The Adventures of Augie March (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Saul Bellow
- First Published: 1953
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Picaresque fiction
- Subjects: Values, Crime or criminals, 1940’s, Antiheroes, 1920’s, 1930’s, Chicago, Jews or Jewish life, Theft, Wealth, Materialism
- Locales: Mexico, Paris, France, Chicago, IL, Buffalo, NY
Bellow's third work is not only a picturesque novel of great zest but also a kind of Bildungsroman, an autobiographical record of physical experience as it relates to intellectual and emotional growth. Augie's own exuberant narration of his life, beginning in Chicago during the Great Depression, reveals a personality who is in some ways a reckless and amoral character reminiscent of the rogue-heroes of the Spanish picaresque novel of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Yet he is also a man who must define himself by his relationship to others and who views the world at...
[The entire page is 897 words long]
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