Rich yet dry and static, Bellow's somber new book (his first as Nobel laureate) is often more essay than novel: a wintery meditation on death—a death in the family, the death of American cities, the death of the planet—as filtered through the mind of Albert Corde, one of Bellow's least vivid or particularized alter egos. Former full-time journalist, now dean at a Chicago university and devoted husband of astronomer Minna, Corde spends this December in Bucharest—where Minna's beloved mother Valeria (a government Health Dept. official who fell out of favor) is dying in a state hospital. And this very life-sized death—height-ened yet softened by the family's fierce love for Valeria—unnerves Corde as he first tries to break through the hostile Bucharest bureaucracy (hospital visits are cruelly restricted), then helps to handle the unlovely details of Valeria's funeral. But, throughout, more of Corde's mind is on the wrangles he has left behind in Chicago, both of which involve his Jeremiah-an (arguably racist) view of dying American society. There's the trial of two blacks for the iffy murder of a student—a trial which Corde pressed for despite his radical nephew's noisy opposition. (Moreover, another crude relative—cousin Max—is the colorful defense attorney at the trial.) And there's the brouhaha over Corde's articles in Harper's, nakedly realistic articles which paraded the horror of US cities (Chicago in particular), the "doomed" future of the "black underclass," the moral bankruptcy of the media and academia. ("Liberals found him reactionary. Conservatives called him crazy.") One reader, however, is powerfully impressed by the articles: an eminent scientist who has made some startling findings ("Crime and social disorganization in inner city populations can all be traced to the effects of lead") and wants Corde—who's intrigued but dubious—to bring this lead-is-killing-the-planet message to the world at large. Thus, Bellow here (as in Mr. Sammler's Planet) puts death under a microscope that has a slippery magnifier: the focus slides from personal to cosmic and back, with due notice of the drawbacks involved in this sort of whole-earth existentialism. (Minna snaps: "I tell you how horrible my mother's death is, and the way you comfort me is to say everything is monstrous. . . ." Corde answers: "The only excuse is that I'm convinced it's central. That's where the real struggle for existence is. . . .") But, while all of Bellow's later novels have thrived on just such a tension between philosophical discourse and juicy portraiture, this time the juice is sternly monitored, with only brief, occasional flarings-up of comic, scene-making brilliance. And, though Corde does reluctantly consider the self-destructive psychology behind his dour doomsday-crusade (an old chum, now a slimy syndicated columnist, analyzes Corde's behavior, then stabs him in the back), the character is neither fully-fleshed enough nor dramatically propelled enough to stand apart and free: the recurrent feeling that Corde is merely the author's mouthpiece (there's a strange ten-page slip into the first-person at one point) provides a provocative, but ultimately unsatisfying, subtext. Finally, in fact, apocalyptic sociology seems not to suit Bellow (as it suits, for instance, Walker Percy): the novel picks up more of the "hot haze" of Corde's angst than the sharpness of his uncompromising world-view; the issues don't bring forth the essential Bellovian passions. But, if this is lesser Bellow, it certainly displays all his paragraph-by-paragraph greatness—the gravely exuberant, not-a-word-wasted style; the wide-ranging powers of observation; the Talmudically restless intelligence. And every page of it commands the attention.
Pub Date: Feb. 7, 1981
ISBN: 0140189130
Page Count: -
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1981
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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