Potato Love
Saul Bellow's Herzog is pretty boss. I'm a sucker for books about neurotic academics-- if I weren't so shallow I'd want to be one myself someday. As is, I don't want to end up a footnote in some biography as "X's mentor, whom (s)he soon outpaced" or a writer of dull truisms. Yes, dear, John Donne rocks. Anything else?
None of which is the point. The point is Herzog is indeed pretty boss. Bellow is a clever son of a bitch and manages to make the existentially desperate Moses Herzog a pretty interesting guy. But I'm having a bit of trouble with finding him interesting, kids, because everyone agrees that Mose is crazy. Batshit. Because his second wife is plotting with his best friend and perhaps his psychiatrist. And his academic career is floundering. And he might be falling in love again or he might just be looking for some kind of hope. And now he's writing poems and rants, letters he will never mail, to those he has wronged and those who have wronged him. So most critics see the character of Moses Herzog as a madman anti-hero. (They also describe Bellow's prose style as Joycean, so what the hell.) I find myself thinking that Herzog is, yeah, self pitying, but who wouldn't be? A bit unbalanced, sure. But it's understandable. he actually has been betrayed. Herzog is emotionally underdeveloped, not crazy. He can't confront the people (esp. the women) persecuting him and so acts in externally irrational ways. He seems more depressed than crazy to me, unable to imagine the impact of any projected action on his part and therefore unable to take rational action. So he remains self-absorbed, ineffectual (but full of great plans), and obtuse as regards other people and their emotions.
So: is justified paranoia and then acting within that paranoia actually insanity? Or is it adaptation?
Ought to write about Bellow's female characters. Or learn something about Bellow's life.
None of which is the point. The point is Herzog is indeed pretty boss. Bellow is a clever son of a bitch and manages to make the existentially desperate Moses Herzog a pretty interesting guy. But I'm having a bit of trouble with finding him interesting, kids, because everyone agrees that Mose is crazy. Batshit. Because his second wife is plotting with his best friend and perhaps his psychiatrist. And his academic career is floundering. And he might be falling in love again or he might just be looking for some kind of hope. And now he's writing poems and rants, letters he will never mail, to those he has wronged and those who have wronged him. So most critics see the character of Moses Herzog as a madman anti-hero. (They also describe Bellow's prose style as Joycean, so what the hell.) I find myself thinking that Herzog is, yeah, self pitying, but who wouldn't be? A bit unbalanced, sure. But it's understandable. he actually has been betrayed. Herzog is emotionally underdeveloped, not crazy. He can't confront the people (esp. the women) persecuting him and so acts in externally irrational ways. He seems more depressed than crazy to me, unable to imagine the impact of any projected action on his part and therefore unable to take rational action. So he remains self-absorbed, ineffectual (but full of great plans), and obtuse as regards other people and their emotions.
So: is justified paranoia and then acting within that paranoia actually insanity? Or is it adaptation?
Ought to write about Bellow's female characters. Or learn something about Bellow's life.
posted by J at 11:31 AM
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