluso, es probable que no pueda vivir sin ellos. Porque a Herzog le gusta sufrir casi tanto como plañir, qué duda cabe”.

Me imagino que les suena todo esto. No me extraña que Saul Bellow sea considerado el maestro de Philip Roth o que relacionen a Herzog con los personajes de Woody Allen.

Moses Herzog es alguien que intenta ser buena persona, mantenerse fiel a unos principios, un moralista de juicio duro y riguroso al que le dan por todo lados, empezando por su mujer que le abandona por su mejor amigo (me encanta la forma en la que su mujer ve la situación: “… comprenderás la humillación que es para mí reconocer mi derrota en nuestro matrimonio”). “

La caridad siempre será sospechosa de morbidez: sadomasoquismo, una especie de perversión... Todas las tendencias más elevadas o morales, se hallan bajo la sospecha de que quienes las tienen son unos sinvergüenzas.”

Tampoco es que él sea un dechado de virtudes, él mismo se considera un mal esposo, mal padre y mal hijo, es política y socialmente indiferente, misántropo y misógino (“coquetear y romper corazones son actividades femeninas. La ocupación seria de un hombre no es ésa, sino el deber, la vida viril, la política en el sentido aristotélico”) y ahora también un fracaso como intelectual que tiene que ver como sus ideas, que iban a cambiar la historia e influir en el desarrollo de la civilización, han sido desarrolladas, pobremente, en un libro escrito por otro.

“Moses quería hacer lo que pudiera para mejorar la condición humana y acababa tomando una píldora para dormir porque así, por lo menos, se conservaba él.”

Se pasa el tiempo pensando o escribiendo cartas que nunca envía, siendo sus destinatarios la gente más dispar, políticos y familiares, enemigos y amigos, vivos y muertos, intelectuales y famosos de distinta especie. Esa es su forma de hacer frente a la penosa situación en la que se encuentra, como bien le hubiera aconsejado Pessoa que decía aquello de que "La literatura es la manera más agradable de ignorar la vida", o porque pensaba igual que Javier Marías: "Quizás escribo porque escribir es una forma de pensar que no tiene rival”.

Tanta lucubración, tanto “transformar sus penas en altas categorías intelectuales”, tanta lamentación acerca de cómo es o como debería ser acaba cuando asume lo que ya sabía de antemano, que el único responsable de su situación es él mismo y que además nunca cambiaría y que, por tanto, solo le queda asumirlo.

“Por qué ser un tipo tan emotivo... Pero lo soy. Sí, lo soy y a los perros viejos no se les puede enseñar. Yo soy así, y así continuaré siendo. ¿Para qué luchar contra ello, si soy así irremediablemente? Es mi inestabilidad la que me sirve de estabilizadora. No la organización, ni el valor, como les pasa a los demás. Comprendo que es penoso ser así, pero así soy y no tiene remedio.”

Una novela que va de más a menos, el último tercio se me hizo un poco cuesta arriba, pero que me hizo pensar y pasar momentos deliciosos y divertidos.


P.S. Desde aquí hago un llamamiento a algún/una valiente que se atreva a plasmar en un cuento la feliz idea que deja esbozada Bellow en su novela, un cuento de Herzog para su hija: el club de los más-más, aquellos que son “lo más, lo mejor, en cada actividad o de cada tipo físico”. Por ejemplo, el calvo de más pelo y el peludo más calvo, la más gorda de las mujeres delgadas y la más delgada de las gordas, el enano más alto y el gigante más bajo, el más estúpido de los sabios y el más sabio de los ignorantes, acróbatas lisiados, bellezas feas... Los sábados por la noche dan unas cenas con baile y celebran un concurso: si eres capaz de distinguir al más peludo de los calvos del más calvo de los peludos, ganas un premio.

[Tim Null · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Saul Bellow's Herzog novel in June 1966, and my recollection is that I enjoyed it. On the 25th of June, I decided to reread it, and I had such a pleasant experience on pages two and three that after reading about 10 pages, I posted on Goodreads that I was rereading Herzog.

As I've explained elsewhere, I've been pretty busy of late, so it always took me a week or so to get back to Herzog. When I did, I never could recollect what I had already read, so I always just restarted from page 1 each time. Also, I always had a great time on pages two and three, then quit around page 10.

Today, I  have decided to call it quits, but I'm not going to DNF Herzog because I did read it in June of 1966, and my recollection is that I enjoyed it.

I should note that the narration uses stream of consciousness and takes a first-person point of view. That's something I would have enjoyed in 1966, but which I rarely enjoy today.

Even though I very much enjoyed pages two and three, because they remind me of fun stuff, I can't wholeheartedly recommend those two pages to you. They probably won't remind you of the same stuff. Plus, they probably won't even remind you of stuff. Even if they do, they may remind you of unpleasant stuff, and no one needs to be reminded of the unpleasant stuff we're all trying to forget.

[Kemper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of us have one big advantage over rich people and fictional characters when it comes to dealing with our personal issues. For example, look at Moses Herzog in this book. Herzog goes through an ugly divorce, and his circumstances allow him to wallow in his misery and behave erratically for months. I’m sure any of us in similar circumstances would like to put our lives on hold as we picked at our emotional scabs while ignoring our jobs and taking trips across Europe.

However, most of us don’t get that luxury. Those are usually the times when we can least afford to screw up so even though all you really want to do is hide under the covers or drink heavily or eat ice cream or drink heavily while eating ice cream under the covers, we gotta get up and go to work. And pay the bills. And do the laundry. And get the oil changed in the car.

And that’s to our advantage. Because getting over something like a divorce means moving on, even if you’re faking it half the time. Eventually, you’re not faking it anymore, you are actually living your life, and that’s how you finally recover.

Or you just completely lose your shit and end up getting stuck in endless loops inside your own head as you ping pong from one impulsive thought and whim to another until you’re completely unable to tell the good ideas from the bad. Like Moses Herzog. If he would have had to get off his ass and go back to work rather than mooching off his family then he might not have gone cuckoo for Coco-Puffs and come unglued while writing a series of bizarre letters to family, friends, celebrities and dead historical figures.

Yes, I know that Saul Bellow was using Herzog to make a statement about how a modern man viewed his life and society in the ‘60s, and the writing is as good as his reputation. But I just couldn’t get into it, mainly because I wanted someone to give Moses a brisk slap and tell him to grow up and get over himself. I didn’t dislike the character, I actually felt bad for him. That just made me wish even more that Herzog could start pulling his life back together instead of indulging in his self-involved musings.

[MihaElla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Moses Elkanah Herzog as main actor in ‘Herzog’ reminds me a great deal about another chief character, Ricardo Reis of Jose Saramago from ‘The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis’, both high-minded intellectuals, graduated and with an strong inclination towards philosophy, although it looks much more appropriate to M.E. Herzog than to Ricardo Reis who is a doctor by education and profession. Both of them enjoy rummaging, soberly deliberating within their own minds, losing themselves in writing, mostly mentally with Herzog and by written hand with Reis, lots of letters, poems, poetry, lines that sound very rich, apparently in substance, but not necessarily to lead to any practical meaning.
I found my first novel by Saul Bellow very savoury, mostly it made me laugh, although it’s not funny at all, as standing from an objective perspective it treats decently serious life situations.

≪ Well, there is a piece of famous advice, grand advice even if it is German, to forget what you can’t bear. The strong can forget, can shut out history. Very good! Even if it is self-flattery to speak of strength – these aesthetic philosophers, they take a posture, but power sweeps postures away. Still, it’s true you can’t go on transposing one nightmare into another, Nietzsche was certainly right about that. The tender-minded must harden themselves. Is this world nothing but a barren lump of coke? No, no, but what sometimes seems a system of prevention, a denial of what every human being knows.
I love my children, but I am the world to them, and bring them nightmares. I had this child by my enemy. And I love her. The sight of her, the odor of her hair, this minute, makes me tremble with love. Isn’t it mysterious how I love the child of my enemy? But a man doesn’t need happiness for himself. No, he can put up with any amount of torment – with recollections, with his own familiar evils, despair. And this is the unwritten history of man, his unseen, negative accomplishment, his power to do without gratification for himself provided there is something great, something into which his being, and all being, can go. He does not need meaning as long as such intensity has scope. Because then it is self-evident; it is meaning. ≫

≪ No, the good in his heart evidently didn’t count for much, for here, at the age of forty-seven, he was coming home after a night out with a lip made sore by biting and kissing, his problems as unsolved as ever, and what else did he have to show for himself at the bar of judgment? He had had two wives; there were two children; he had once been a scholar, and in the closet his old valise was swelled like a scaly crocodile with his uncompleted manuscript. Two years ago a Berkeley professor name Mermelstein had scooped him, confounding, overwhelming stunning everyone in the field, as Herzog had meant to do. Mermelstein was a clever man, and an excellent scholar. At least he must be free from personal drama and able to give the world an example of order, thus deserving a place in the human community. But he, Herzog, had committed a sin of some kind against his own heart, while in pursuit of a grand synthesis. What a catalogue of errors!! ≫

≪ He tried to make his lust comical, to show how absurd it all was, easily the most wretched form of human struggle, the very essence of slavery. ≫

≪ Evidently I continue to believe in God. Though never admitting it. But what else explains my conduct and my life? So I may as well acknowledge how things are, if only because otherwise I can’t even be described. My behavior implies that there is a barrier against which I have been pressing from the first, pressing all my life, with the conviction that it is necessary to press, and that something must come of it. Perhaps that I can eventually pass through. I must always have had such an idea. Is it faith? Or is it simply childishness, expecting to be loved for doing your bidden task? It is, if you’re looking for the psychological explanation, childish and classically depressive. But Herzog didn’t believe that the harshest or most niggardly explanation, following the law of parsimony, was necessarily the truest. Eager impulses, love, intensity, passionate dizziness that make a man sick. How long can I stand such inner beating? The front wall of this body will go down. My whole life beating against the boundaries, and the force of balked longings coming back as stinging poison. Evil, evil, evil…! Excited, characteristic, ecstatic love turning to evil.≫

≪ The dream of man’s heart, however much we may distrust and resent it, is that life may complete itself in significant pattern. Some incomprehensible way. Before death. Not irrationally but incomprehensibly fulfilled. You get one last chance to know justice. Truth! ≫

I am in absolute agreement with Mr Moses E Herzog; there is absolutely too much nonsense in the world. So, apparently the recipe for enjoying a great(er) freedom is to take life in a very simple, non-theological way. Then there are no surprises as there are no problems. Everything is/will be a mystery, but not a problem, as one will just live for the mystery, and not solving problems.
Herzog is doing a lot of “mental” exploration. He should better do meditation instead. That will take him towards an exploration of the mystery, and not searching to find solutions to whatever problems. But are there any problems? He would like to dissolve slowly, slowly. Where to? Anywhere, but not into nonsense, at least this is what he tells himself.
He is feeling too much and too strongly. He has lots of desires, thus he is always out of incompletion. He would like to feel (and think) as an emperor, but he practically feels like a beggar. That’s why all the agitation that leads him to a horror of living with some many dangerous results – a failure in his private life, not very successful in his public life, what else remains?
Herzog seems to represent through his philosophy the ancient idea of the man as serious, sad, miserable, suffering. This earth is seen as a punishment, he is imprisoned here – and how he can be joyous when life itself is condemned as punishment? Then the only way out of miseries is to get rid of life, and especially of that part of life that damage the mental or emotional side of being.
There is a whole rubbish of the past. His life is an indicative of that too. He has to fight life, to fight everything that makes life beautiful, joyous, everything that makes him desirous of life. He is a victim, just as everybody else in the world is a victim. On the one hand he was told to be anti-life, that being the ancient idea of renunciation, towards the world and its joys. But he cannot help it. On the other hand, he was told to sacrifice himself for others. To think of oneself, was condemned as selfish. He is claimed that he should think of others, to think of others’ well-being, of others’ freedom.
While reading the book, mostly at work (again, against all the company's rules, but fortunately there are some nice phone booths in the office which can allow full privacy, especially for reading), I started to gather some texts I liked but then I gave up, it is nonsense, I should quote almost whole book. Anyway, here is just a small sample.

