Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories

by Saul Bellow

In six darkly comic tales, Saul Bellow presents the human experience in all its preposterousness, poignancy, and pathos. The stories, which include "Leaving the Yellow House," "The Old System," "Looking for Mr. Green," "The Gonzaga Manuscripts," and "A Father-to-Be," reflect Bellow s ability to depict men and women confronting, in highly idiosyncratic ways, the enigmas and oddities of existence.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, American

174 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

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

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite being "Brilliant", a "Major Work", "Extraordinary", and "Masterpieces" I found the six stories in this collection to be good but not exceptional.

I think this was my fourth, or maybe fifth, book of Saul Bellow's that I've read, and so far none of them have done much for me. Augie March I enjoyed better when it was called Studs Lonigan (but not by much, I didn't really enjoy that one so much either)*. Henderson the Rain King I liked better as the one Graham Greene book I read and didn't enjoy so much (that would be Heart of the Matter, I'm ducking out of the way to avoid the wrath of the Graham Greene contingent now). And Seize the Day? Well it didn't seize my memory, I can't remember much about that one. Just like I don't really remember much about any of these stories, even though I read them just a few weeks ago.

This may be an unfair comparison, but Saul Bellow reminds me of an edgier literary version of that vapid Christian painter Thomas Kinkade. Maybe I'm just not getting into well-crafted realistic fiction these days. But then I'm also feeling alienated by edgy / non-realism literary fiction, too, so maybe there is no pleasing me these days.

I did find a couple of these stories to be to my liking though. "Mosby's Memoirs" I found quite funny, although I should have apparently found it to be a story that "circles unerringly toward an inner abyss" (I think I actually really hated all the copy on the front and back cover. "The Old System" I also enjoyed, but I'm a sucker for really Jewey stories. Maybe that is what I don't like about Bellow, for a Jewish writer he's so freaking goyim. There are too many WASPS and not enough Jews in what I've read by him, or too much WASP sensibility or something. Too much Updike blah and not enough Roth goodness.

I'm done making an ass of myself for this review.

*I just noticed I gave Augie March four stars and Studs Lonigan three stars. I don't know what I was thinking. March was a pre-goodreads book, rated in my initial flurry of rating, I should go back and change it but I won't.

[Ade Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short stories from over 17 years. A lucky find in a secondhand shop while looking for Roberto Bolano. (I found him behind the sofa later on). Absolutely delightful, and not only that, a tugging to go back to those Americans I gorged on so long ago, Malamud down to Sinclair. Oh, you can never be poor as long as there are libraries and secondhand bookshops.

[Frabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sei racconti, scritti tra il 1951 e il 1968: “ciascuno verte su un’esperienza inizialmente insignificante e alla fine profondamente significativa”, rileva la quarta di copertina. I più sono come sempre ricchi e, direi, piacevolmente complessi, l’ultimo, “La memorie di Mosby”, è decisamente ostico, troppo per me. (Bellow è spesso un po’ contorto, e ciò risulta attraente, ma oltre certi limiti diventa eccessivamente arduo da decifrare e mette a disagio.)

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Saul Bellow's "The Adventures of Angie March" years ago and loved it. It's a Chicago-kid-makes-it-big story that had enough details of the time and place to really bring the city alive. Great stuff.

Then I read his "Henderson the Rain King" later, and didn't much care for it at all. Henderson was a smarmy jerk, and I didn't want to read about him as much, and his tale wasn't as interesting.

This collection falls somewhere in the middle. Bellow's great at bringing you the Chicago of bygone days, and the kinds of people who existed in it, and the stories themselves (to me) are more the background for descriptions of the city and how it works than anything else (except the Mosby story which is in New York City, and less compelling for it--that's not Bellow's city).

These are good stories about bygone days, and a Chicago that's long gone but maybe still around here and there. Worth a read, but Augie March was way better.

[Dan Pecchenino · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title story drags on, but "Leaving the Yellow House" is a masterpiece about an old desert-she-rat (not what one thinks of as standard Bellow fare) that produces what all good fiction should: sympathy for a largely unlikable person. The rest of the stories are, to greater and lesser degrees, about male panic in the middle of the 20th century. No one did that quite as well as Bellow, though none of the stories in this collection does it quite as well as SEIZE THE DAY.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

کمتر داستانی از "سال بلو" هست که در آن یک یا چند شخصیت "شکست خورده" و "بازنده" نباشند. اما بازندگان بلو کمتر به خط پایان و ناامیدی رسیده اند. آنها باخته اند، تا داستان خود را بگویند، برای آنها که ممکن است روزی ببازند!

Seems Bellow has gatherd a bunch of "failures" ...looks close to James...

