Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Saul Bellow -- R.I.P.

I realize that Saul Bellow isn't the kind of writer I usually mention here, but what the heck. Well over 40 years ago, I read his short novel "Dangling Man." I thought it was OK, but it didn't really make a deep impression. A few years later I read The Adventures of Augie March, which did. And Henderson the Rain King was a staple in freshman English classes when I was a teaching assistant in my grad school days. I read Herzog and liked it so much that I later taught it for a couple of semesters. And I also read and liked Mr. Sammler's Planet. All my books from those days are in storage, but I'm sure I still have them, each one heavily underlined, and no doubt containing pithy comments in the margins. It's been at least twenty years since I read anything by Bellow, but now that he's gone, I kind of miss him.

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