Conclusion: I really like philosophers. But only while reading them or about them, otherwise there is a strong conflict. I seem to have been born a natural philosopher, too.

*Herzog himself had no small amount of charm. But his sexual powers had been damaged by Madeleine. And without the ability to attract women, how was he to recover? It was in this respect that he felt most like a convalescent. The paltriness of these sexual struggles.
*Unless you are utterly exploded, there is always something to be grateful for.
*His eccentricities had him in their power.
*Man’s life is not a business.
*Beauty is not a human invention.
*His achievements were not only scholarly but sexual. And were those achievements? It was his pride that must be satisfied. His flesh got what was left over.
*She was not young; probably in her thirties. (goodness, what a prejudice!)
*Instead of answering, he wrote mentally…
*Heartsore? Yes, he further wrote. But my vanity will no longer give me much mileage and to tell you the truth I’m not even greatly impressed with my own tortured heart. It begins to seem another waste of time.
*You have to fight for your life. That’s the chief condition on which you hold it. Then why be half-hearted?
*A sexual reflex that had nothing to do with age or subtlety, wisdom, experience, history, etc.. In sickness or health there came the old quack-quack at the fragrance of perfumed, feminine skin.
*For Christ’s sake, don’t cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don’t poison everything.
*It hardly does much good to have a complex mind without actually being a philosopher.

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Noble Lion

Moses Herzog is an academic, an individual who is used to seeing himself as a prince, a noble, a patrician, a patriarch. He's not a plebeian. He's not upwardly mobile. He believes he's already at the peak. He's somebody who stands out from the crowd. He has dignity.

He displays "the pride of the peacock, the lust of the goat, and the wrath of the lion." Of these three characteristics, the most significant is that he is leonine (the ultimate compliment Saul Bellow would ever pay anyone, as he did William Gaddis), a king of the jungle.

Herzog is ensconced in the world of culture, ideas, ideologies, philosophy and metaphysics. He has published a well-received monograph entitled "Romanticism and Christianity". However, his career seems to have stalled, at least partly as a result of tensions in his personal relationships:

"I am a specialist in spiritual self-awareness; or emotionalism; or ideas; or nonsense."

The Broken-Down Monarch

By the time we meet Herzog, he has been married twice (Daisy and Madeleine), divorced once and now separated a second time, as the result of his cuckolding by a former close friend, the poet and broadcaster, Valentine Gersbach. He has become a "broken-down monarch".

There's no reason to suspect that Herzog has been faithful during either marriage. It's unlikely that this lion would have been content with just one lioness. However, Herzog totally freaks out when he learns of Madeleine's infidelity.

Apparently, the affair had been going on for some time previously. What is most hurtful is that it seems that everybody knew about it but Herzog.

Herzog paints a flattering portrait of Madeleine:

"She is a beauty, and a very rare type, too, because she is so brilliant."

She has a Ph.D. in Russian religious history and has mothered Herzog's daughter. He really did love her passionately, at least in the beginning.

Listen to the Lioness

Over the course of the novel, we learn the very simple nature of Madeleine's dissatisfaction: Herzog just didn't listen to her enough. He wanted to be the star who shone brightest in every sky above their heads. She, understandably, wanted to shine as well.

Ultimately, for all the intellectualism and sexuality that they shared, their relationship was just too internally competitive to survive, at least on the rules that they set collectively or individually.

Madeleine ejects Herzog from the family home in Chicago, some time around October. Most of the action takes place the following May and June, around the time that the academic year has finished and Herzog is trying to deal with his estrangement, both emotionally and intellectually.

There is no prospect of Herzog returning to Madeleine, as there was that Odysseus would return to Helen or Leopold Bloom would return to Molly.

Herzog has been rejected, but at the same time set free.

Blows against the Empire

This is an enormous blow to Herzog's vanity. It unhinges him so much that Madeleine and Valentine spread rumours that he is insane or has at the very least had a nervous breakdown.

Herzog even entertains the thought himself. In one of the most famous first sentences, he says:

"If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me."

Thus, Bellow immediately puts us on notice that the sanity of his protagonist is an issue. (It's interesting that, at this point, the impact of his insanity on family and friends is of no apparent concern to him.)

Herzog visits the doctor who can find nothing wrong with him physically:

"The strength of Herzog's constitution worked obstinately against his hypochondria...He had been hoping for some definite sickness which would send him to a hospital for a while. He would not have to look after himself."

Herzog is just over-excited. He has disintegrated metaphysically. He needs a rest. A stay in hospital would mean that he could cease being responsible for himself. "His egotism [is] in abeyance, all converted into passivity."

Ridiculous Scribbling

Herzog spends much of the novel venting his spleen in the form of letters to all and sundry. He could almost have been the first blogger or troll.

Initially, these letters and the need to write them reflect the work of a madman. In retrospect, they are attempts to reconstruct his life and worldview. He has experienced a meltdown. Now he needs to reboot and reconfigure. He isn't mad, just egotistical and eccentric:

"He knew his scribbling, his letter-writing, was ridiculous. It was involuntary. His eccentricities had him in their power."

The novel is written primarily in the third person. This gives the reader the opportunity to see a perspective beyond that of Herzog. However, often the narrative dealing with Herzog's perspective slips into the first person. Bellow is always in control. However, he subsequently revealed that he wrote the novel in a white hot rage, after he experienced similar events in his own life. Herzog is not necessarily Bellow, but there is a lot of Bellow in him. For what little it's worth, even the vowels in their surnames are the same.

A Natural Masterpiece

What saves the novel from being a pure rant, is the introduction of Ramona. She is a business woman, as well as a mature aged student who has a degree in Art History from Columbia. She has also been a student in some of Herzog's classes.

It's inevitable that a relationship between the two will develop during the course of the novel. They seem to be made for each other. There's a sense in which Ramona is an intellectual equal. However, she is also portrayed, like Madeleine, as extremely sexually attractive. Sometimes you can be both:

"Ramona truly was a desirable wife. She was understanding. Educated. Well situated in New York. Money. And sexually, a natural masterpiece. What breasts!"

The interposition of this relationship into the narrative prevents it being too maudlin. However, to the extent that it reflects an actual relationship with a person who would become Bellow's third wife (even if the model is someone quite different altogether), it gives effect to an authorial desire for revenge on his second wife.

As attractively as he portrays Madeleine in many parts, Bellow uses the fictional romance with Ramona to get over her and start a new life of even greater personal compatibility and sexual pleasure.

There's an element of authorial immaturity in this entire construct. Any acquaintances of the Bellow family or circle of friends would have had no doubts about who and what was being portrayed in the novel.

Yet, despite this apparent desire for revenge, the novel is one of the great literary works of the twentieth century. It's definitely one of my top ten, if not top five.

Herzog Comes to Bury Caesar

While the breakdown of the relationship with Madeleine triggers the narrative, it is more inflamed by the dynamic of the relationship between Herzog and Ramona.

Of course, in the manner of two highly flirtatious people who know what they want, the relationship is consummated quite early in the peace. However, Herzog is not sure he is ready for Ramona yet. He has too much on his mind. First, it seems, he has to get these things off his mind, hence the letters.

Next, Herzog has to decide that this new relationship is what he really wants. Equally importantly, though, if the answer is yes, then, in the game of love, he has to play hard to get. For a little while, at least.

Herzog is used to strong, if not dominant, women. Before starting another relationship, he has to ready himself for the challenge. He needs some grooming before he is ready to become Ramona's groom.

As much as we know that Herzog could not possibly resist Ramona's sexual attraction, the process by which he gets to the liaison that will occur at the end of the novel is quite circuitous. Not to mention metaphysical.

Herzog's initial instinct is to retreat into himself after the separation from Madeleine. In the same manner, he feels the temptation to escape Ramona's lure by running away to the relative isolation of his rural home in Massachusetts, from where he writes most of his letters.

Of course, Herzog knows that he will eventually return to Ramona, as does she. The attraction is too great to turn his back on her permanently. He describes his temporary flight as like that of a runaway slave. He is still enslaved to the prospect of their love.

Turbulence of Spirit

The narrative is fragmented and non-chronological, so we know about Ramona from early on.

However, the structure of the narrative reflects the manner in which Herzog has been let loose on the world following his separation. If nothing else, he is suffering from "irregularity and turbulence of spirit".

The role of Herzog's letters is to come to grips with this turbulence. Ironically, for all the turmoil he finds himself in, "though he still behaved oddly, he felt confident, cheerful, clairvoyant, and strong. He had fallen under a spell." Despite his excess of nervous energy, "he looked weirdly tranquil."

Even though his letters focus on the past and his interior world, his attention has already moved to the future and his relationship with the external world.

My Story is History

It's this change of focus that constitutes what is truly great and transcendent about the novel.

Until now, the leonine version of Herzog has seen himself as part of the progress of History. He personalises all of the philosophy he has consumed and written about:

"One way or another the no doubt mad idea entered my mind that my own actions had historic importance, and this (fantasy?) made it appear that people who harmed me were interfering with an important experiment."

The Metaphysical Self

Herzog's marriage breakdown represents a crisis in the progress of not just Herzog himself, but History as well. He endeavours to address it with the only tools known to him, his metaphysics.

However, since the 18th century, metaphysics has become increasingly self-oriented, almost by definition.

Littered throughout the novel are words deriving from the roots "self" and "ego": self-consciousness, self-awareness, self-hatred, self-development, self-realisation, self-sufficiency, self-correction, self-obsession, egotism, ego-reinforcement.

Herzog's plight is symbolic of what has happened to humanity in the last two centuries.

He is "aging, vain, terribly narcissistic, suffering without proper dignity." He has lost his nobility. He has re-joined the plebeian. To use Heidegger's term, he has fallen into the Quotidian.

Let Me Look at You

Bellow is keenly observant in respect of the world around his protagonist. We know what the environment and people look like. Herzog is a keen gardener. Trees and birds are often described with pastoral delight: "All the while, one corner of his mind remained open to the external world." However, ultimately, Herzog realises that he has grown too far away from the external world.

It takes family and friends to tell him:

"Don't get highfalutin. I'm talking facts, not shit...Who told you you were such a prince? Dreamy boy...You're a highbrow and [you] married a highbrow broad. Somewhere in every intellectual is a dumb prick. You guys can't answer your own questions."