رمان های مشهور سال بلو که توسط انتشارات ملی و به پاس نویسنده ای که برنده ی نوبل بوده است، تجدید چاپ شده است.
این طرف ها چاپ های بعدی یک اثر معمولن تغییراتی ولو اندک دارند، که وسوسه ای ست برای دوباره خواندنشان

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hated Mosby's Memoirs and Father to be and rabidly loved everything else. but mosby's memoirs made me want to die from boredom. sometimes, satire just gets so caught up in being satire it's only entertaining for the author as he's writing it. i didn't get it, but hope those that did enjoyed it, which seems to be literally everyone except for me. looking for mr green was excellent

[Liberis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πρώτη φορά Μπέλοου, γιατί όχι και άλλα έργα του. Αν και η μετάφραση πάσχει σε μερικά σημεία, το βιβλίο είναι παλιό και π.χ. το Χειρόγραφο μάλλον είναι του Gonzaga (Γκονζαγκα και όχι Γκονζάζα) έχει ωραία διηγήματα, ψυχογραφεί καίρια τους ήρωες του και γράφει ανοιχτά, χωρίς να μπερδεύει τον αναγνώστη του και να γίνεται δύστροπο το κείμενο.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bellow is always worth reading. Still, stories are not my thing. The two best here, that bear rereading, are The Old System and Mosby's Memoirs.

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd started this short story collection over a year ago, but I just read the first story 'Leaving the Yellow House' and abandoned it after beginning story #2 'The Old System'. But I picked up another collection of Jewish short stories (Penguin, edited by Emanuel Litvinoff) and Bellow's 'The Old System' was included. So after finishing that collection (and enjoying Bellow's tale), I came back to this collection of Bellow's short works.

Overall, I did not find this collection especially remarkable. The writing was generally rich, but with so many references that are out of date that I was often left feeling somewhat out of touch. I would probably rate most of the stories a 6/10, the exceptions being 'Looking for Mr. Green' (8/10), the earliest work in the collection from 1951, following George Grebe as he searches for the recipient of a welfare check on Chicago's Negro district (Southside?). This story felt the most timeless and relatable, both for the Kafka-esque nature of the goose chase, and the humble facing up to poverty of the community.

The other story that stood out for me was 'The Gonzaga Manuscripts' (7/10), written in 1954 and following Clarence Feiler who is in Spain on a hunt for the final love poems of the poet Manuel Gonzaga. I liked this story mostly because I'm a hispanophile, but also because of the subtle humor as the Spaniards / Europeans dig at Feiler for being an American by making fun of the atom bomb.

Of the rest of the stories, 'The Old System' about a self-made millionaire forced to cough up $20K to see his sister on her deathbed, and the eponymous 'Mosby's Memoirs' about a revered diplomat scholar writing his memoirs over mezcal in Oaxaca, were interesting. But in the end, I'm not sure I really got the point.

I have a respect for Bellow's writing style after this endeavor, but not much desire to start another work by him. That said, I recently read a blog post by one of my favorite musicians, Andrew Bird, in which he discussed 'The Adventures of Augie March' as the quintessential (or at least his favorite) American novel. I will move that one up on my To-Read list, and consider if Herzog is also worth the dive.

[Andrew Fisher · Rating 2 out of 5]

So these stories were published in various magazines in 1951-'68, but aren't in order of publication, the first published was Mr. Green, 1951 and the last Mosby's Memoirs, '68. The Old System was first published in Playboy in '67, fittingly as it had more sex content than the other stories. My favourites were the last three, Gonzaga Manuscripts, Father-to-Be and Mosby's Memoirs so I had to go through the mediocre stories to get to them. I sympathized with American Clarence's searching for Gonzaga's lost manuscripts in Spain and being continuously frustrated, nobody seeming to appreciate how important Gonzaga's poetry is to him. Rogin is the "father-to-be", at least he has a paranoid fear that he will be and of who the child will be until Joan soothes him. Mosby the writer, writes about his strange, unlucky Dutch friend Lustgarten.

[Anderson Quiroga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiene unas cuantas frases impresionantes que generan la reflexión de decir: “con razón recibió el Nobel”; pero son pocas las frases. La historias que contiene el libro son sencillas. Otra cosa importante, en uno de los cuentos se construye un personaje fuerte, la tía Rosa, en las 3 o 4 páginas que vive este personaje se vuelve increíble. Todas las historias son melancólicas, hablan sobre la edad, el tiempo, sobre el objetivo de la vida, sobre el final de la vida. No es un libro de personajes jóvenes, es un libro lleno de personas de mediana edad que arrancan pensando en algo. Los finales de cada cuento quedan abiertos, no llegan a una gran reflexión.

[Jude Burrows · Rating 3 out of 5]

a short but pleasant introduction to Bellow’s writing, and despite my rating I was incredibly impressed with his quality and insight. he easily combines the fantastical with the vividly everyday in a natural way that made the assortment of stories here very enjoyable. Bellow strikes right at the soul and mind, writing of consciousness and human experience like few others. my particular favourites here were ‘the old system’ and the titular ‘mosby’s memoirs’. my lower rating was only due to the difference in quality between the earlier stories and the later - the works here span 17 years of Bellow’s career. I am very excited to explore more of his work.

