A Companion to the American Short Story
Page 73
math of the Holocaust and the Nuremberg tribunals, garnered even more critical
praise. The latter explores the ability of twentieth - century man to cope with victim-
ization and paranoia. During one long, hot summer when his wife is visiting her
parents, Asa Levanthal wrestles with rising fears about job security, anti - Semitism,
and the predations of his seedy, gentile nemesis, Kirby Allbee. Asa is a Jew scarred
by his mother ’ s madness and screaming fi ts and by his failure to bond with his father.
When he loses both parents before his adult life really begins, he fi nds himself emo-
tionally ill - equipped for life. Asa ’ s brother, Max, is absent for the summer, leaving
Asa at the mercy of his immigrant sister - in - law ’ s pleas for help with expenses. Fur-
thermore, he must assume responsibility for his young nephew, Mickey. But Mickey
sickens and dies before Max ’ s return, deepening Asa ’ s paranoia and activating his
prejudices about his Roman Catholic, immigrant in
-
laws. He fears that the
mad - looking, superstitious Catholic immigrant mother - in - law blames him for his
nephew ’ s death.
Beneath all this, Bellow relentlessly explores the spiritual importance of the human
social contract and the Biblical injunction to be our brothers ’ keepers. The hellishly
hot summer and the underlying theme of anti - Semitism refl ect the mood of American
Jewry in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. We last see Asa accompanied by
his recently returned wife, who is clearly pregnant. Asa, about to be a father, is fi nally
reconciled to his brother, rid of the gentile Allbee, and able to quell the anxieties that
paranoia, anger, and self - isolation have produced in him. More importantly, he is able
to admit his dependency on love and friendship. Asa Leventhal is the eternal Jew who
must deal emotionally with the post - Holocaust world and still accept that he is liter-
ally his brother ’ s keeper.
Saul
Bellow
333
Both of Bellow ’ s early novellas refl ect American society ’ s intellectual and moral
preoccupations of the day, as well as a certain culmination of the modernist ideological
debate in American literature that was bent on contrasting the philosophical premises
of European existentialism with traditional Judeo - Christian humanism. Both novellas
demonstrate Bellow
’
s engagement with such writers as Kierkegaard, Dostoevski,
Heidegger, Nietzsche, Hobbes, and Sartre. Behind the nightmarish cityscape of The
Victim , we see Bellow again describing the city as a chaotic, primeval African jungle
and as a pitiless African lion who has no regard for human life. Inside these two
African tropes, Bellow registers the inhumanity of the moment and explores the case
for “ Civilization. ” Both novellas portray nostalgia over the failure of the romantic
quest, the moral exhaustion of an entire generation of young men who came of age
in the 1940s, and the moral bankruptcy of a metaphysically derived humanism. Ques-
tions about freedom, goodness, absurdity, death, monastic solitude, and existential
anxiety mark them both. Years later, Bellow called Dangling Man his MA and The
Victim his PhD. However, they are exquisitely written explorations of the historical
traumas of the fi rst half of the century, and, as such, they enabled him fi nally to make
his break with European modernism.
The third of these novellas that culminates his early period is Seize the Day (1956) ,
Bellow ’ s most read and anthologized novella. It is a remarkably sober retreat from the
exuberance of his jumbo - sized novel, The Adventures of Augie March (1953), which
preceded it, and has all the surface appearance of yet another modernist “ victim novel. ”
Set in an urban wasteland replete with the sepulchral Hotel Gloriana, this novella
features the hapless Tommy Wilhelm, who is unemployed and estranged from his
wife and children. As a young man, he has rejected his father ’ s profession (medicine),
tried out for a career in Hollywood, changed his name, fallen prey to a phony talent
scout, ended up in sales, and subsequently lost his sales district due to nepotism. The
classic schlemiehl of Yiddish folklore, he winds up in the dreadful Hotel Gloriana bor-
rowing money from his disgusted father and fi elding intrusive questions from an
elderly group of decaying capitalist fathers who brag endlessly of their sons ’ successes.
Dr. Adler, embarrassed by his son ’ s failure, lies about him to his friends. Wilhelm,
not unlike Willy Loman, has failed to fulfi ll Dr. Adler ’ s notions of masculine achieve-
ment in America, and the cruel old man is unable to express love for him.
Ultimately, Tommy is conned out of his remaining cash by the grotesque Dr.
Tamkin, a devilish morality play fi gure and charlatan who spouts absurdist philoso-
phy, mangled Freudianism, alienation ethics, and cheap nihilism. While Tommy
longs for accessible, sensible truths, Tamkin assures him that there are only crooked
lines. When Tommy asks him where he gets his ideas, Tamkin ironically replies, “ I
read the best of literature, science, and philosophy ” (72). His advice to Tommy is to
take no thought for tomorrow because the past has no value and the future is an
impending nightmare. In spite of all this, Tommy seems na
ï
vely determined to
recover simplicity. His fi nal emotional climax, some critics argue, is not bitterness at
betrayal, but an epiphany of love for all the lurid, imperfect people like himself
whom he discovers in Chicago
’
s underground subway and in the nearby funeral
334
Gloria L. Cronin
parlor. Bellow seems to be insisting that truth resides within the suffi ciently human-
ized soul and requires no elaborate acquaintance with either philosophy or the stock
exchange.
