Humboldt's Gift | The Precariousness of the Artist in America
In the following essay, Siegel explores Bellow’s comment on the precariousness of the artist in America and the obsession, guilt, and metaphysical experimentation of his protagonist prompted by the death of a friend.
Easily the novelist most successful in capturing contemporary life’s realistic and grotesque aspects has been Saul Bellow. Now past sixty, he has for more than three decades proved himself this country’s most profoundly serious and exuberantly comic observer. If many writers today resort to ‘‘impressionistic journalism and innovative fantasy,’’ he retains a ‘‘Tolstoyan appetite’’ for serious ideas. Indeed, ideas are Bellow’s primary material, and usually they entangle themselves in his characters’ perceptions and emotions. Despite his intellectual concerns,...
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