(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called literary "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the labelEssay #38: Humboldt's Gift (1975), by Saul BellowThe story in a nutshell:In good Postmodernist fashion, Saul Bellow's 1975 Humboldt's Gift is a semi-autobiography of sorts, one concerning a writer named Von Humboldt Fleischer -- modeled on Bellow's actual writer friend Delmore Schwartz, who you can also perhaps think of as a cross between e.e. cummings and Nelson Algren, an irascible but brilliant star of Early Modernist poetry (like cummings) but the communist-friendly product of a salty blue-collar Jewish immigrant family (like Algren) -- and the tumultuous decades-long relationship he has with his onetime protege and now award-winning millionaire Charlie Citrine -- based on Bellow himself, who you can also picture as an amalgam of John Updike, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, and all the other academes who eventually became the superstars of post-Vietnam literature, but who actually got their starts in the Modernist '50s precisely by studying under people like Schwartz*.Also in good Postmodernist fashion, then, the actual plot of Humboldt's Gift seems more like a hasty afterthought, with its main point being instead simply to watch the now middle-aged Citrine go through his daily '70s routine in Chicago where he lives (racquetball with politicians, bathhouse steams with fellow intellectuals, petty squabbles in his neighborhood of Hyde Park), while he reminisces about the changing fate over the decades of the recently deceased Humboldt, which quickly becomes a rumination on American history in general -- how in the 1930s, for example, the nation eagerly embraced the experimentation and radical liberalism of Humboldt's work; how they collectively then turned their backs on him in the conservative 1950s, even as Citrine himself became famous for a bitter Broadway comedy that parodied Humboldt's extremism; how by the Kennedy '60s, shiny ethnic progressives like Citrine and his pals had fallen back in favor with the American public, even while burned-out New Dealers like Humboldt were now cynical shadows of their former selves; and how by the '70s when our story takes place, all aspects of the arts were rapidly being overrun by corporate conglomeration and naked commercialism, a world that had no place for someone like Humboldt at all, as best typified by the low-level gangster Rinaldo Cantibile who Citrine accidentally forms a relationship with, and who spends the book constantly pitching various ways that Citrine could turn his recent Pulitzer and old relationship with Humboldt into a literal cash factory. Add a few hundred references to various minor writers and philosophers of the 20th century, and you have Bellow's book in a nutshell.The argument for it being a classic:Well, for starters, his fans say, it was the winner of the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for literature, and this in the same year that he also won the more prestigious Nobel Prize for literature (awarded to writers based on their entire career, not just for a specific book). More importantly, though, Humboldt's Gift is literally a textbook example of what the Postmodernist era was all about (which for the purposes of this essay series is being defined as the thirty years between Woodstock and 9/11), as well as what the intellectuals of that period treasured most in literature -- it is thoughtful, it is self-referential, it is slyly funny, the language is beautiful, and it concentrates much more on exploring character than on obsessively trying to come up with a potboiler storyline, like so many of the cheap genre novels that had mostly defined the industry only one generation previously. Just one of many titles by Bellow that were celebrated bestsellers in their day, his fans argue that this particular one is a perfect example of why he's considered one of the most important writers of the entire 20th century (and one of the most important Jewish writers in all of history), a poster-child for the changing of the guard that happened to literature in general during these years, into something that slowly became much smarter and more based on metaphor than what the industry had seen before.The argument against:Of course, as with many Postmodernist projects, the exact arguments just cited can be completely turned around into criticisms as well, which is exactly what you see among a whole lot of disgruntled readers online -- that books like Humboldt's Gift are actually the worst thing that could've ever happened to literature, an endlessly navel-gazing piece of academic circle-jerk crap in which nothing actually happens, no conclusions about the world are made, and one's opinion doesn't even count unless one is the holder of an MFA. After all, say its critics, this was the exact period of history when novels first stopped being the most dominant form of culture in our society, supplanted quickly in those years by film and television, which to this day still mostly dominate the mainstream arts in terms of influence and popularity; and a big reason for this was because of academes taking over the literary industry in those years, with their smartypants "deconstructionism" and "metafiction" and "it's