Some readers have called Tommy Wilhelm pathetic, whereas others have called
him heroic. Many were dismayed with the book ’ s tight organization and seemingly
modernist aesthetics, while others praised it for its concentration, intensity, and
focused crescendo. Years later, Bellow told an interviewer that he was so appalled at
the philosophical immaturity of The Adventures of Augie March (1953) that he wrote
the austere Seize the Day in an attempt to transcend the earlier novel ’ s effusive and
emotional limitations. Seize the Day, however, may have been written during the same
time frame as his fi rst two “ alienation ” novellas, though Bellow never more than
hinted at this. Seize the Day is ultimately an anti - modernist novella counterpointing
death and despair with psychic renewal and spiritual survival. Along with the fi ction
that preceded it, it sets the pattern for the masterworks of the middle years.
The Middle Years: 1963 – 1988
By now fi rmly established as a preeminent twentieth - century author, Saul Bellow won
numerous awards and honorary degrees, all culminating in 1976 with the Nobel Prize.
During these great middle years, he produced his major novels: Henderson the Rain
King (1959), Herzog (1964) , Mr. Sammler ’ s Planet (1970), Humboldt ’ s Gift (1975) , The Dean ’ s December
More Die of Heartbreak
(1987). However, Bellow also
continued his exploration of the short fi ction form. More than just a workshop for
testing ideas, characters, and situations to be included in his longer fi ctions, the short
fi ction genre increasingly functioned for Bellow as a statement on the passing of the
modern era. It has much to do with Bellow ’ s perception of himself not only as suc-
cessor to the era of the moderns – notorious for their large cerebral and experimental
novels – but as a reactionary anti - modernist. His career has been about “ going against
the stream ” (Simmons 33) by rejecting the intellectual assumptions of the modernist
writers in a concerted effort to defl ect the main course of modernist thinking. His
rather Freudian “ killing ” of the modernist fathers – Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence, Rilke,
Mann, Eliot, and even Hemingway – is something he justifi es by accusing them of
being party to the prolonged dominance of Anglo - American culture. In truth, the
ambitious Bellow needed to clear a space for himself. In the early short stories and
novellas, Bellow began expressing his dissatisfaction with the by now stock fi gure of
the alienated hero, the nihilistically absurd world, and the wasteland outlook. Instead,
he created a series of comically absurd romantic heroes, men of learning and sensibility
who spend their brief fi ctional lives refuting modernist philosophical skepticism and
refusing courtship of the void. He blamed English Departments for being the Paris
substitutes for young men determined to mimic the moderns ( “ Keynote ” 3) with their
perpetuation of the modernist writing mentality through two more generations of
writers nurtured in writers - in - residence programs (Harper 88). He complained that
Saul
Bellow
335
two generations of English professors raised their students to view Joyce, Mann,
Proust, Eliot, Lawrence, and Hemingway as the last literary “ prophets ” and to admire
only modernist philosophical complexity, aesthetics, and jumbo
-
sized, radically
experimental novels. Novellas such as Dangling Man , The Victim , and Seize the Day
single - mindedly parody these modernist philosophers and the literary formulas they
use to stage heroes who experience a muted transcendence.
Mosby ’ s Memoirs (1968) , his fi rst short story collection, is unifi ed by the same the-
matics as the early novellas. In each story, Bellow explores isolated, immobilized, and
overly cerebral characters, all of whom express belief in the preeminence of human
feeling and the reality of the soul. Remarkable for their clarity, sheer stylishness, and
general felicity, they each examine the effects on the human spirit of scientifi c ratio-
nalism and acquisitiveness. “ Leaving the Yellow House ” (1958) is a textual excavation
of the lost, new American Eden and is the fi rst of his stories to feature a female pro-
tagonist. However, like each of Bellow ’ s male heroes, Hattie exemplifi es the archetypal
American theme of individualism and solipsism and also fails to solve the problem
through self - isolation. “ The Old System ” (1968) is also preoccupied with the loss of
family feeling and explores Old World American and Old World Jewish identity in
the now defunct Jewish extended family. In this story, Bellow reveals his emotional
investment in the immigrant Jewish communities of his childhood, his veneration of
life, and his pervasive concern for morality. “ Looking for Mr. Green ” (1951) has been
hailed as one of the fi nest short stories of the past sixty years. It is the existential fable
of the hero, Grebe, who attempts to locate a crippled Negro, Mr. Green, so he can
give him his relief check. It then becomes his stubborn attempt to prove that even
an unimportant individual ’ s life has worth. Grebe is the typical Bellovian metaphysi-
cian, while Mr. Green is almost an illusion whom he does not actually get to see.