Herzog recalls his own father's attitude towards his arrogance and pretension:

"He could no longer bear the sight of me, that look of mine, the look of conceit or proud trouble. The elite look."

Not by Self Alone

Of course, the impetus for Herzog to sort himself out derives from his sexual appetite for Ramona. How can a man in his state be fit for a "mature, successful, laughing, sexual woman?"

For all his intellectual and academic seriousness, he is still at heart a human being with human needs:

"Herzog had committed a sin of some kind against his own heart, while in pursuit of a grand synthesis...I wasted myself in stupid schemes, liberating my spirit."

He realises that he could have become conscious of this truth a lot earlier, if he had just paid more attention to those around him. If we could only bother to look into the eyes of others, we would see how we look to them:

"Man liveth not by Self alone, but in his brother's face."

Herzog realises for the first time that life is not just about the individual, the self, in isolation from others and the external world:

"I really believe that brotherhood is what makes a man human."

His new version of humanism is founded on some kind of fraternity. A relationship with the other. A relationship with others.

Combatting the Void

Characteristically, it's not enough that this analysis be restricted to Herzog alone. Herzog, if not Bellow as well, diagnoses the problem as one shared by the whole of Western Civilisation. Thus, Herzog's solution to his metaphysical problem ends up being equally metaphysical and equally applicable to others.

Herzog rails against various nihilist philosophies of disintegration and annihilation that he describes as "the mire of post-Renaissance, post-humanistic, post-Cartesian dissolution, next door to the Void" (we might recognise the cultural manifestation as Post-Modernism):

"What is the philosophy of this generation? Not God is dead, that point was passed long ago. Perhaps it should be stated Death is God. This generation thinks - and this is its thought of thoughts - that nothing faithful, vulnerable, fragile can be durable or have any true power. Death waits for these things as a cement floor waits for a dropping light bulb...History is the history of cruelty, not love, as soft men think. We have experimented with every human capacity to see which is strong and admirable and have shown that none is. There is only impracticality. [This is] the victory of death, not of rationality, not of rational faith...

"The question of death offers us the interesting alternatives of disintegrating ourselves by our own wills in proof of our 'freedom', or the acknowledging that we owe a human life to this waking spell of existence, regardless of the void. (After all, we have no positive knowledge of that void.)"

Herzog believes that life is too important to be abandoned to nihilism:

"We mustn't forget how quickly the visions of genius become the canned goods of the intellectual. The canned sauerkraut of Spengler's 'Prussian Socialism', the commonplace of the Wasteland outlook, the cheap mental stimulants of Alienation, the cant and rant of pipsqueaks about Inauthenticity and Forlornness. I can't accept this foolish dreariness. We are talking about the whole life of mankind. The subject is too great, too deep for such weakness, cowardice...a merely aesthetic critique of modern history! After the wars and mass killings!"

"...Nietzsche: you speak of the power of the Dionysian spirit to endure the sight of the Terrible, the Questionable, to allow itself the luxury of Destruction, to witness Decomposition, Hideousness, Evil...You want to make us able to live with the void."

Ultimately, Herzog argues that only humanism can combat the void, if there is such a thing. Man's backbone must hold us above and beyond entropy, at least temporarily. Whatever the concerns about rationality, technology, evil, abuse of power, they can only be addressed at an individual or collective level. There is no point in surrendering to the void.

Metaphysical Pleasure

These metaphysical conclusions have cleaned Herzog's slate, and left him ready for Ramona. What awaits him is:

"not simple pleasure but metaphysical, transcendent pleasure - pleasure which answered the riddle of human existence. That was Ramona - no mere sensualist, but a theoretician, almost a priestess...

"Ramona had passed through the hell of profligacy and attained the seriousness of pleasure. For when will we civilised beings become really serious? Said Kierkegaard. Only when we have known hell through and through. Without this, hedonism and frivolity will diffuse hell through all our days. Ramona, however, does not believe in any sin but the sin against the body, for her the true and only temple of the spirit."

Now that Herzog, too, has been to hell and back, it's time that the two Orphic travellers met up again.

Kiss Me Again

All his life, Herzog has been dogged by words:

"What can thoughtful people and humanists do but struggle towards suitable words?...I've been writing letters helter-skelter in all directions. More words. I go after reality with language. Perhaps I'd like to change it all into language..."

By the end of the novel, Herzog has run out of words:

"At this time he had no messages for anyone. Nothing. Not a single word."

No words are necessary, because he has discovered reality, and reality is enough. He is about to reunite with Ramona in his home in the Berkshires. A nice meal is in the oven. He has chilled a few bottles of white wine in the mountain spring. He looks at his watch. She will be coming soon. So, too, will he.


SOUNDTRACK:

Bettie Serveert - "Roadmovies"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ7xeC...

Bettie Serveert - "Certainlie"

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hDDHJugkG1U

Bettie Serveert - "I'll Keep It With Mine"

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u83Qy1FBahI



In Her Brother's Face (A Bright New Star Called Emmanuelle)
[For Rupert's Little Sister]
[After a Story by Saul Bellow/Moses Herzog]

All over Rupert's freckled face,
Nature traced out constellations,
With every star in its place,
Except for one that occupied
What was, 'til now, an empty space.

Nobody knew what it was called,
Not even the astronomers.
The man they asked was very bald.
His name was Hiram Shpitalnik
And by this star he was enthralled.

Though his beard reached to his feet
And he lived inside a hat box,
Hiram had to accept defeat.
Only his grandfather would know.
His wisdom was much more complete.

He lived inside a walnut shell
And all his friends were bumble bees,
But just by looking, he could tell.
It was a new discovery
That Rupert named Emmanuelle.

[Annetius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο Μπέλοου μάς οδηγεί σε ένα ταξίδι όχι συνηθισμένο, ένα ταξίδι ζόρικο, δύστροπο και βραδυφλεγές που απαιτεί την υπομονή μας, κάθε απόθεμα νοητικής εγρήγορσης ώστε να το παρακολουθήσουμε επιτυχώς, με τις λιγότερες δυνατές απώλειες νοημάτων. Δύσκολο εγχείρημα για έναν μέσο νου, αν λάβουμε υπόψη ότι σε όλο το έργο ξετυλίγεται ατάκτως ένα εκρηκτικό φιλοσοφικό νήμα -σκέτη, καθαρή, θρασεία τρικλοποδιά- μέσα από επιστολές που συντάσσει ο Μόουζες Χέρτσογκ προς ζωντανούς και νεκρούς και που δε θα σταλούν ποτέ στους τελικούς παραλήπτες τους. Μένει, λοιπόν, στον αναγνώστη η μεγάλη πρόκληση της κατά το κατά δύναμιν αποκωδικοποίησης –ή και όχι. Αρκούντως γοητευτικό για όποιον έλκεται από καταραμένα μυαλά που αντλούν τις αλήθειες τους από το εσωτερικό τους σκότος, από φαινομενικούς weirdos που διατηρούν μια παιδική καρδιά στο γερασμένο τους σώμα, από αποστεγνωμένους και αγκυλωμένους συναισθηματικά ανθρώπους που δίνουν επίπονο αγώνα να αποτινάξουν από πάνω τους το βάρος των νεκρών κυττάρων μιας τραυματικής σχέσης που τους κρατάει πίσω.

Δεν είναι πάντα εύκολο∙ παρακολουθούμε το μυαλό του Μόουζες Ελκανά Χέρτσογκ να διαστέλλεται με έναν τρελό ρυθμό σαν μια διελκυστίνδα που έλκεται από κάθε σημείο του ορίζοντα. Είμαστε μέρος της δυναμικής ισορροπίας που τείνει να καταλήξει σε έκρηξη, είμαστε βέβαιοι για αυτό, το περιμένουμε. Πανταχού παρόν το αίσθημα της δυσκολίας του για οποιαδήποτε δέσμευση, ασφυκτιούμε μαζί του, θέλουμε να του δώσουμε μια σφαλιάρα να συνέλθει επιτέλους, αλλά την ίδια στιγμή μακάρι και να τον είχαμε πάρει στην αγκαλιά μας να τον παρηγορήσουμε όπως θα κάναμε με ένα απροστάτευτο, αβοήθητο παιδί. Φλερτάρει στενά με την τρέλα την ίδια στιγμή που σφίγγει τα δόντια να μην περνιέται για τρελός. Αδυνατεί να ψαλιδίσει, να καμουφλάρει την αυτοφυή εκκεντρικότητα του χαρακτήρα του.

Ο Μόουζες είναι καθηγητής πανεπιστημίου, έρμαιο της εσωτερικής του διανοητικής πάλης, πιασμένος στα δίχτυα της ιδιορρυθμίας του, της ιδιοτροπίας και της υπερευαισθησίας του. Τα φαινόμενα συνήθως απατούν, ωστόσο δεν είναι το πιο λογικό που μπορεί να μας συμβεί να ταυτιστούμε μαζί του ή να τον συμπαθήσουμε έτσι αυθόρμητα, έτσι με τη μία. Ο τρόπος που επιλέγει ο Μπέλοου να απλώσει την προσωπικότητα αυτή είναι εξαιρετικός. Και είναι τέτοιος γιατί δεν είναι τίποτα δεδομένο για τον αναγνώστη, τίποτα επεξεργασμένο, έτοιμο προς κατανάλωση παρά όλα τα στοιχεία και οι πληροφορίες υφέρπουν κάτω από το χαλί της αφηγηματικής του τέχνης και χορηγούνται σε δόσεις κατά την πεισματική βούληση του συγγραφέα. Υπάρχουν συνεχώς μεταβλητές, όλα είναι σε συνάρτηση και απαιτείται προσήλωση και εμπιστοσύνη από τον αναγνώστη για να παρακολουθήσει και τελικά να κατανοήσει την αλλαγή, το κλικ, τη στιγμή που όλα μπαίνουν σε μια νέα βάση, τη στιγμή που η δυνατότητα μιας κάποιας προοπτικής αρχίζει να αχνοφαίνεται στον ορίζοντα.

«Μόλις που αρχίζει να προσεγγίζει την αφετηρία της αληθινής συνείδησης. Η απαραίτητη λογική βάση είναι ότι ο άνθρωπος είναι κατά κάποιο τρόπο κάτι περισσότερο από τα "χαρακτηριστικά του", από όλα τα συναισθήματά του, τους αγώνες του, τα γούστα του, και τις κατασκευές που αρέσκεται να αποκαλεί "η Ζωή μου". Έχουμε λόγους να πιστεύουμε πως η ζωή είναι κάτι περισσότερο από ένα σύννεφο μορίων, μια απλή πραγματικότητα. Προσπέρασε το κατανοητό και θα διαπιστώσεις πως μόνο το ακατανόητο δίνει κάποιο φως.»

Κάτι πάντα κακοφορμίζει μέσα μας, υπάρχει σε όλους –χωρίς αμφιβολία– μια μαύρη τρύπα που απορροφά τη ζωή μας και δε μας επιτρέπει να ζούμε, τελικά.

