Reading 1001 discussion

Review thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

From Penguin Random House

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. From the beginning, Herzog calls into question his own sanity. Throughout the novel he confronts the concerns and accusations of madness from Dr. Edvig, his brother Shura, Mady, Gersbach, and others. Is Herzog insane? Does the novel follow Herzog from mental illness to mental health? Is Herzog’s condition “normal” for an intellectual living at the height of the Cold War?

2. Discuss the “murder” scene. Why does Herzog not carry out the crime? How does this refute immoralism or nihilism? Does it? Does the action, or non-action, constitute heroism?

3. Examining the portrayals of Madeleine, Ramona, Zono, Zipporah, Daisy, and the other women in Herzog’s life, what generalizations, if any, can be made about Bellow’s ideas about women? Are women unknowable to men, as Herzog comes despairingly close to concluding?

4. In addition to the letters, what else has played a decisive role in Herzog’s “cure”? What role, if any, has Ramona played? His brother Shura?

5. Discuss the geography of Herzog, particularly the four main locales—Quebec, New York, Chicago, Ludeyville. If Ludeyville is meant to represent an Emersonian ideal, albeit an impossible one, what do the other settings signify?

6. With the vast amount of epistolary material and the great intimacy the narrator has with the hero, we tend to forget that Herzog is not a first person narrative. Who is the narrator? A removed aspect of Herzog’s personality? A competitor to Herzog? His analyst? Where do the narrator and Herzog part ways?

7. Some of the most moving parts of the book are Herzog’s recollections of his childhood on Napoleon Street. Besides informing the reader about details of his past, how do these sections function in the novel as a whole? How do they assist Herzog during his time of crisis?

8. In his portrait of Dr. Edvig and in the comic “gun” scene with Herzog’s father, Bellow parodies psychiatry and Freudian ideas on the hostility between father and son. However, Herzog’s cure for his emotional problems is essentially a talking cure, a method pioneered by Freud in which the patient gives voice to his/her deepest anxieties. What kind of view of human psychology does Herzog present?

9. Most of Bellow’s fiction dramatizes the struggles specific to Jewish intellectuals in America. What is significant about Herzog’s Jewishness? Is an understanding of his Jewishness indispensable to an understanding of the novel?

10. Herzog is a novel that champions ordinary experience. At one point, Herzog eulogizes his father, an ordinary man, by saying “his I had dignity.” Opposed to the value of ordinariness and the common connections between people are the ideological arguments—marxism, existentialism, nihilism—of the age. Discuss Herzog’s comment at the end of the novel that Mady “brought ideology into my life.” Did she? What role did Gersbach play in perverting Herzog’s faith in ordinary experience? What about his colleague Shapiro?

I'm just posting to say that I'm a third through this novel and will try to pick it up now that I've finished Nostromo.
I'm already reading a couple of other 1001 list books as well: Diaries of Jane Somers (Lessing) and Devil to Pay in the Backlands (Guimares Rosa).

1. From the beginning, Herzog calls into question his own sanity. Throughout the novel he confronts the concerns and accusations of madness from Dr. Edvig, his brother Shura, Mady, Gersbach, and others. Is Herzog insane? Does the novel follow Herzog from mental illness to mental health? Is Herzog’s condition “normal” for an intellectual living at the height of the Cold War?

I thought that Herzog was reacting to what he perceived to be extremely stressful and difficult circumstances as many people would; with thoughts of revenge, with thoughts of how he would right wrongs through intellectual arguments, with self concerns about his own sanity. He was not "normal" because when someone who is under stress like that (death, divorce, sickness), "normal" does not quite cover the available options. Further, Herzog is a character who exists in his mind rather than in his actions in the world, and his mind was not behaving well, as he admits to others. I read him as a bit manic but by no means "insane" but I am not a health care professional.

2. Discuss the “murder” scene. Why does Herzog not carry out the crime? How does this refute immoralism or nihilism? Does it? Does the action, or non-action, constitute heroism?

There actually isn't a "murder" scene...there is a moment when Herzog goes to confront Madeleine and Gersbach and instead sees Gersbach being incredibly caring toward his daughter. Herzog realizes that he can not commit violence as it would only make his already broken mind more broken, but also because he realizes that although he may think a great deal about nihilism, with all his doubts and despair, Herzog actually has a foundation of caring and empathy. He makes the choice to act with compassion and order rather than going with the disorder of his thoughts over the last months. I did not read this as "heroism". It was simply humane.

3. Examining the portrayals of Madeleine, Ramona, Zono, Zipporah, Daisy, and the other women in Herzog’s life, what generalizations, if any, can be made about Bellow’s ideas about women? Are women unknowable to men, as Herzog comes despairingly close to concluding?

