Le don de Humboldt Tome 1

Le gaffeur

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Saul Bellow confined himself to shorter fictions. Not that this old master ever dabbled in minimalism: novellas such as The Actual and The Bellarosa Connection are bursting at the seams with wit, plot, and the intellectual equivalent of high fiber. Still, Bellow's readers wondered if he would ever pull another full-sized novel from his hat. With Ravelstein, the author has done just that--and he proves that even in his ninth decade, he can pin a character to the page more vividly, and more permanently, than just about anybody on the planet. Character is very much the issue in Ravelstein, whose eponymous subject is a thinly disguised version of Bellow's boon companion, the late Allan Bloom. Like Bloom, Abe Ravelstein has spent much of his career at the University of Chicago, fighting a rearguard action against the creeping boobism and vulgarity of American life. What's more, he's written a surprise bestseller (a ringer, of course, for The Closing of the American Mind), which has made him into a millionaire. And finally, he's dying--has died of AIDS, in fact, six years before the opening of the novel. What we're reading, then, is a faux memoir by his best friend and anointed Boswell, a Bellovian body-double named Chick:  Ravelstein was willing to lay it all out for me. Now why did he bother to tell me such things, this large Jewish man from Dayton, Ohio? Because it very urgently needed to be said. He was HIV-positive, he was dying of complications from it. Weakened, he became the host of an endless list of infections. Still, he insisted on telling me over and over again what love was--the neediness, the awareness of incompleteness, the longing for wholeness, and how the pains of Eros were joined to the most ecstatic pleasures.  Ravelstein is a little thin in the plot department--or more accurately, it has an anti-plot, which consists of Chick's inability to write his memoir. But seldom has a case of writer's block been so supremely productive. The narrator dredges up anecdote after anecdote about his subject, assembling a composite portrait: "In approaching a man like Ravelstein, a piecemeal method is perhaps best." We see this very worldly philosopher teaching, kvetching, eating, drinking, and dying, the last in melancholic increments. His death, and Chick's own brush with what Henry James called "the distinguished thing," give much of the novel a kind of black-crepe coloration. But fortunately, Bellow shares Ravelstein's "Nietzschean view, favorable to comedy and bandstands," and there can't be many eulogies as funny as this one.  As always, the author is lavish with physical detail, bringing not only his star but a large gallery of minor players to rude and resounding life ("Rahkmiel was a non-benevolent Santa Claus, a dangerous person, ruddy, with a red-eyed scowl and a face in which the anger muscles were highly developed"). His sympathies are also stretched in some interesting directions by his homosexual protagonist. Bellow hasn't, to be sure, transformed himself into an affirmative-action novelist. But his famously capacious view of human nature has been enriched by this additional wrinkle: "In art you become familiar with due process. You can't simply write people off or send them to hell." A world-class portrait, a piercing intimation of mortality, Ravelstein is truly that other distinguished thing: a great novel. --James Marcus

Ravelstein

"Était-il intelligent ou idiot ? En ce moment, il ne pouvait guère prétendre être intelligent. Il avait peut-être eu un jour les armes pour le devenir, mais il avait plutôt choisi d'être un rêveur et les requins l'avaient nettoyé. Quoi d'autre ? Il perdait ses cheveux. Il lisait les publicités de Thomas, le spécialiste du cuir chevelu, avec le scepticisme de celui dont le désir de croire est profond, désespéré. Spécialiste du cuir chevelu! Oui, il avait été beau autrefois. Son visage portait les marques des corrections qu'il avait reçues. Mais il l'avait cherché, encourageant ainsi ses assaillants. Ce qui l'amena à réfléchir sur son personnage. Comment le qualifier? Eh bien, selon le vocabulaire actuel, il était narcissique ; il était masochiste ; il était anachronique."