Υπάρχει πολλή φιλοσοφία στο κείμενο του Μπέλοου, καθώς και μεγάλη δόση ειρωνείας, χιούμορ του είδους που με κάνει και μόνη μου να γελάω, και αποκαθήλωσης του εαυτού με τρόπο έξυπνο, ευφυή, ελκυστικό. Ένα πολύ ανθρώπινο φιλοσοφικό/λογοτεχνικό έργο που αντλεί τη δύναμή του από τις πανανθρώπινες αδυναμίες, τον φόβο του θανάτου, την προσωπική παράνοια που κουβαλάει ο καθένας, τη δυσκολία του να σχετίζεσαι ουσιαστικά με κάποιον αφαιρώντας τις κακοήθεις ελιές του ανταγωνισμού, της υπεροχής σου, την ιστορία και το παρελθόν του γένους σου και τόσα άλλα. Υπάρχουν στιγμές συναισθηματικής έντασης όπου λιώνει ο πάγος του χαρακτήρα (ανασκόπηση της εβραϊκής οικογενειακής ιστορίας) και άλλες όπου υγροποιείται, μαλακώνει η στερεά, σκληρή, αγκυλωμένη κατάσταση (ερωτότροπες στιγμές με τη Ραμόνα, αισθησιασμός, τρυφερότητα, ερωτισμός φουλ!).

Είναι επίσης μια θεώρηση της διαφορετικότητάς μας και του βαθμού ανοχής μας απέναντι σε αυτήν, είναι και μια απλούστευση και μια στροφή της τελευταίας στιγμής προς την απλή ομορφιά της ζωής, ξεβοτανίζοντας τον κήπο μας από τα όποια ζιζάνια –συνήθως στο μυαλό φυτρώνουν τα πιο επικίνδυνα– που μας κάνουν τη ζωή μαρτύριο, πολλές φορές αναίτια.

Είναι ίσως τελικά κι ένα όλο νόημα κλείσιμο του ματιού στη συμφιλίωση με τον δαίμονα εαυτού.

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has warts – oh, does it have warts…! Like Moses Herzog himself, this book is marred and marked with warts…. But it is a book of genius nonetheless – and not just in parts, but in whole – in scope and in depth….

I rarely write reviews about fiction – I’m not a literary type. One of the very few I’ve written worth reading is that of The Sun Also Rises. Fiction is not amenable to the type of analysis that comes most naturally to me.

Besides, I’ve only been reading fiction, after a long hiatus, for a year or two -- so really…, what’s to say?

But since most of my GR friends who liked this book have not commented on it; while those who have, mostly don’t like it – I feel I need to say something in defense of poor Herzog.

When I started this, I had the sinking feeling I had when I tried to read Henderson, The Rain King – many, many years ago. Something just didn’t click. Bellow’s names sound (indeed, they *are*) artificial – something that bugs me no end in a book…; and it’s hard to construct a universe in the opening pages, in any event – so that one has doubts early on…. And so, I almost gave up.

But that would have been a great mistake. For this is a large book, a book written ‘in grandi dimensioni’.

Andre Gide (I think it was) commented about Dostoevsky that, in his novels, ideas became flesh. He was thinking of The Brothers Karamazov, as I recall. And indeed, of the postwar American novelists, Bellow perhaps comes closest to this – as his characters not only ‘represent’ ideas, but utterly *live* them, engage them, struggle with them, breath them, exude them… – not only intellectually (though that, of course!), but also as LIVED maxims, as lived DILEMMAS… It is a philosophy of life, he wants… a philosophy FOR life that he seeks – one steeped in our historical moment, of course, because the hallmark of modernity is, after all, its historicity…. And by this enormously ambitious standard, Bellow – and already the Bellow of Herzog – succeeds admirably, brilliantly, convincingly… in bringing modern, urban, cosmopolitan – that is, Jewish intellectuals onto the tragicomic stage that was, perhaps, in one sense – that of the hyper-learned, sensate, quivering, irreverent, sexualized, incandescent, doubting, longing intellectual of late modernity – that of Freud made flesh in the bookstalls of the Upper West Side – the peak and apex of Western modernity -- a modernity, indeed, a West..., now in terminal decline.

Well… what can I say…? I wax nostalgic….

But a rich and wonderful book…. warts and all.

[Kinga · Rating 3 out of 5]

To all the people that watched my brave struggle with this book; I dedicate this review to you.
I have really mixed feelings about this one. Was it an absolute struggle to read? Did I fall asleep after a page or two many times? Was I wishing I was reading something else, something were things actually happened, like, I don't know say The Dark Desires Of the Druids III: Desert and Destiny? The answer to all these questions is yes.

Now, was I reading it with a pencil in my hand underlining sentences so I can put them as facebook updates later on? Did I think the opening line: "If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog" was the best opening line I've read in a while? Did I think it was exceptionally well written? Did I admire Bellow for going on for over 300 pages about absolutely nothing and still have people go gaga over it? Yes, yes, yes...

Did I think that Bellow used the book as an excuse to show off his elloquence and eruditism? (Like some other authors, cough, Cortazar, cough). Yes. So you see, I am getting schizoprenia.
I am glad I have finished reading it. I think it's solely responsible for the fact I was sleeping for 10 hours a day for 3 weeks. God, I need to read something stupid now.

[AiK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Профессор Мозес Герцог изображен в переломный период своей жизни, в его душе творится разлад, кризис, вызванный поиском смысла жизни. Будучи интеллектуалом, он перебирает весь философский опыт, накопленный человечеством - от Спинозы до Ницше, в поиске ответов на свои вопросы. Он заявляет, что "Бог умер" уже неактуально: "Бог есть смерть".
Его экзистенциальные поиски ведут в никуда. Другие его сверстники жили на износ, умирали, он выжил, но ради чего ? Чтобы суетиться дальше? Чтобы и дальше налаживать личные отношения, покуда не иссякнут силы? Он думает, что от его поколения даже смерть должна устать, поскольку в смерти ничего великого нет, и просить Бога избавить ее от ее убожества. Он занимается самокопанием почти всю совсем немаленькую книгу. Его женщинам не повезло. Он признал, что был плохим мужем, причем дважды. Он отравлял жизнь Дэйзи, а Маделин чуть не доконала его самого. Соно, японка, боготворила его, но он презрел ее любовь, и выбрал Маделин. Рамона была искусницей в любви, но он мучил ее своими душевными метаниями. Он был любящим, но плохим отцом, выходным папой, впрочем платил алименты исправно. Родителям он был неблагодарным сыном, Отчизне безучастным гражданином. Братьев и сестру любил издалека, с друзьями индивидуалист, в любви ленив, в радости скучен, с собственной душой уклончив. Произнеся сей приговор самому себе, он оставался бездеятельным. Не это ли портрет современного человека, хотя с момента написания прошло больше полувека? Он не был посредственностью, но и не был светилом, он хотел сиять, но не выносил интеллектуального соперничества даже с собственной женой Маделин, а вездесущесть и пронырливость ее сожителя Валентайна Герсбаха вызывало у него чуть ли не ярость и клокотание в горле от собственного бессилия.
У романа нет концовки, мы можем предполагать, что герой продолжит жить в бесплодном и постылом самокопании, не сделав ни шага для того, чтобы преодолеть кризис. В этом весь экзистенциализм! Письма несуществующим адресатам сейчас могут казаться формой безумия, а в 1960-е и даже раньше такие письма были популярны, и назывались письмами в прошлое (одна из форм Mail Art). Нет, это не было безумием, эти письма были попытками изложить на бумаге свои экзистенциальные вопросы.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is without a doubt my favorite book by Saul Bellow. I am not sure it will speak to everybody, but it certainly spoke to ne. It captures the world of an educated, liberal, East Coast professor. He goes by the name of Moses E. Herzog, and yes, he is from a Jewish family. He is having a midlife crisis, has just gone through a second divorce and is looking back on his life. He is writing letters to friends, relatives and public figures, some dead and some alive. But these letters are NOT sent and the further one goes the less do they even resemble letters! What he is doing is reminiscing, sizing up his life, determining in what direction he will go next. The year is 1964.

I liked this book as much as I did because the East Coast of the 1950s and 1960s is familiar to me. Psychiatry, Martin Buber, and talk and opinions and talk and opinions about all that is happening around one feels natural to me. Everyone has a view on everything and one’s views must be expressed. What is described is the world of my parents and my own youth. Herzog spends time in New York City, Massachusetts, Montreal, Martha’s Vineyard and Chicago too. What was in the news, what people were talking about, how people dealt with life then is all here.

I liked the progression of the novel—where it starts and where it ends. Herzog’s next step is not spelled out clearly, but in my view, this is clear. As Herzog looks back we share with him his disappointments and misgivings He sees failures both in himself and in others, but who doesn’t?! What we are seeing is life as it really is. At the end, I see hope, at least a willingness to try anew. This was perfect for me. For me, this is how life really is.

The audiobook is narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner. He captures wonderfully the type of people the book is about. I have given the narration four stars.

I recommend this book to those who breathe NYC, who feel comfortable with American East Coast mannerisms, are of the liberal, academic bent, have Jewish connections and grew up in the 1940s, 50s or 60s. I think you will love it and feel a kinship with it.

[Cosimo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ma io non ci sono più

Bellow pensa che l'anima sia un impedimento; se sei felice, nascondilo e se il tuo cuore è pieno, chiudi la bocca. Il suo protagonista, Moses E. Herzog, ama le donne con tutto l'essere; ne è attratto, affascinato, ammaliato. La sua brama del corpo femminile è tale da ingelosire gli dèi. Fare sesso è un atto da buon cittadino. Ma la sua natura gli causa dolore: ammette e nega il male nello stesso tempo, è riluttante e feroce, vuole avere tutto ma ha compassione del possesso. La sofferenza che Moses prova non accresce il suo credito morale, è una forma estesa di vita, un antidoto all'illusione. Herzog è in crisi perché Madeleine divorzia nel tradimento e in più si rivolge al suo stesso psichiatra e al suo stesso avvocato; del resto, è sempre Moses a causare l'unione tra moglie e amante. Herzog viaggia tra New York e Chicago, tra Martha's Vineyard e le Berkshires. Ha due figli ed è malinconicamente disordinato, è figlio di un contrabbandiere di liquori. La sua carriera di studioso è in un vuoto temporale, Herzog si interroga per trovare qualche risposta, è un sopravvissuto e commette innumerevoli errori. Si perde nell'irrazionalità e riscopre il valore di cose rare, dimenticate e rinnegate. Segue percorsi metafisici in un isolamento sociale che trascende la natura, insegue demoni e fantasmi in un'introspezione vertiginosa che si trasforma in forza e intelligenza. Infine le fantasie, le digressioni, i flussi di coscienza e le descrizioni si uniscono nel creare un'origine farsesca che è al tempo stesso uscita di scena, la rinascita di un'identità fallita che continua a cercare nell'instabilità una disposizione a sorprendere, una riconciliazione con le ambigue ombre del vivere quotidiano. E del nostro silenzio.