[Waleed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of six short stories fits the pattern of Bellow's novels: he is great at writing about Jews and Europe, less so when attempting mid-century gentile Americana. The three outstanding stories are up there with Herzog and Mr. Sammler's Planet:
The Gonzaga Manuscripts (1954), The Old System (1967), Mosby's Memoirs (1968)
The three average stories are at the same sort of level as Seize the Day and Henderson the Rain King:
Looking for Mr Green (1951), A Father-to-Be (1955), Leaving the Yellow House (1957)

[Catherine Wylie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few of the stories were entertaining enough, but I really didn't care for much of them. I only laughed out loud while reading one page, as he was going for satire.

The complicated characters operating within complex social systems are interesting, though.

Once you know his background education in sociology and anthropology, his intentions make more sense.

[Margherita13 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bellissima antologia di Saul Bellow, sono le prime parole che leggo di questo autore e mi ha stregato soprattutto il primo racconto, che dà il titolo a tutta la raccolta. Un'America antica e sconvolgente come piace a me.

[Annette Steyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

rather than character-driven little vignettes showcasing Bellows‘ deeply unsettling emotional intelligence and observatory powers, i found these short stories (except The Gonzaga Manuscripts) to be severely unentertaining, sluggish and grotesque...

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very uneven collection. The titular story is Bellow at his best and where he was clearly most at home—thematically and stylistically. The rest are experiments in unfamiliar territory for him which I don’t think worked well.

[David Massey]

Every story a masterpiece.

[Rick Seery · Rating 5 out of 5]

***** for all six.

Not a dud in the bunch.

[Thomas McDade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection! However, in my mind "The Gonzaga Manuscripts" deserves to be the title story!
Tops after that "Looking for Mr. Green."

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simply put, Bellow's writing is obviously amazing. His style is unique and he presents unsparing visions of the experience of individuals. In this collection of short stories, he follows Mosby as he contemplates the comedy of his memoirs while drinking, a man searching through Chicago's ghettos, a man worried about the man his son will become, a man searching for old love poems, an alcoholic woman dying in the desert, and a doctor related to a millionaire. These tales are meant to be darkly comic. Unfortunately, they just didn't connect with me. I prefer Bellow's other work.

See my other reviews here!

[Liam89 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Six intelligent and amusing stories from Saul Bellow, one of the foremost chroniclers of Jewish-American life. Some were more enjoyable than others, but I wonder if that is because some of the humour does not quite make it all the way across the Atlantic. However when the dialogue and observations work, they dazzle and sparkle as you would expect from the man who translated 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' into Yiddish. My personal favourite was the tale of Dr. Braun, the closing moments of which rank as some of the most gorgeously constructed prose I have ever read.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dated and disappointing book that was probably a hoot in 1970s America but is a bore now. 'Leaving the Yellow House' is the one story where the writer stopped trying to find clever put downs of his contemporaries and wrote a story about the real lives of real people, consequently it is the only story that survives as a work or art.

The writer also uses terminology that will have people reaching for the smelling salts, like negro and negress, and has one passage that is fascinating and shows how pearl clutching about climate change was de rigeur in polite society back in the 1960s.

[Javier · Rating 3 out of 5]

She had captured the station, and the pleasure this gave her was enormous. Yet her grievances were true grievances. She was telling the truth. But she behaved like a liar.

***

I want to give this a 4 but people have been giving me hell on my stars and I just can't be having people thinking I'm easy.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saul Bellow got awarded a Nobel Prize "for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work". And while I do agree that he is quite good at that, I just don't find the people he describes in this book all that interesting. Maybe it works for you though...

[Ronald Wise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Six short stories written between 1951 and 1968, with a larger variety of protagonists than is usual for Bellow. All were enjoyable to read and a couple of them presented some poignant moments. This collection came to my list when all of Bellow's books were added to my reading list following my enjoyment of his The Dangling Man.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was in undergrad, Brian Morton would talk about Saul Bellow. It took a roadtrip through Portland, OR, six or so years later, to pick up a book by Bellow. And it is so beautiful, such lovely character-driver fiction.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

What real makes these stories so compelling is the skill that Bellow has in combining richly-drawn characters and larger social issues. In Looking for Mr. Green for example, Bellow gives you a portrait of Mr. Grebe and a portrait of the darkest heart of the city. Very interesting stuff.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

*Leaving the yellow house --
*The old system --
*Looking for Mr. Green --
*The Gonzaga manuscripts --
*A father-to-be --
*Mosby's memoirs--
***
Notes of a dangling man
A sermon by Doctor Pep
A silver dish --3