not funny ha-ha, it's funny makes-you-think!" Humboldt's Gift is a perfect example of this, they argue, an overwritten mess so intensely hailed as a masterpiece by the ivory-tower crowd that most of the general public gave up on the very idea of trying to understand contemporary literature anymore; and as Postmodernism in general starts rapidly falling out of favor in our current post-9/11 "Age of Sincerity" (or whatever you want to call it), so too are we seeing Bellow quickly descend into the barely-remembered obscurity he actually deserves.My verdict:So let me make this clear before anything else, that as an overeducated intellectual, I personally really adored Humboldt's Gift, one of those slow-moving deep character studies that you don't just read but inhabit, particularly enjoying the now-forgotten political issues of Mid-Century Modernism that Bellow reminds us of here (for example, Humboldt's absolute certainty that the US would devolve into a fascist military state after the election of Eisenhower in 1952, a common but unrealized fear among post-war Rooseveltians that is hardly ever discussed in history texts anymore); and as a fellow Chicagoan and Hyde Park habitue I especially loved it, not just for his spot-on descriptions of various local landmarks (Division Street Bath! River North penthouses!), but also his pithy observations about the city and its citizens in general. ("Sensitivity in a mature Chicagoan, if genuine, [is:] a treatable form of pathology.") But that said, this book was also a legitimate chore to get through most of the time, and I found myself with a lot of sympathy for the hundreds of traumatized online haters of this book, and their nightmarish tales of slogging their way through this for sometimes two or three months just to find themselves still only a couple of hundred pages in.It's no secret that I'm one of the people who find a lot to complain about concerning Postmodernism, and I think it's definitely fair to point to this title in particular as a great example of everything both so right and wrong about the period; because even though it really is as intelligent and subtle and quietly charming as its fans claim, it also now serves in hindsight as a bad premonition of things to come, essentially the book that gave a million professors official permission to write whiny little screeds about their miserably boring lives in the sleepy collegetowns where they live, and the ennui-filled affairs they're having with their pretentious 19-year-old students. Humboldt's Gift is sure to be loved by his fellow academes, but many others will find it intolerable, which is why today I fall thoroughly on the 'no' side of the classics equation, and recommend it only to those who are already fans of the Postmodernist masters previously mentioned.Is it a classic? No(And don't forget that the first 33 essays in this series are now available in book form!)*Oh, and an interesting piece of trivia that I couldn't find a good place for in the main essay -- turns out that one of Schwartz's most famous students besides Bellow himself was edgy musician Lou Reed, who has dedicated several songs to him over the years.
This novel is divided into sections of uneven length, each section probably best described as a chapter, unnumbered. The narrative is in the first person, told by the writer Charlie Citrine, the erstwhile friend and protégé of Von Humboldt Fleisher, a poet whose greatest fame occurred in the Thirties, after which the friendship shattered as Humboldt’s reputation declined and Charlie’s rose. The syntax, at the beginning, is simple declarative sentences, but it becomes far more florid during long passages of Charlie’s internal monologues, which contain many literary and philosophical allusions. The tone is ironic and the vocabulary and idiom colloquial; Charlie may be a well-known writer, but he is clearly a bit rough around the edges, far from polished. The first destabilizing event occurs seven years before the present, when Charlie, in Chicago, discovers that Humboldt has died in New York and left him a legacy. Yet, instead of revealing what that legacy is, Charlie continues, partly through free indirect discourse, to reveal more of his life’s current complications - his legal entanglements with his ex-wife Denise, his uncertainties about his relationship with his current girlfriend Renata, his involvement with the two-bit hoodlum Rinaldo Candabile, who has cheated Charlie in a card game and, because Charlie has refused to pay up, has demolished Charlie’s beloved Mercedes with a baseball bat. The story is both funny and poignant, complication after complication piling up in the first fifty pages.Bellow continues allowing Citrine to ruminate on all aspects of his existence, most of the narrative being extended interior monologue. Dialogue, when present, captures individual characters uniquely and skillfully. A highly realistic writer, Bellow descriptions are exquisite, his sense of place in Chicago being masterful. Page after page demonstrates Charlie growing as a rounded and complex character, sensitive, morose, articulate, literary, insecure. Rarely a paragraph passes without eliciting a chuckle from the reader, the writing being magnificent. And yet this humor - and the book is funny indeed - cannot conceal