I recently read this about Saul Bellow, “Asked about his position on American culture, Saul answered, with his usual smile: ‘When I was young and I chose my way in life, I knew that society would be against me. However, I also knew that I would win. And that it would be a small victory.’"
That sense, that what a literary artist does in this world is often but a small victory, seems to me to thread throughout “Humboldt’s Gift,” especially in Charlie Citrine’s memories of, and ever-present sadness over, the life and death of his friend, the poet Von Humboldt Fleisher. But that’s not the only tone in this big, beautifully written by a true prose artist, long, dense (not as in “stupid” but as in “closely compacted in substance), at times frustrating novel. Rather than describe those tones let me just offer some quotes from the novel:
“But it mustn’t be forgotten that I had been a complete idiot until I was forty and a partial idiot after that.” (echos of Mark Twain?)
“But you don’t spend years trying to dope your way out of the human condition. To me that’s boring.”
“It seems, after all that there are no nonpeculiar people.”
Yes, Charlie is a passive person who lets people take advantage of him. But isn’t that because he often sees the good in them even if they are deeply flawed in a deeply flawed society?
Yes, Charlie’s fear of death and deep desire (in contrast to faith) that his individual self shall go on beyond death (because what sense is there if it doesn’t?) takes up possibly an inordinate amount of the book. But isn’t that what gives Charlie your sympathy, solicits from you your empathy?
Humboldt’s Gift is a comedy about American culture, where the most frivolous earns the most money thus earns the most momentary respect. But in a world that Charlie fears is quite momentary itself, is that not to be expected?
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| Saul Bellow |
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