Yes, Herzog gives the rather positive attribute of mystery to almost all women, even his mother-in-law. He is not really in a position to make generalizations about women but he does read the actions and thoughts of the women he knows through his own fractured mind which both reflects a great deal of knowledge about how people think in general, but also reflects more of his own thoughts than the thoughts of the women.

4. In addition to the letters, what else has played a decisive role in Herzog’s “cure”? What role, if any, has Ramona played? His brother Shura?

The letters allow Herzog to work out his thoughts in the way that his mind works best, through direct confrontation and assumed dialogue with others. Both Ramona and his brother Will are sympathetic and loving and willing to let him work through his issues on his own terms as long as he doesn't wander too far off course. Shura mostly serves as an example of "making it". He gives Herzog the financial backing so that Herzog doesn't need to work while he is going through his upheavals.

5. Discuss the geography of Herzog, particularly the four main locales—Quebec, New York, Chicago, Ludeyville. If Ludeyville is meant to represent an Emersonian ideal, albeit an impossible one, what do the other settings signify?

Quebec is home, the starting place. Herzog largely thinks positively about his early years although his father was not your normal father.
New York is dynamic, intellectual, alienating and represents a lot of what Herzog thinks about in terms of his letters to others. His philosophical foundations and fracturing. Although, Ludeyville represents an idealism, nature, healing, it is also the place that his marriage fell apart. Herzog isn't really a product of nature. Chicago is where the only "action" takes place. It is not the world of the mind or the world of the intellect or idealism. Chicago is more real, real actions, real emotions, real consequences.

6. With the vast amount of epistolary material and the great intimacy the narrator has with the hero, we tend to forget that Herzog is not a first person narrative. Who is the narrator? A removed aspect of Herzog’s personality? A competitor to Herzog? His analyst? Where do the narrator and Herzog part ways?

The narrator knows Herzog's thoughts but if we "hear" Herzog through his letter writing, the narrator is calmer, and more objective. When Herzog finally gives up letter writing and calms down in the end, the narrator is less "useful", the more objective observer is not as necessary.

7. Some of the most moving parts of the book are Herzog’s recollections of his childhood on Napoleon Street. Besides informing the reader about details of his past, how do these sections function in the novel as a whole? How do they assist Herzog during his time of crisis?

His memory of his early life give Herzog a moral foundation and emotional grounding. All that takes place there comes before his tackling the academic, intellectual sphere where all thought is directed toward understanding what is not understandable. He could experience life there without breaking it down into intellectual philosophies.


9. Most of Bellow’s fiction dramatizes the struggles specific to Jewish intellectuals in America. What is significant about Herzog’s Jewishness? Is an understanding of his Jewishness indispensable to an understanding of the novel?

Herzog does not represent a religious Jew, he represents an intellectual secular Jew. However his moral compass is based in being Jewish. I think one does not need to understand "jewishness" to understand the novel. Alienation, fracturing, the over thinking and over analyzing could be understood without a deep understanding of Jewishness. However, Bellows might disagree....he writes from a Jewish perspective.

10. Herzog is a novel that champions ordinary experience. At one point, Herzog eulogizes his father, an ordinary man, by saying “his I had dignity.” Opposed to the value of ordinariness and the common connections between people are the ideological arguments—marxism, existentialism, nihilism—of the age. Discuss Herzog’s comment at the end of the novel that Mady “brought ideology into my life.” Did she? What role did Gersbach play in perverting Herzog’s faith in ordinary experience? What about his colleague Shapiro

I am not an academic or an intellectual so this is probably way to simplistic a statement but if Herzog aims for a real grounded life of shared experiences, Madeleine touched off a political, intellectual manipulation where by Herzog was in danger of losing his grounding. Gersbach was manipulated by Mady but was also manipulating in that he "loved" Herzog and yet used him horribly. Neither Madeliene or Gersbach seem to have a solid moral integrity. Herzog wants badly to get back to his garden or grounding where by he does not have to overthink everything. Shapiro is another example of an intellectual who has lost his way. He is a scholar but he does not seem to be able to ground himself in any truth. His one emotional experience is with a monkey.

I'm now 2/3 of the way. It is a very wordy book, with a lot more talk about the characters and what they think and feel than story. I haven't really looked forward to reading a little of it daily but have stuck with it. Herzog seems quite neurotic in ways that are not unusual for academic intellectuals, as Gail said overthinking. I feel like it would help him to do some actual work besides writing and a physical activity like swimming, tennis.