I went on a Bellow kick some years ago, and read several novels in quick succession–Hertzog, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, More Die of Heartbreak. Later I picked up Humboldt’s Gift, and two mentioned below. I began because Bellow’s voice is rude (in both senses of the word) but compelling; and the wealth of easy reference–Nietzsche on one page, con men on the next–seemed delightful.

I stopped because several characteristic traits wore me out. The misogyny became too much. All women are either glorious tumbles or hideous harridans. The glorious tumble of one novel–modeled, one felt, on the newest wife–becomes the hideous harridan of the next.

The heroes all resembled each other too much, and seemed aspects of the author himself–chatty, troubled intellectuals.

Finally, beneath the veneer of somewhat modernist technique, there was a sentimental core, almost as sentimental as Sholem Aleichem: there were simple, warm-hearted Jewish characters pitted against a world of monsters, and the simple characters heart-warmingly won.

The two exceptions, and his two best books seem to me to be Henderson the Rain King, whose weird African milieu and unusual hero, for Bellow–Henderson is a Protestant–forced Bellow to work harder; and Ravelstein, which was a powerful obituary of a beloved friend.