a persistent more gently somber thread, Charlie’s obsession with life’s meaning, with his own aging, and his ever-present awareness of death. Hence his preoccupation with, for example, anthroposophy. Many of his understandings, in fact, are not far from the very American phenomenon of Transcendentalism, but his philosophical and spiritual musings are never far from a very present earthiness.It must be said, however, that some of Bellow’s stylistic characteristics are less interesting. His habit of omitting commas, for example: “In the early days the revolution was a work of inspiration. Workers peasants soldiers were in a state of excitement and poetry…Dowdiness shabbiness dullness dull goods boring buildings boring discomfort boring supervision a dull press dull education boring bureaucracy forced labor perpetual police presence penal presence, boring party congresses, et cetera.” This sometimes has a point and is at times intriguing, but too much of it can begin to seem like a literary affectation.As the plot nears its end, one intuits that things are not going to work out as Charlie hopes; it would be inconsistent with the story if they were to do so. What philosophy will he marshal to deal with what must be faced? How will he pick himself up and move on?During the reading of this novel, I sometimes felt as if I were back reading Herzog. The two novels had so many parallels that on occasion it seemed as if Bellow was just rewriting the same story, changing only a few details, and this felt disconcerting. On the other hand, some reviewers have objected to Citrine’s frequent long digressions in the narrative, whereas I found them both charming and interesting; they helped elucidate Citrine’s character and illuminate his emotional state.As the novel moves to its conclusion, the pace and events become frenetic. Finally, the slapstick subsides, and the book ends on a poignant yet positive note. I’m glad I read it.
What do You think about Humboldt's Gift (1996)?
Transcendental. Profound. Scholarly. Challenging. Invigorating. Agile. A literary treasure. Citrine lives and breathes with the perspective of a real writer surging against great existential issues like Walt Whitman's ultimate question. Humboldt is brilliant, pitiful, hilarious and, ultimately, victorious from the grave. The gangster, Cantabile, is Citrine's cosmic foil: the Dionysius of Nietzsche to Citrine's Apollo. This is potentially a life-altering work: it can change your outlook on life and death. Bellow redeems late 20th century American literature with writing so rich it has bestowed upon him a mantle of immortality. He will be long remembered as one of America's most brilliant 20th century writers. This novel confirms Bellow's consistent gift for writing as evidenced by his prolific virtuosity in Herzog, The Adventures of Augie March and Henderson the Rain King. What a masterful literary legacy Bellow has left us! Bag the NY Times Best Seller List and Oprah's mind numbing, witless wonders and read Bellow. Hardly anything this substantive is likely to be created hereafter.
—David Lentz
There is not much need for me to review this book, as it is well known, and as I already wrote substantial reviews of Herzog and Sammler's. As a young man, when I read this, I adored it (5-stars); this time, I saw also its flaws (4-stars).All the threads of Herzog, Seize the Day, and Sammler come together here in near perfection... 'near'. A picaresque comedy, Charlie Citrine is throroughly modern, and romps through the latter part of the 20th century, trying valiently... like Harry Houdini ( -- Harry comes from Charlie's hometown, in Appleton, Wisconsin)... to get out alive. And, as this is a comedy, he almost succeeds... 'almost'.The slap is sometimes too broad or too slick...And then there is Bellow's obsession here with Rudolph Steiner... WTF...? Are we supposed to take this seriously...? Philip Roth thought it was irony, and in large part the text proves that he is right. And yet Bellow is joking entirely... Well... what can you do. You haven't understood the 20th century...urban, passionate..., living on the edge of the light as it warps at accelerating speed into history... if you haven't read Humboldt.My only reason for reducing this book from five to four stars is that I have just finished... The Dean's December.((Ahh... A fine book. Review to follow...))((Read this book 30++ years ago -- and adored it. Will reread it now, as part of my rereading of Bellow.)
—AC
The country is proud of its dead poets. It takes terrific satisfaction in the poets’ testimony that the USA is too tough, too big, too much, too rugged, that American reality is overpowering. And to be a poet is a school thing, a skirt thing, a church thing. The weakness of the spiritual powers is proved in the childishness, madness, drunkenness, and despair of these martyrs. Orpheus moved stones and trees. But a poet can’t perform a hysterectomy or send a vehicle out of the solar system. Miracle and power no longer belong to him. So poets are loved, but loved because they just can’t make it here. They exist to light up the enormity of the awful tangle and justify the cynicism of those who say, "If I were not such a corrupt, unfeeling bastard, creep, thief, and vulture, I couldn't get through this either . . ."
—Kristen
