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Saul Bellowwas praised for his vision, his ear for detail, his humor, and the masterful artistry of his prose. Born of Russian Jewish parents in Lachine, Quebec in 1915, he was raised in Chicago. He received his Bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 1937, with honors in sociology and anthropology, and did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin. During the Second World War he served in the Merchant Marines. His first two novels,Dangling Man(1944) andThe Victim(1947) are penetrating, Kafka-like psychological studies. In 1948 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and spent two years in Paris and traveling in Europe, where he began his picaresque novelThe Adventures of Augie March, which went on to win the National Book Award for fiction in 1954. His later books of fiction includeSeize the Day(1956);Henderson the Rain King(1959);Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories(1968);Mr. Sammler's Planet(1970);Humboldt's Gift(1975), which won the Pulitzer Prize;The Dean's December(1982);More Die of Heartbreak(1987);Theft(1988);The Bellarosa Connection(1989);The Actual(1996);Ravelstein(2000); and, most recently,Collected Stories(2001). Bellow has also produced a prolific amount of non-fiction, collected inTo Jerusalem and Back, a personal and literary record of his sojourn in Israel during several months in 1975, andIt All Adds Up, a collection of memoirs and essays. Bellow's many awards include the International Literary Prize forHerzog, for which he became the first American to receive the prize; the Croix de Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, the highest literary distinction awarded by France to non-citizens; the B'nai B'rith Jewish Heritage Award for ""excellence in Jewish Literature""; and America's Democratic Legacy Award of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, the first time this award has been made to a literary personage. In 1976 Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature ""for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work.""
Bellow goes to Israel in 1975 - not to see the sights, but to talk, listen, and learn - and returns drenched in issues ( the facts are coming out of my ears ) and keen on sharing his radar-oven exposure to the crossed wires (Israeli, Arab, Russian, American) that keep the Middle East just this side of all-out conflagration. The journey itself supplies only a feathery structure and relatively little in the way of travelogue commonplaces: a planeful of wildly willful Hasidim, communings with Mount Zion and the Dead Sea ( here you die and mingle ), a wander through the Old City in search of ancient baths. Two poets, a barber, a masseur, and a child violinist offer charming cameos, but politicians and professors are the main attractions; there are intense question-and-answer sessions with Prime Minister Rabin, Abba Eban, Arab moderate Elie Kedourie (a London stop-over), and, inevitably, upon return, a date with Mr. Kissinger. Each acquaintance, occurrence or vista - from a grapevine arbor in the Greek quarter to a Chicago taxicab ride - triggers a free-associative dive into Bellow's vast personal Israel syllabus : dozens of books, articles, white papers, and remembered interviews. The elegant paraphrases of political arguments slide into personal and literary reflections. Balzac, Baudelaire, Faulkner, Joyce, and Tolstoy hover over Jerusalem. But the real problems aren't muted by the slightly incongruous erudition, the gentle ironies, or the ever-surprising, pleasing phrasing. The West Bank, Russian and French anti-Semitism, valid Palestinian claims, and the all-important future of American Mideast policy; Bellow is overwhelmed - and occasionally rendered naive or tedious - by the seriousness of what you discover when you leave your desk and enter life. The outing to Jerusalem and back earns him no peace of mind, and responsible readers have tough work ahead if they want to share the expedition's dry rewards. (Kirkus Reviews)
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