by Saul Bellow

Published by Penguin Books; First Printing edition (April 26, 2001) Click to Buy this Book!

 

I don’t think that “Ravelstein” is really about Ravelstein — whoever he’s supposed to be in real life, some say Alan Bloom, but this doesn’t interest me much. The real antagonist of “Ravelstein” is Chick, Ravelstein’s reluctant biographer. And Chick can’t be anyone but Bellow himself, or who Bellow would like to think he is or would like us to think he is, for the disguise is transparent.

Chick is old, a well-known writer of fiction, recently survived a serious illness by the skin of his teeth, married to a much younger woman, and Ravelstein’s best friend, perhaps his only friend, Jewish. And his writing style is suspiciously identical to Bellow’s. Sound familiar?

Now that we have established that the book is more about Chick than Ravelstein, we have no choice but to continue in that direction. What about Chick. What’s his issue? No question there. The issue is death – and what, if anything, happens afterwards. And why not? Bellow is 85 and that’s pretty near the end, even if he, as Chick, miraculously escaped death from fish poisoning. (One could look for symbolism in that, but I’ll abstain.) Trust Bellow to go for the jugular, try to get to the bottom things, even though he knows he can’t. At least he asks the questions that concern us all.

One of the things that I like most about Bellow’s writing is that he attacks these questions with ironical humor. In “Ravelstein,” Chick’s ex-wife (Bellow is not kind to ex-wives) tries to get him to be frozen for a hundred years and thawed out when a cure for his illness is known, but he suspects her of selfish ends and refuses. I can’t find the place or I’d quote it for you, but the book is worth reading for this hilarious episode alone. More »