Herzog

À Philadelphie, dans un passé indéfini, le narrateur de ce court roman a fondé un Institut de la mémoire. Une fois l'âge de la retraite arrivé (une retraite qu'il ne peut pas prendre car « travailler dans la mémoire, "l'essence même de la vie", implique que la retraite, c'est la mort ! »), il décide de nous raconter l'histoire d'Harry Fonstein, un réfugié d'Europe centrale, affublé d'une chaussure orthopédique, de sa femme Sorella et de Billy Rose, petit truand de Broadway.Sauvé des nazis par Billy Rose alors qu'il était enfermé dans une prison italienne, Harry Fonstein est conduit à Gênes et mis dans un bateau en direction de New York. Cependant, après qu'une assistante de Billy Rose l'a aidé à passer la sélection d'Ellis Island, il doit se rendre à l'évidence : son bienfaiteur ne souhaite pas le rencontrer pour être remercié ; il lui fait même promettre qu'il ne cherchera pas à le revoir.Après avoir travaillé quelques années à Cuba et y avoir rencontré sa future femme, il fera fortune et aura un enfant, mais il ne pourra jamais oublier l'homme qui lui avait autrefois sauvé la vie. Et c'est justement Sorella qui essayera de l'aider à son insu en organisant un rendez-vous entre les deux hommes, à l'occasion d'un voyage en Israël. Au moyen d'un dossier complet de tous ses méfaits, obtenu de l'ancienne assistante de Billy Rose, elle tentera de le faire chanter pour qu'il rencontre son cher Harry...La Bellarosa connection est un roman très percutant, qui met en place une réflexion sur l'homme, sa solitude et sa déconcertante ambiguïté. À travers les réflexions de son narrateur, lucide et désenchanté, Saul Bellow fait preuve d'un humour caustique, incisif, qui met en relief, jusque dans les moments les plus tragiques, les aspects absurdes de l'existence.

La Bellarosa connection

Maestro del romanzo americano del secondo dopoguerra, Premio Nobel per la letteratura, modello di stile e di pensiero per generazioni di scrittori e per tanti eredi più o meno dichiarati, da Philip Roth a Jonathan Franzen, Saul Bellow è forse anche l'ultimo, grande autore per il quale la crea­zione letteraria e la dimensione pubblica hanno rappresentato due entità imprescindibili e complementari. Così, all'inesauribile vena di narratore e commediografo si è sempre accompagnata una intensa produzione saggistica, ospitata da grandi testate e prestigiose riviste. Nei ventuno saggi qui raccolti, scritti nell'arco di un cinquantennio, Saul Bellow prende di petto i grandi temi della modernità e ci racconta il Secolo Americano con una lucidità di sguardo, un rigore, un'ironia e una passione che hanno pochi eguali nella letteratura del suo tempo, e non solo. Che si tratti di recensioni, ritratti di artisti e colleghi - da Hemingway a Roth, da Ellison a Salinger -, riflessioni sul rapporto tra scrittore e società, conferenze sull'identità ebraica, autoritratti carichi di ironia, la puntualità dell'analisi e l'eleganza dello stile si ripropongono ogni volta inalterate, e offrono, a poco più di dieci anni dalla morte, un'occasione preziosa per ripercorrere un'attività fertile, intensa e contraddittoria, che continua ancora oggi a produrre grandi frutti.

Troppe cose a cui pensare - Saggio 1951-2000

Cet entretien de 1999, enregistré à Boston, traverse le XXème siècle. Des origines familiales juives de Russie des parents de Saul Bellow, forcés de fuir le régime tsariste et d'émigrer au Canada, à sa vie américaine à Chicago. Il s'y dessine les tensions fécondes de son enfance entre la nostalgie et la tradition juive des parents, l'éveil à l'altérité et la volonté inébranlable de son grand frère de devenir américain. La guerre des langues et l'importance de la possession de chacune est évidemment soulignée.
C'est aussi une discussion sur le grand roman contemporain, sur la littérature juive-américaine dont Saul Bellow a été l'un des créateurs, sur ses rapports avec les autres écrivains, Isaac Singer et Philip Roth en tête.

Avant de s'en aller : Saul Bellow, une conversation avec Norman Manea

This is the definitive collection of short stories by Saul Bellow. Abundant, precise, various, rich and exuberant, the stories display the stylistic and emotional brilliance which characterizes this master of prose. Some stories recount the events of a single day, some are contained in a wider frame; each story is a characteristic combination of observation and a celebration of humanity.

Le don de Humboldt Tome 1

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