“ The Gonzaga Manuscripts ” (1954) is also a classic study in the hero ’ s process of
moving from estrangement to reconciliation. “ A Father - to - Be ” (1955) is one of Bel-
low ’ s best treatments of his recurring motif of human feeling versus scientifi c rational-
ism. Rogin, a biological scientist, becomes absolutely irrational when faced with
fatherhood. He goes to great lengths to avoid his future in the form of his own chil-
dren. Rationalizing and philosophizing, he is unable to reconcile his infantilism with
his Oedipal urges and ends up in total regression. “ Mosby ’ s Memoirs ” (1968) features
Mr. Mosby, who is in Oaxaca on a Guggenheim Fellowship supposedly to write his
memoirs. French by descent, he admits that, like his defeated countrymen, he too is
galled at the thought of the French collaboration with the Nazis and at their subse-
quent liberation by the Allies. The story is fi lled with World War II politics, morality,
philosophical considerations, and Realpolitik. Throughout the volume, Bellow asserts
that the world is sanctifi ed, that humankind is capable of moral dignity and even
holiness, and that apocalyptic twentieth - century Romanticism is destructive.
Bellow ’ s search for a genre that would appropriately express his sense of the con-
temporary age began with his investigation of the short story and novella and then
extended into his deliberate deformation of the modernist novel. For instance, in the
larky The Adventures of Augie March , he rewrites Joyce ’ s Portrait of the Artist as a Young
336
Gloria L. Cronin
Man ; in Henderson the Rain King, he parodies the heroes and literary formulas of Ernest
Hemingway; in Herzog, he mimics the buoyant eighteenth - century epistolary novel
in parody of James Joyce ’ s Ulysses ; in More Die of Heartbreak, he reclaims Gogol and
the eighteenth - century French farce as his characters lament the failure of heterosexual
love in the late twentieth century. In the end, however, Bellow does not write his
sense of contemporary life exclusively inside of novels. In addition, he modifi ed the
traditional short story by greatly intensifying it with condensation, intellectual com-
plexity, monologues, and mental letters. Likewise, he seized upon the somewhat
dubious form of the novella, his favorite short fi ction genre, and gave it some of his
best imaginative energy. In each one, we fi nd unforgettable characters, all the major
themes, and that inimitable Bellovian voice that Irving Howe describes as a “ jabbing
interchange of ironies, … intimate vulgarities, [and a] blend of the sardonic and
sentimental ” (Atlas, 14). Compounded of Yiddish, Russian, Lachine French, Chica-
goan street language, and academic English, this has become the voice of Bellow ’ s
metaphysical comedians.
As for the thematic content, Bellow is just as adamant throughout his short stories
and novellas that he is opposed to “ shivery ” modernist games ( Herzog 317). In every
story and novella, Bellow testifi es that, in the second half of the twentieth century,
enough observable nightmares exist without our needing to be heir to reductive
modernist theories about mankind, language, subjectivism, absurdism, human psy-
chology, art, cre
ativity, mass society, and human sexuality. The short fi ction form
allows him a more condensed genre in which to write the contemporary moment. In
an important lecture given in Israel in 1987, he declared that “ grand modernist sum-
mations are no longer expected of novelists; instead, smaller versions of life are perhaps
more truthful ” ( “ Silent Assumptions ” 198). As for his late twentieth - century audi-
ence, he felt that short fi ction is the most apt form with its “ preference for the transi-
tory, for summaries, resumes, for compression, fl uidity, for fl ashing speed, for
condensation ” (197). Clearly Bellow wishes to museumize his modernist predecessors
and thereby create a contemporary space for himself. Mr. Sammler says it best: “ Short
views, for God ’ s sake, short views ” ( Sammler 114). Critics have generally failed to
realize that Bellow is attempting to fi nd an appropriate fi ctional form for the contem-
porary moment; moreover, they have habitually ignored his short fi ction in favor of
his novels.
When Him with His Foot in His Mouth (1984) , his second collection of stories,
appeared, Bellow was recognized as an internationally distinguished virtuoso of short
fi ction. Cynthia Ozick called this collection a “ reprise, ” a “ concordance ” that functions
as a “ summary of all the old obsessions, hauled up by a single tough rope ” (11). For
her it is a concentrated, cumulative work of art splendidly condensed “ in a vial. ” Many
critics described them as beautifully crafted, thickly textured, skillfully rendered, and
full of brilliant self - communion. The collection ’ s unifying preoccupation is the col-
lapse of the Jewish extended family. Distinguished by the sophisticated device of the
monologue, the stories are brimming with boldness, sharp satire, linguistic elegance,
lucid humor, and moral insight. Each concentrates on the problematic and sometimes
Saul
Bellow
337
tortured relationship between an individual and the extended family. Comic, devious,
tender, and wicked by turns, these stories are rife with characters engaging in rhetori-
cal self - justifi cation, interesting subterfuges, and hostility to women. “ Him with His
Foot in His Mouth ” (1984) stages the mea culpa of Shawmut, an arrogant, witty intel-