Synopses & Reviews
In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a man struggling with the complexity of existence and longing for redemption.
This is the story of Moses Herzog, a great sufferer, joker, mourner, and charmer. Although his life steadily disintegrates around himhe has failed as a writer and teacher, as a father, and has lost the affection of his wife to his best friendsHerzog sees himself as a survivor, both of his private disasters and those of the age. He writes unsent letters to friends and enemies, colleagues and famous people, revealing his wry perception of the world and the innermost secrets of his heart.
This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Philip Roth.
Review
"I would say, if one were beginning to write, there are two places I would start, especially with American writers. One would be the particular chapter in Bellow's Herzog where Herzog goes back to his New York apartment, showers and changes, and goes to see his lover. That's all that happens, basically, but there are just some of those superb Bellovian asides, divagations, on what it is to be a man, to be in a city, in a century, in a country, of a class, in a time....He really has that deep-sea thinking, but also caught up with a shimmering ordinariness. That chapter, which is actually about sixty or seventy pages long, I think is a masterwork, rarely equaled in any fiction." Ian McEwan, Powells.com
Review
"That I should be so consumed with this novel is surprising to me. That it is making me emotionally uncomfortable is a revelation. Within this novel, there is no stream of action; in fact, little happens outside of Herzog's own mind. But it is within this landscape that he asks the most difficult questions....I sleep with Herzog on my bedside table even though I have finished reading it weeks ago. It no longer torments me, baiting me with its questions. Instead somehow it gives me comfort, knowing that even under an intense, ruthless scrutiny like Herzog's, the truths about life often escape us." Heather Hepler, The Cincinnati Review (read the entire review by the Cincinnati Review)
Synopsis
In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a man struggling with the complexity of existence and longing for redemption.
Introduction by Philip Roth
Synopsis
In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a man struggling with the complexity of existence and longing for redemption.
Synopsis
In time for the centennial of his birth, one of the Noble Prize winners finest achievements This is the story of Moses Herzoga great sufferer, joker, mourner, charmer, serial writer of unsent letters, and a survivor, both of his private disasters and those of the age. Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, the novel was hailed as a masterpiece” (The New York Times Book Review).
This beautifully designed Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Herzog features an introduction by Bellows longtime friend Philip Roth.
About the Author
Saul Bellow, author of eleven novels and numerous novellas and stories, is the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards. He has also received the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Book Award Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Philip Roth, acclaimed author of The Human Stain and many other works of fiction, is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Medal of Arts from the White House.
Table of Contents
Herzog Introduction: Rereading Saul Bellow by Philip Roth
Herzog