“Ma per se stesso l'uomo non ha bisogno della felicità. No, egli può sopportare qualsiasi quantità di tormenti – coi ricordi, con le proprie familiari malvagità, con la disperazione. È la storia dell'uomo non scritta, la sua vittoria non vista, negativa, la sua capacità di fare a meno d'ogni soddisfazione personale purché ci sia qualcosa di grande, qualcosa in cui il suo essere, e tutti gli esseri, possano immergersi. Egli non ha bisogno di significato fintanto che tale intensità abbia vastità di raggio. Perché allora essa è evidente in sé; essa è significato”.

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is impeccable writing of the highest order and a reading experience I simply will not forget.
But it was never an enjoyable read, how could it be, as the main focal point Moses Herzog is such a depressing and bewildering figure to spend time with , dwelling on the past of failed marriages and writing letters to people that he never intends to send. As Moses is a writer and teacher Herzog does take a the philosophical approach with it's narrative, and Herzog himself is such a deeply drawn character that in the end you can't help take to your heart, similar to what John Williams done with Stoner.This does demand your full attention to get the most out of it, not the sort of book to tkae to the beach or read in a cafe, some of the time it's difficult to tell whether things are happening in the past or the present but this never spoils a single page. A masterpiece of fiction, and it's easy to see Bellow was a big influence on Authors such as Philip Roth and Richard Ford.

[P.E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Le vrai est un moment du faux'


Der Goldfisch (1925) - Paul Klee


Has it ever happened to you that you realize you are deep into an enduring if elusive reading pattern ? reading works always related to certain questions, certain periods, certain specific topics?

I am currently into one of these streaks, certainly the most enduring one at that. And it comes as all the more surprising when a book casually recommended and lent to you by your father is taking part in the process...


1. What is the story about?

Herzog is the story of eponymous Moses Herzog, a scholar at the end of his tether after his wife Madeleine divorced him. The very fabric of this novel: the loose observations and free associations made by the main character, be it in meditations, fictive letters, or when he talks directly to other characters. As a whole, the novel is streaked by these shatters born from scatterbrain Herzog. And it is utterly fascinating, if definitely puzzling. As Ian (Marvin) Gravye noted in his review, Moses deals with this situation using the conceptual tools he is accustomed to handle, that is, metaphysics. Doing so, Herzog draws curious parallels between the direction the new generations are taking in post WW2, 'post-donquixotesque', 'post-copernician' United States and the new path his own life is taking. He is looking for new values to rely on in the age of mass consumption, mass culture, mass murder.




This association between everyday life in its most mundane manifestations and thought in its most remotely abstract recesses is what makes the inner monologue ring so singularly. Evoking certain highly peculiar characters in literature (more in the 'See also' section).


2. A discussion about rationalism and individualism

A discussion with Théodore about the topics addressed by both Saul Bellow's character and Albert Camus, more specifically regarding rationalism and hegelian dialectics.


Engraving by Abraham Bosse in Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (1651)



3. A remarkable review of Herzog I would like to recommend



SEE ALSO:

Works with similarities:

Dealing with a 'desperado' or aloof figure:
Blood Dark
A Confederacy of Dunces
Under The Volcano
Jude the Obscure
Desolation Angels

Refusing polite triteness and untruths:
The Clown
Steppenwolf
Runaway Horses
Portrait of a Jew
The Stranger

Metaphysics and mental breakdown:
Now Wait for Last Year
Galactic Pot-Healer
VALIS

About the links or the absence thereof between the Enlightenment and totalitarianism:
La Révolution Française
The Rebel
The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition


The part of the intellectuals and artists:
Discours de Suède
Art, Truth & Politics: The Nobel Lecture


Music:
Glassworks - Philip Glass

[Emilio Berra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il protagonista è un personaggio dalle mille sfaccettature.
Docente universitario in periodo di riposo, "Herzog viveva solo nella casa grande e antica". "Piante d'acero, carrubi e gramigna dei boschi lo assediavano da ogni parte, in giardino. Di notte, se apriva gli occhi le stelle erano vicinissime". E scriveva lettere ...
Esaminando se stesso, "ammise di essere stato un cattivo marito: per due volte. (...) Con i suoi due figli (...) era stato un padre affettuoso ma non un buon padre".

Si tratta certamente di un libro di livello, tuttavia penso un po' sopravvalutato. Apparentabile ad altre opere dell'autore dai personaggi maschili spesso inadeguati, dilettanti del vivere, di un certo spessore intellettuale ma emotivamente fragili, alle prese con donne volitive e intelligenti benché un po' svagate. Qui mi pare si respiri un senso di fondo drammatico rispetto ad esempio "Ne muoiono più di crepacuore", testo non tanto dissimile ma ricco di quel lieve umorismo irresistibile che Bellow sa talvolta infondere.
Sappiamo comunque che con questo grande scrittore americano il livello letterario è sempre molto alto e non si corre il rischio di essere lasciati a mani vuote.

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο Μόουζες Χέρτσογκ δεν είναι κάποιος θετικός ήρωας. Δεν είναι ιδιαίτερα συμπαθής, δεν προσφέρει περιθώρια ταύτισης. Θεωρούμενο ως αυτοβιογραφικό, το αριστουργηματικό μυθιστόρημα του S. Bellow δεν απευθύνεται στο σύγχρονο "εγγράμματο" κοινό που απαιτεί από τον "συγγραφέα" να θωπεύει τις ανασφάλειές του, να επιβραβεύει την ημιμάθειά του και να δίνει απαντήσεις στα κενά νοήματος ερωτήματά του.
Δεν "κομίζουμε Γλαύκα" υπενθυμίζοντας πως η πλειονότητα των σύγχρονων αναγνωστών προσεγγίζει την τέχνη -και δη τη λογοτεχνία- ως απάντηση στα προσωπικά του προβλήματα. "Καλό βιβλίο" είναι εκείνο που του "προσφέρει" κάτι στο τέλος, ένα δίδαγμα, μια πορεία, μια απόδραση -έστω ακραία-, εν τέλει.
Αυτά όλα ΔΕΝ κάνει το "Χέρτσογκ". Τι κάνει; Ακριβώς το αντίθετο. Δεν επιτρέπει την ταύτιση, δεν ψυχαγωγεί, δεν προσφέρει απαντήσεις, δεν είναι λυσιτελές και τελεσφόρο έργο. Παραμένει ψυχρά ανταγωνιστικό, φιλοσοφεί ανελέητα αδιαφορώντας για το χαμηλό επίπεδο του σύγχρονου αναγνώστη, στηλιτεύει τις θλιβερές απαντήσεις του, χλευάζει τις φαιδρές βεβαιότητές του και δεν δημιουργεί νέες στη θέση του.
Κάνει όμως το σημαντικότερο όλων: Θέτει ερωτήματα! Βασανιστικά, καταιγιστικά. Για την ύπαρξη, για τον κόσμο, για τον χρόνο, για το αναπόφευκτο. Και μετά, απλά τελειώνει. Γιατί την απάντηση, φίλε αναγνώστη, είσαι αρκετά νοήμων ώστε να μην περιμένεις να τη βρεις σε κάποιο βιβλίο!

[Olga · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reader sees the people, things and places through Herzog's eyes. Herzog, the protagonist of the novel, a middle-aged intellectual and a philosopher, lives in the world of ideas, asks a lot of questions and answers them in his numerous mental 'letters'. He is trying to come to terms with his own imperfection, his being a victim and his dissimilarity from others (more down to earth ones) while his personal life is falling apart...

I liked the author's writing, his unique style, the depiction of the numerous characters - all those people who exist or existed in Herzog's universe.

'Three hundred million human beings exist, each with some possessions, each a microcosmos, each infinitely precious, each with a peculiar treasure. There is a distant garden where curious objects grow, and there, in a lovely dusk of green, the heart of Moses E. Herzog hangs like a peach.'
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'I grew up in a time of widespread unemployment, and never believed there might be work for me. Finally, jobs appeared, but somehow my consciousness remained unemployed. And after all, he continued beside the fire, the human intellect is one of the great forces of the universe. It can’t safely remain unused. You might almost conclude that the boredom of so many human arrangements (middle-class family life, for instance) has the historical aim of freeing the intellect of newer generations, sending them into science.'
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'I go after reality with language.'
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'I aged. I wasted myself in stupid schemes, liberating my spirit.'
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'What I seem to do, thought Herzog, is to inflame myself with my drama, with ridicule, failure, denunciation, distortion, to inflame myself voluptuously, esthetically, until I reach a sexual climax.'
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'It’s fascinating that hatred should be so personal as to be almost loving. The knife and the wound aching for each other.'

[Charles Matthews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering that it's a novel with nothing you could call a plot, Herzog is an inexhaustible book. It touches on elemental human relationships (sexual, familial, social) and spins off into lofty philosophical debates, reflections on civilization, on the meaning of death, and on the American experience. It tempts a reader into close analysis while at the same time mocking such analysis. Moses Herzog is at once the most meticulously observed of characters and the most impossible to grasp as a whole.

It's a third-person narrative whose voice is clearly that of the person whose story is being told. The device isn't used for a coy ironic distancing, as in The Education of Henry Adams, but rather it grows out of the kind of fractured consciousness that is Herzog's. He feels his plight -- the cuckolded husband -- and feels it deeply, but at the same time he wants to observe it from the outside, to watch himself in the act of being "a loving but bad father" to his children, "an ungrateful child" to his parents, "affectionate but remote" to his siblings. "With his friends, an egotist. With love, lazy. With brightness, dull. With power, passive. With his own soul, evasive." He is, in short, a character in a novel that he is writing about himself.

Or, perhaps more appropriately, a letter he is writing to himself. One way of approaching Herzog is to treat it as an epistolary novel, in which Herzog, whose current intellectual pastime is to write letters to other people, is also writing this very long letter to himself about how he has wound up where he is. Which brings up a key problem: How do we know that Herzog is being honest with us -- or with himself? How do we know that his ex-wife, Madeleine, is the conniving shrew that he presents to us? Or that Valentine Gersbach is the oily opportunist that Herzog thinks him to be?

The truth is, we don't. Other people in the novel seem less perturbed by Herzog's plight, by Madeleine's and Gersbach's actions, than he is. This includes Gersbach's wife, Phoebe, who claims that Valentine and Madeleine are not having an affair. Is Herzog self-deluded? Everyone thinks he's crazy, and he has come to accept the fact that he might be. He is certainly unstable. His career is in a shambles, and two failed marriages have left him so wary of women that he can't trust his own instincts when it comes to his latest amour, Ramona, who seems to accept him for what he is. And when he finally starts to take some sort of action, it's utterly foolish and self-destructive. He is saved from its potentially disastrous consequences by his own ineptness.

Which is only to say that Herzog is like Leopold Bloom, a kind of Everyman. Like Bloom, he is a misfit who desperately wants to fit, a cuckold, a wanderer, a dreamer, and Herzog, like Ulysses, ends on a note that is positive enough to provoke hope, but also ambiguous enough to allow that hope to be dashed. Like the narrator of In Search of Lost Time, he is an intellectual with the potential to liberate himself from the past while at the same time so aware of his past that he becomes inextricably tied to it.

