"A man's road back to himself is a return from his spiritual exile, for that is what a personal history amounts toexile." So says Harry Trellman, the narrator of the Nobel laureate's latest work, who is by any measure an exile several times over. Trellman's ailing mother and hardworking father consigned him to an orphanage; shady business dealings kept him in the Third World for most of his adulthood. Over the years, his high-school sweetheart, the only woman he ever loved, has grown old in the arms of other men. Now in late middle age, Trellman has returned to the Chicago of his youth to recover what he can of the life that has passed him by. A kind of an affectionate, latter-day "Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," this novella nevertheless carries distinguishing Bellow trademarks: the mythically cosmopolitan, clubby Chicago where bankers quote Hamlet and intellectuals stumble into wealth; the Emersonian turns of phrase ("`Distance' is a formality. The mind takes no real notice of it") grounded in Yiddish earthiness ("He's got a condom over his heart"); and, deeper than these, Bellow's passionate eroticism, wherein, in order to get at the "actual" beloved, one must survive sex, transgression, divorce and mnages trois, whether of the body or the spirit. Bellow is a conservative in the best sense: he calls his readers constantly back to what they can't help but believe, at the same time insisting, as Trellman puts it, on a common recognition "that the powers of our human genius are present where one least expects them." As usual in Bellow's more recent fiction, plot is secondary here. So is character, for the hero of this small love-story is character itself. (May)
Harry Trellman doesn't belong. Not in the Chicago orphanage where he is sent by his mother, not in high school (too brainy), not even on the streets. Human attachments? Yes, he has them, but they are like everything else in his life, singular and irregular. People who know him say that he "drowns his feelings in his face," and that he has a Mongolian "masked look." But though Harry stands apart, he has always been a most keen observer, listener, recorder, and interpreter, and none of this is lost on the Chicago billionaire, Sigmund Adletsky, who takes Harry into his "brain trust." He retains Harry to advise him. They discuss ordinary things-they gossip together. Old Adletsky has set feelings aside while he amassed his vast fortune. The old man is so apt that he divines the secrets behind Harry's mask, and brings him together with the one person Harry has loved dumbly for forty years.
Amy Wustrin has not exactly stood apart from the sexual revolution while waiting for Harry to come wooing. Far from remaining the static object of his fantasy, she has moved about in the real world, from one marriage to another, from rich to broke, from hot high-school girl to correct matron. Still, in Amy, Harry sees what he calls his "actual." Harry has had his opportunities with Amy, but it is not until he finds himself at the cemetery with her for the exhumation and reburial of her husband that he feels free to speak out.
Harry Trellman doesn't belong. Not in the Chicago orphanage where he is sent by his mother, not in high school (too brainy), not even on the streets. Human attachments? Yes, he has them, but they are like everything else in his life, singular and irregular. People who know him say that he "drowns his feelings in his face," and that he has a Mongolian "masked look." But though Harry stands apart, he has always been a most keen observer, listener, recorder, and interpreter, and none of this is lost on the Chicago billionaire, Sigmund Adletsky, who takes Harry into his "brain trust." He retains Harry to advise him. They discuss ordinary things-they gossip together. Old Adletsky has set feelings aside while he amassed his vast fortune. The old man is so apt that he divines the secrets behind Harry's mask, and brings him together with the one person Harry has loved dumbly for forty years.
Amy Wustrin has not exactly stood apart from the sexual revolution while waiting for Harry to come wooing. Far from remaining the static object of his fantasy, she has moved about in the real world, from one marriage to another, from rich to broke, from hot high-school girl to correct matron. Still, in Amy, Harry sees what he calls his "actual." Harry has had his opportunities with Amy, but it is not until he finds himself at the cemetery with her for the exhumation and reburial of her husband that he feels free to speak out.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940169840759 |
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Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
Publication date: | 07/16/2019 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |