Saul Bellow: "I Was a Jew and an American and a Writer" (The Modern Jewish Experience)

Synopsis

Saul Bellow: "I Was a Jew and an American and a Writer" offers a fresh and original perspective on the life and works of Saul Bellow, the Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1976. Author Gerald Sorin emphasizes Bellow's Jewish identity as fundamental to his being and the content and meaning of his fiction. Bellow's work from the 1940s to 2000, when he wrote his last novel at the age of 84, centers on the command in Deuteronomy to "Choose life" as distinct from nihilistic withdrawal and the defense of meaninglessness.Although Bellow disdained the label of "American Jewish Writer," Sorin conjectures that he was an outstanding representative of the classification. Bellow and the characters in his fiction not only choose life but also explore what it means to live a good life, however difficult that may be to define, and regardless of how much harder it is to achieve. For Sorin, Bellow realized that at least two obstacles stood in the way: the imperfection of the world and the frailty of the human pursuer.Saul Bellow: "I Was a Jew and an American and a Writer" provides a new and insightful narrative of the life and works of Saul Bellow. By using Bellow's deeply internalized Jewishness and his remarkable imagination and creativity as a lens, Sorin examines how he captured the shifting atmosphere of postwar American culture.

Copyright:

2024

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

602 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780253069467

Related ISBNs:

9780253069443, 9780253069436, 9780253069450

Publisher:

Indiana University Press

Date of Addition:

04/30/24

Copyrighted By:

IUP

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Literature and Fiction, Language Arts

Grade Levels:

Graduate Student

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.