[Nickolas B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ο Μόουζες Χέρτσογκ είναι ένα μεσήλικας καθηγητής πανεπιστημίου, ο οποίος μετά από δύο αποτυχημένους γάμους αναζητά την ψυχική του γαλήνη, προσπαθώντας να εξισορροπήσει τον εσωτερικό του κόσμο με τον εξωτερικό. Η αναζήτηση του είναι εν μέρει φιλοσοφική αλλά χωρίς να αγνοεί την πραγματικότητα, τις καταστάσεις αλλά και τους ανθρώπους που με τον τρόπο τους διαμόρφωσαν τη γνώμη και τις αποφάσεις του. Στην πορεία του προς την επίτευξη αυτού του στόχου, ο Μόουζες θα καταλάβει εν τέλει πως είναι δύσκολο να εναρμονιστούν οι σκέψεις και η ζωή μας με τον παραλογισμό και τα παράδοξα της κοινωνίας που ζούμε.
Ο Μπέλοου δημιουργεί έναν χαρακτήρα οικουμενικό και διαχρονικό. Έναν λογοτεχνικό χαρακτήρα που αν τον κοιτάξουμε στα μάτια θα δούμε σίγουρα κάποιες πτυχές του εαυτού μας. Οι αναζητήσεις του Χέρτσογκ είναι οι αναζητήσεις του ίδιου του συγγραφέα. Το παράλογο της ύπαρξης, η ζωή και ο βιολογικός μας θάνατος, η δημοκρατία, οι διαπροσωπικές σχέσεις, το σεξ...
Ο σύγχρονος άνθρωπος βομβαρδίζεται καθημερινά από πληροφορίες αλλά και σκέψεις που δημιουργούν μέσα του ένα χάος. Ο Μπέλοου, μέσω του ήρωα του, αφήνει να εννοηθεί πως στην ζωή μας δεν υπάρχει πεπρωμένο. Είμαστε και πρέπει να είμαστε κύριοι του εαυτού μας έτσι ώστε να καθορίζουμε την πορεία μας σαν άνθρωποι και να ορίζουμε την ύπαρξη μας. Ο συγγραφέας εμφανίζεται άλλες φορές αισιόδοξος και άλλες απαισιόδοξος χωρίς όμως να χάνει το χιούμορ του και τη σκωπτική του διάθεση σχεδόν για όλα τα θέματα ακόμα και για τον θάνατο!
Η αφήγηση είναι κυρίως σε τρίτο πρόσωπο αλλά πολλές φορές γίνεται πρωτοπρόσωπη δημιουργώντας μια αμεσότητα με τον αναγνώστη. Η γραφή του Μπέλοου είναι εξαιρετική. Άλλοτε ο λόγος του γίνεται ποιητικός και άλλοτε αιχμηρός και ρεαλιστικός. Όταν αρχίζουν οι φιλοσοφικές αναζητήσεις δε του Χέρτσογκ, ο λόγος του συγγραφέα πυκνώνει, οι λέξεις αποκτούν ειδικό βάρος και ο αναγνώστης χρειάζεται αντοχές για να περάσει μέσα από αυτές.

Αν το βιβλίο είναι αριστούργημα δεν ξέρω. Μπορώ να πω όμως με βεβαιότητα πως αξίζει να ανακαλύψουμε μέσα από τις σελίδες του έναν πολυσχιδή χαρακτήρα όπως ο Μόουζες Χέρτσογκ και γιατί όχι να ταυτιστούμε μαζί του - ίσως και να παραδειγματιστούμε - μέσα σε έναν παράλογο κόσμο γεμάτο αβεβαιότητα και ανασφάλειες.

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading Herzog

I read Saul Bellow's National Book Award winning novel "Herzog" in the mid-1970s. I was in my mid-20s, had my first legal job, and wanted to keep my mind active beyond the practice of law. I remember the book appealed to me in its mix of lengthy philosophical reflection by its protagonist, Moses Herzog, together with Herzog's difficulty with sexuality.

After a long time of wanting to reread "Herzog", I took the opportunity to do so presented by staying at home through the pandemic. The novel requires time to read as well as more experience than I had nearly 50 years ago.

With its cerebral character and focus on one individual, the 47 year old Moses Herzog, the audience for this novel would appear to be limited. One can understand the appeal of the book to a certain stereotype of non-practicing educated American Jewish men, but it is valuable to see how Herzog's story and his what today are called "issues" have broader interest. In an early scene in the book, Herzog visits an elderly doctor for a physical, in large part to seek some reassurance about his mental state. (He also has consulted a psychiatrist). In a succinct reflection, discussing with the doctor his wife's betrayal, Herzog meditates on his divided self: "A strange heart. I myself can't account for it." The division pervades Herzog's story.

The book tells the story of a twice divorced academic and intellectual who has been cuckolded in a most humiliating way by his second wife and by his apparent best friend. Herzog from his youth has been a ladies man, dependent on sex and on the approval of women in his many relationships.
He is devastated by the loss of his lovely, sexy, educated, but cold and domineering second wife. A highly introspective man, Herzog explores in the course of the short period of time in which this story takes place the nature of his many relationships with women. With all his intellect, Herzog knows that the physicality of a woman, her shape, her breasts, is important to him. He says of his lover, Ramona, who comes to play a large and positive role in the story.

"She was short but had a full, substantial figure, a good round seat, firm breasts (all these things mattered to Herzog; he might think himself a moralist but the shape of a woman's breasts mattered greatly). Ramona was unsure of her chin but had confidence in her lovely throat, and so she held her head fairly high. She walked with quick efficiency, rapping her heels in energetic Castilian style. Herzog was intoxicated by this clatter. She entered a room provocatively, swaggering slightly, one hand touching her thigh, as though she carried a knife in her garter belt.'

Together with Herzog's sexual experiences and urges and his interest in the sexuality and bodies of women -- which are described more sympathetically and with greater candor than they might be today--, the book concentrates on the protagonist's intellectual life. The author of a well-received book on Christianity and Romanticism, Herzog's academic productivity has come to a halt. Herzog uses his formidable intellect and reading to write letters to people, both famous and from his own life, which he never mails. The letters raise without resolving many issues including the nature of the self, the nature of American life, the tendency of intellectuals to denigrate the United States, and the need to find peace and meaning in life. The fame of this book is due in large part to Herzog's inveterate writing and accompanying brooding.

The writing and scenes of the book also combine intellect and thought with street-wise colloquial writing in a way that mirrors Herzog himself. The book works because of its dense, closely-observed texture. It has settings in New York City, Chicago, and a small rural area in the Berkshires, which reminded me of the homes of Hawthorne and Melville. The acute observations and the detailed writing about places, streets, and people throughout this book are as important to the story as are the letter writing and reflection. Herzog and Bellow have an eye for their surroundings and an exuberance in their depiction.

Herzog is at one and the same time a neurotically comical character, a man dependent on sexuality and on women, and a person who somehow tries to rise above it all in the search for wisdom. The book explores the tension in these characteristics and creates an inimitable individual. Moses Herzog tries to work to a degree of peace which allows him to live and to accept life and to come to terms with his intellect and with his physicality.

With the advent of email and media, it is easier today, for better or worse, to share one's private thoughts with individuals and with a broad audience than it was for Herzog in 1964. I was glad to have the opportunity to get to know Moses Herzog better by revisiting his story and by thinking with greater understanding than I may have had years ago about both the demons and the ideals which drove him.

Robin Friedman

[Margarita Garova · Rating 5 out of 5]

„…страшен съм само за себе си.“

Книгите за депресирани интелектуалци имат ако не дълга, то богата литературна традиция. Сещам се за книги като Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves от Kat Kinsman и Rabbits for Food от Binnie Kirshenbaum. Това са едновременно най-забавните и най-тъжните четива. Интелектуалецът е дете, което се нуждае от обгрижването на околните може би дори повече отколкото децата в биологичния смисъл. Интелектуалецът проумява реалността, но не умее да се възползва от нея. Околните му вредят с удоволствие. Тези, които случайно му мислят доброто – тях ги избягва.

„Херцог“ има допирни точки с горните заглавия и въпросния феномен, но е отделна вселена. Впечатляващо умна, богата и объркана като мозъка на професор Моузес Херцог – наскоро разведен за втори път, дезориентиран в практичните въпроси, чиято академична кариера май е видяла и по-добри дни. Хаосът в живота му е навсякъде – от запустялата провинциална къща, за която профуква своя дял от семейното наследство до настоящия си романтичен интерес. В главата му също не цари особен ред – съзнанието на Херцог пише писма, които никога не довършва, нито изпраща. Адресатите са всякакви - видни покойници като Ницше, отровни роднини, приятели и врагове. Херцог има да им каже всичко и нищо. Той е човек на идеите. Но и човек, който чувства твърде много, твърде силно. От тази сплав на идеи и чувства се появява един несравним, атомизиран свят – свят, в който не сте били никога досега, нещо като ментален Джурасик парк – зашеметяващо красив и страшен.

Някои книги може би имат нужда не толкова от споделяне на мнение за тях, а от упътване за употреба. „Херцог“ без съмнение е от сложния и бавен тип литература, но за да й се насладиш, просто трябва да спреш да търсиш последователност и свързваща нишка, и да се оставиш на потока. Да си позволиш леко състояние на дезориентация, тъкмо ще разбереш по-добре замисъла на Белоу, ще се опиташ да проумееш и Херцог по-добре. Четеш заради самото четене – заради красивите завои на мисълта и езика. „Херцог“ е книга, която възприемаш колкото с ума, толкова и с емоциите, доколкото и у героя е трудно да се каже кое е плод на едното и кое на другото.

„Сега хората може и да са свободни, но свободата няма никакво съдържание.“

„Хората умират – и това не е метафора, - защото няма какво истинско да отнесат у дома в края на деня.“

„Ако имаше красива бедност, нравствена бедност в Америка, това щеше да е много подривно.“

„Във всяко общество има класа хора, които са опасни за останалите. И нямам предвид престъпниците. За тях си имаме наказателни санкции. Говоря за лидерите. Винаги най-опасните хора се стремят към властта.“

„Някои хора просто правят добро впечатление. Аз обаче нямам тази способност. Заради чувствителността.“

[merixien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Herzog okumanın çok da kolay olmadığı metinlerden. Zaman içindeki sıçramaları, karakter sayısı ve Herzog’un dağınık zihninde gezinmek ilk başlarda kitaba adapte olmayı zorluyor.
Kitap, toplumun beklentileri ile kendi özlemleri arasında parçalanmış ortayaşlı bir entelektüelin hikayesi. Bir noktada da “kayıp yahudi neslinin” bireysel aktarımı durumunda. Bu açıdan da pozitivist bir bakış açısına sahip, zira Herzog ile Bellow’un hayatının kesiştiği çokça nokta bulunuyor. Lakin bunun tamamen otobiyografik bir kitap olarak tanımlaması da pek yerinde değil. Daha çok kendisinin karikatürize edilmiş bir versiyonunu sunuyor Bellow. Yazar bunu yaparken de hiçbir şekilde okurun kitapla/kendisiyle bağ kurması, özdeşleşmesi ya da sorularına cevap bulması gibi bir kaygı duymuyor. Tam tersine kendisinin güvensizliklerini ve sorularını hiçbir çözüm olmadan okura geçiriyor. Varoluşa, zaman kavramına, sona dair asla cevabı olmayan soruları okuyana bırakıp vedalaşıyor. En başta söylediğim gibi, okuması çok rahat olmasa da kitabı bitirdiğinizde buna değdiğini görüyorsunuz. Amerikan edebiyatı seviyorsanız, es geçmeyin

“Hayatın dikenlerinin üzerine düşüyorum, kanıyorum. Sonra? Hayatın dikenlerinin üzerine düşüyorum, kanıyorum. Peki ya sonra? Birileriyle yatıyorum, kısa bir tatile çıkıyorum ama çok kısa bir süre sonra, acıdan haz alarak ya da mutluluktan acı çekerek - bu karışımın ne olduğunu kim bilebilir! - yine aynı dikenlerin üstüne düşüyorum. İçimde iyi olarak nitelendirebileceğim, kalıcı olan ne var? Doğumla ölüm arasında, bu sapkınlıktan elde edebileceğim şeyin haricinde hiçbir şey yok mu? Sadece karmaşık duyguların merhametli dengesi mi? Özgürlük yok mu? Sadece dürtüler mi? Peki ya yüreğimdeki onca iyilik, hiçbir anlamı yok mu? Bir şakadan mı ibaret? İnsanın, kendisinin değerli olduğu yanılgısına kapılmasına yol açan sahte bir umuttan? Böylece insanın mücadeleye devam etmesini sağlıyor, öyle mi? Ama ben bu iyiliğin sahte olmadığını biliyorum. Biliyorum. Yemin ederim.”


“...psikolojinin söylediği gibi zihinsel olarak öldürmek doğalsa (günde bir düşünce cinayeti, uzak tutar psikiyatristi) o zaman var olma arzusu iyi bir yaşamı destekleyecek kadar sağlam değil demektir.”

[Quo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a shade after the celebration of Saul Bellow's 100th birthday, I wanted to offer some congratulatory words, particularly singling out the author's novel, Herzog, a book I recently reread, having initially read it the year it was published. In honor of Mr. Bellow's centenary, I did attend a special birthday tribute in his honor, held in the town where he was raised and where many of his novels are set.



Alas, there was a small group of well-wishers on hand & no cake for those who came out on an inclement evening but there was a very nice theatrical overview, performed by a local company & drawn from a few of the author's novels & other works. Beyond that, the author Scott Turow, a lifelong fan of Saul Bellow, spoke at length.

It seems that Bellow's star has fallen, though it never rose all that high, in spite of his acclaim in some literary circles, various awards that included the Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt's Gift, the National Book Award for Herzog and the Nobel Prize for Literature. However, of all of the author's many novels, only Herzog became a best seller and it is the only Bellow novel I've read twice. It seems most unfortunate that Bellow seems virtually unknown to many readers at this point, even in his hometown.

A reporter casting about for traces of Bellow's Chicago roots in Humboldt Park (vs. Hyde Park, the University of Chicago community where Saul Bellow lived & taught for many years) failed to locate anyone today who had read his novels or even anyone who was familiar with the author. Yes, that old neighborhood has changed but more than that, Saul Bellow seems to speak to a rather specialized audience of readers who are not in search of memorable plot lines, dynamic interactions among characters or much in the way of "action". As Turow put it, Bellow's books are all "about a very intelligent man thinking--essentially speaking to himself".

I think I'd have dealt Herzog five stars if there had been an Internet or a place called Goodreads after my first reading of the book but I have carried the memory of the book with me for countless years & the thought of Moses Herzog never ceases to bring a smile. In brief, I think at 2nd reading that I liked the idea or premise of the novel better than the book itself & have taken away the extra star, something I regret, especially during the observance of Bellow's 100th birthday.



Scott Turow mentioned that even at Stanford, where Turow was in a PhD program at the time, Bellow seemed under-appreciated, with Wallace Stegner (Director of Creative Writing at Stanford) & others dismissively consigning Bellow to the realm of the "Partisan Review crowd", which at that point apparently meant the domain of certain East Coast, Jewish intellectuals.

Moses Herzog is a down-on-his-luck lecturer, holding forth on literature, "half elegant & half slovenly", whose wife, a convert to Catholicism, has left him. He is the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant whose father is said to have gone through 2 dowries in one year while back in St. Petersburg, fleeing to Quebec & failing as a farmer and as a baker.

Herzog seems a kind of "everyman", a fellow in search of his own voice but an "everyman" who filters Kierkegaard & Spinoza and has authored a book on Romanticism & Christianity. Like many of Bellow's characters, Herzog's search for identity is at the core of the novel and Moses Herzog strives to tell himself the story of his own life and to do that, he retreats farther & farther from "reality". It is said that he is both afloat & shipwrecked and though he has been behaving oddly, he feels "confident, cheerful, clairvoyant & strong".

Herzog, who has fallen under a spell, was writing letters to everyone under the sun. He was so stirred by these letters that from the end of June he moved from place to place with a valise of papers. He had carried this valise from New York to Martha's Vineyard but two days later flew to Chicago & from Chicago he went to a village in western Massachusetts.

Hidden in the country, he wrote endlessly, fanatically, to the newspapers, to the people in public life, to friends & relatives and at last to the dead, to his own obscure dead and finally to the famous dead.

I can easily picture a character like Moses Herzog, walking down the street & mumbling to himself (definitely not on a cellphone), seen as meshuggah, (mentally unbalanced) by passers-by, or lost among the stacks at some library, unshaven, scruffy & even disheveled, talking to himself but if one approaches closer (but not too close), perhaps having a dialogue with one of the characters in the book he seems to be focusing on at the moment or maybe with imagined voices from within the stack of books he has assembled all around him. But here is a further description of Bellow's Herzog at Penn Station:

In his long brown coat, tight at the shoulders & misshapen by the books stuffed into the pockets (Pratt's Short History of the Civil War + several volumes of Kierkegaard), he walked the underground tunnel of shops--flowers, cutlery, whiskey, doughnuts & grilled sausages, the waxy chill of orangeade. Laboriously, he climbed into the light-filled vault of the station, the great windows dustily dividing the autumn sun--the stoop-shouldered sun of the garment district.

The mirror of the gum machine revealed to Herzog how pale he was, unhealthy--wisps from his coat & wool scarf, his hat & brows, twisting & flaming outward in the overfull light and exposing the sphere of his face, the man who was keeping up a front. Herzog smiled at this earlier avatar of his life, at Herzog the victim, Herzog the would-be lover, Herzog the man on whom the world depended for certain intellectual work, to change history, to influence the development of civilization.

Several boxes of stale paper under his bed were going to produce this very significant result. Herzog holding his unpunched ticket marched down to the train. His shoelaces were dragging. Ghosts of an old physical pride were still about him. On the lower level, the cars were waiting. Was he coming or going? He did not know.

Herzog may have been a bestseller at the bookshops but the novel was greeted with hostility by many critics, Alfred Kazin, Richard Gilman & Christopher Lehmann-Haupt among them, though John Updike seemed to favor it. In spite of certain critics, Saul Bellow was an intellectual's intellectual, a dapper, often-married literary icon in his day but also someone who managed to embrace the thoughts & speech patterns of some rather down-to-earth, quirky but for me memorable folks, characters like Moses Herzog & Augie March & Eugene Henderson, the "Rain King".

And while only 600+ readers at this site have contributed reviews for the best-selling novel of a fairly recent American Nobel laureate, I would like to raise a glass to Bellow on the occasion of his centennial year.



Beyond the Saul Bellow novel, there is a certain uncanny similarity to sitting at a keyboard crafting book reviews that no one may ever read and the letters of a fictional Moses Herzog.

*Within my review, images 1 & 3 are of the author, Saul Bellow, while #2 features fellow writer Scott Turow, a lifelong fan of Bellow's work, holding 3 books that changed his life, Herzog among them.

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a while Saul Bellow was poised to become one of the 20th century's most famous authors, but he seems to have faded into the second tier now. He doesn't have the visceral power of Steinbeck, Wright or Baldwin, or the technical ambition of Faulkner or Woolf; he just writes good books. Maybe that cost him. My reaction to Augie March was, well, there's certainly nothing wrong with this book, nor is it going to change my life. "That's a good book," I thought. "Moving on."

And now here's Herzog, Bellow's last classic and his final, most thorough statement, and it asked quite a bit more of me than I was prepared to give. If you've read other books by him you may not be prepared for this much heavy lifting.

It reminded me of Ulysses, in fact, and not just because the name Moses Herzog (hurts-og) was lifted from chapter 12 of that book. The talking, the constant trying to communicate: Bellow said it's about "the imprisonment of the individual in a shameful and impotent privacy." "Only connect," in other words, and that's what Leopold Bloom spent much of Ulysses trying to do. And the esoterical references, the mixing of viewpoints (first and third), the focus on mundane matters - Herzog and Leopold Bloom both spend a lot of time in the bathroom. Bellow himself, a realist, was "impatient with modernism," but it's hard not to see its influence here. It's not as difficult as Ulysses, but you might get the sense that it's Bellow's response to it.

The book operates on three layers, switching deftly and rapidly between them. In the present, Herzog takes a short trip; has a date with a woman he's considering marrying; visits his ex-wife. And considers shooting her and her lover, his former best friend. In the second, he flashes back along his life, his previous two marriages, his ramshackle house in the country, his Casaubon-esque career. (Sidenote: Casaubon sure does pop up a lot in literature, huh?) And in the third, he writes a multitude of letters - to friends and newspapers and Schrödinger and Nietzsche - expounding on his philosophy of life. (And a lot of talk about like Kant and Hegel and shit, and I don't know anything about any of that so if you want to unpack it you're on your own.)

The letters are boring and opaque:

Good is easily done by machines of production and transportation. Can virtue compete? New techniques are in themselves bien pensant and represent not only rationality but benevolence. Thus a crowd, a herd of bien pensants has been driven into nihilism, which, as is now well known, has Christian and moral roots and for its wildest frenzies offers a “constructive” rationale. (See Polyani, Herzog, et al.)

This doesn't make any more sense in context. They'll taper off throughout the book, as Herzog works through his midlife crisis and pulls himself together.

There are some beautiful thoughts here; Bellow is, if nothing else, a smart and gifted writer. "I thought I had entered into a secret understanding with life to spare me the worst," Herzog says. "A perfectly bourgeois idea." Me too!

But I found the experience of reading it frustrating, and not rewarding enough. Books like this - dense books, full of thoughts and philosophies and tangents and flashbacks - they ask a lot of the reader. They ask not just to be read but absorbed, focused on, made a part of one's life. I didn't expect Herzog to be this big of a deal, and maybe if I'd been ready for it I would have been more responsive to it - but it's also true that if a book asks a great deal of a reader, a reader is more likely to say "No" to it. "No, you are not the book for me. I choose not to commit as much of my brain to you as you demand." Your expectations for a summer romance are lower than your expectations for a long-term partner. These books are long-term partners, and many of them are not for us. We expect to have only a few long-term partners in our lives. Herzog will not be one of mine.

[Emiliya Bozhilova · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Аз съм Херцог. Аз трябва да бъда този човек. Няма кой друг да свърши тази работа”.

Благодаря на Саул Белов, че ме запозна с един истински, старовремски херцог, сякаш излязъл от 17-ти век от разкъсваната от просвещенски теории и страсти стара Европа, акумулирал в паметта си две световни войни от 20-ти век и необятното, не винаги приятно, разнообразие на Канада и Северна Америка от 20-ти век, с автоматизацията и новоизобретения личен живот.

Моузес Елкана Херцог, подобно на самия Белоу, е творение колкото на стара Европа (син на руски евреи от Санкт Петербург, закърмен с прозренията на немскоезичните философи), толкова и на пращящата по шевовете от изобилстваща практичност и устрем Америка. Този аристократ на духа не може и един пирон да забие, без да проведе обстоен и задълбочен диалог със Спиноза, Кант и Ницше. Херцог е истински жонгльор на реалности (философските дефиниции на битието и небитието - със спомените си от нерадостното, но образователно детство по времето на Сухия Режим и Голямата Депресия; с умората от модерността; с опустошителните последици от изключително унищожителния му и пълен с отрова втори брак; с топлотата на една страстна целувка насред Ню Йорк и с всички странични шумове на живота с тяхното пъстро жужене). Властелин на дефинициите на всичко и всички, плувец в езиковото изобилие на наука, философия и ежедневие, той може да направлява курса си сред вълните само посредством строгото, детайлно и задълбочено разкостване на всеки възможен аспект и посредством неуморен диалог с цялата човешка история, философия и наука от древността до наши дни. На Херцог му се е струпало доста и той просто не млъква, пишейки невероятно интересни, въображаеми писма до живи и мъртви, свои и чужди, велики и забравени. Цял един необятен, шарен свят извира от всяка сричка на Херцог, сливайки меланхолия, детски протест, невинна доброта, житейска непрактичност, трогателна незрялост в едно и тежка свръхзрялост в друго, както и неуморна, крайно старомодна и сякаш отживяла вяра в доброто. За да стигне до един някак дълбоко даоистки по прозренията си, с��етъл миг на мълчание.

В тази литературна симфония на Сол Белоу има всичко, буквално всичко. Просто е възхитително-необятна и великолепна. Чиста наслада, с насмешливо намигване и старото напомняне, че нищо в крайна сметка не е чак толкова сериозно.

П.П. Прекрасно оформление на “Лист” и великолепен превод на Боряна Даракчиева!

***

▶️ Цитати:

🌇 “Дори да съм откачил, на мен не ми пречи.”

🌆 “В любовта беше ленив. В радостта скучаещ. Пред силата пасивен. А в душата си - уклончив.”

🏙 “Тъй като беше лишен от систематичност, беше усвоил изкуството да се спуска към същината чрез кръжене около случайни факти.”

🌃 “Възмущението е толкова изтощително, че трябва да се пази за големи несправедливости.”

🌇 “Тези неща или имат значение, или нямат значение. Зависи от Вселената. … Карай си колата и плуга върху костите на мъртвите.”

🌆 “Така и няма да разбера какво искат жените? Какво всъщност искат? Те ядат зелена салата и пият човешка кръв."

🏙 “Дьо Токвил…смята, че в модерните демокрации ще има по-малко престъпления и повече скрити пороци.”

🌃 ”Според понятията на съвременното изкуство и религия буржоазен е възгледът, че Вселената е създадена, за да си я употребяваме безпрепятствено…”

🌇 “…инстинктът на народа беше да отхвърли разума и неговите образи, идеи, вероятно защото ги възприема като нещо чуждо. Народът предпочита да вярва на видими богове.”

🌆 “Той имаше така емпатичен стил,…, изглеждаше толкова умен, че забравяш да се запиташ дали не говори глупости.”

🏙 “Божието було над всички неща ги превръща в загадки. Ако не бяха така изпълнени с подробности и толкова богати, вероятно щях са мога да си отдъхна от тях.”

🌃 ”Обединени от ужасните войни, обучени в свирепата си глупост чрез революции, чрез изкуствено създаден глад, насочван от “идеолози” (наследници на Маркс и Хегел и тренирани в коварство на ума), вероятно ние, съвременното човечество (нима!), постигнахме почти невъзможното, а именно - научихме нещо.”

🌇 “Но не бива да забравяме колко бързо гениалните откровения се превръщат в консервираните храни на интелектуалците.”

🌆 “Бях дълбоко благодарен. Но с политическата благодарност на слабостта…, под която се крие ярост.”

🏙 “У всеки интелектуалец се крие по един тъпак.”

🌃 “…ти смяташ, че факт може да бъде само нещо гадно.”

🌇”Не можем да се отървем от тази кучка, нали? Ужасен недостатък е да имаш душа.”

🌆 “…не приемам твърдението, че научната мисъл е създала безредие сред духовните ценности… Убеден съм, че размерите на вселената не унищожава човешката стойност…”

🏙 “Херцог добре осъзнаваше многото слоеве на реалността - ненавист, арогантност, измама и после - Бог да ни е на помощ! - истина.”

🌃 “Не си по-добър от всеки друг наркоман - ти се друсаш с твоите абстракции.”

🌇 “Революциите на двайсети век, oсвобождението на масите чрез автоматизираното производство създадоха личния живот, но не дадоха нищо, с което да го запълни.”

🌆 “Депресивността не може да се откаже от детството - дори от мъките на детството.”

🏙 “Силата да вършиш зло е върховна власт.”

🌃 “Готовността да отговориш на всички въпроси е сигурен признак на глупост.”

🌇 “Във философията на популизма добротата е станала безплатно благо”

🌆 “Аз ще твърдя, че създаваме нова утопична история, идилия, като сравняваме настоящето с въображаемо минало, защото мразим света такъв, какъвто е.”

🏙 “Но може ли мисълта да те пробуди от съня на съществуването? Не и ако се превърне в друго селение на объркване, в още по-заплетен сън, съня на интелекта, илюзията на тоталните обяснения.”

🌃 “Честно да си призная, никога не ми е било по-хубаво. … Но ми липсваше сила на характера, за да понеса такава радост.”

🌇 “Но някои хора винаги се противят на най-хубавите неща в живота и предпочитат да мечтаят за тях.”

🌆 “Незрялост, новата политическа категория.”

🏙 “Самият разум, логиката те подтикват да коленичиш и да благодариш за всяка малка проява на доброта.”

🌇 “По огромната шир на Лексингтън Авеню атобусите бълваха отрова, но цветята оцеляваха, гранатни рози, блед люляк, чистотата на бялото, разкошът на червеното, и всичко това покрито със златното сияние на облачния Ню Йорк.”

🌆 “Ако имаш хубава работа…, може и малко акцийки, защо да не станеш и ти радикал?”

🏙 “Неочаквани нахлувания на красота. Ето какво е животът.”

🌃 “Моузес отказваше да признае съществуването на злото. Но не можеше да направи така, че да не го изпитва.”

🌇 “Човешката душа е амфибия и аз докоснах страните и. … Тя живее в повече стихии, отколкото някога бих могъл да осъзная; и вероятно сред далечните звезди се образува материя, която ще създаде дори по-странни същества.”

🌆 “В миналото човешкият гений се е проявявал предимно в метафорите. А сега се проявява във фактите…”

🏙 “И ние живеем в хедонистичен свят, в който щастието е устроено по механичен модел. … Но човешкият живот е много по-сложен от всички тези модели…”

🌃 “…най-голямата двусмислица, от която страдат интелектуалците, а именно, че цивилизованият човек мрази и презира цивилизацията, която прави живота му възможен.”

🌇 “Все пак…човешкият интелект е една от най-великите сили във вселената. Опасно е да остава неизползван.”

🌆 “…хората с мощно въображение, със способността да мечтаят и да създават великолепни самодостатъчни фикции, се обръщат понякога към страданието, за да нарушат блаженството си, за да се ощипят и да се събудят.”

🏙 “Балансът ми идва от нестабилността. Не от организация или смелост, както е при другите... Трудно е, но това е положението. В това състояние дори аз мога да разбирам това-онова…Трябва да свиря на инструмента, който ми се е паднал.”

[Stela · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?"

What is the world for the intellectual? The playground of his ideas or the hell of his emotions? For Moses Hezog, a forty-seven-year old former Professor in a mid-life crisis it is certainly both. Recently gone through a messy divorce and the tragi-comedy of a marital triangle, the hero looks for the cathartic liberation from this emotional ballast in two ways: by writing letters to acquaintances and strangers, to the living and the dead, and by remembering the past. The result? A very exquisite mixture of epistolary and psychological novel intertwined with cleverly hidden intertextual dialogues, in a perfect narrative structure and a memorable collection of characters. A masterpiece signed Saul Bellow.

The novel follows Herzog’s quest to make sense of the world either following Tolstoy’s belief – that freedom is personal and indifferent to historical limitations, or Hegel’s conception – that freedom begins with the knowledge of death, knowledge fed by history and memory.

Therefore, the letters are not necessarily a way of communication (he never sends nor finishes them) they are a way of self understanding, Tolstoyan way: “I go after reality with language.” Thus, he keeps arguing with Spinoza whether the desire to exist is enough to lead to happiness, he feels like rejecting Nietzsche’s view of any present moment as a crisis, a fall from classical greatness on the principle that he had a Christian view of the history despite his accusation that Jesus Christ enslaved the world with his morality, and finally he finds a new interpretation of Kirkegaard’s belief that knowledge can be acquired only through hell by seeing suffering as a personal choice; not by playing at crisis, alienation, apocalypse and desperation, but as an antidote to illusion:

…people of powerful imagination, given to dreaming deeply and to raising up marvelous and self-sufficient fictions, turn to suffering sometimes to cut into their bliss, as people pinch themselves to feel awake.

Together with Samuel Johnson, Herzog discovers that suffering can acquire an almost hedonistic quality:

Grief, Sir, is a species of idleness.

If the letters are the intellectual dialogues with the world, memories are the emotional ones. Through personal history, this time in a Hegelian way, Herzog rebuilds his own image, since: “I am Herzog. I have to be that man. There is no one else to do it.” On these grounds he recalls all his “reality instructors”: his parents who taught him to love and to lose the loved one, his women who taught him that “not thinking is not necessarily fatal”, that is he can divorce intellect from emotion unpunished, his friends who taught him that generosity comes sometimes with an unbearable price tag. Two memorable Dostoyevskian figures emerge in all their contradictory splendour from this recollection: his second wife, Madeleine, who, according to Herzog, tried to steal his place in the world and his rival and former best friend Valentine Gersbach, who tried to become him, emulating his opinions and gestures. The only form of the self preservation, Herzog discovers, is detachment, so the final lesson the hero is gradually taught is the acceptance of death, be it physical or emotional:

And you, Gersbach, you’re welcome to Madeleine.
Enjoy her – rejoice in her. You will not reach me through her, however. I know you sought me in her flesh. But I am no longer there.

However. However. Which is the door to freedom – intellectual or emotional? Tolstoy or Hegel? For it is sure you cannot go through both at the same time, since they are rather opposite. Herzog clams up in the end, refusing either word or feeling, or simply refusing to tell. It‘s up to us to open whichever door we seem fit – for him and for ourselves, in a dignified answer to the mocking question of Longfellow’s dog at Kew: “Pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?”