Kind of on a Quest

At 43, Saul Bellow has published his fifth novel, Henderson the Rain King (Viking, $4.50), and as a result, this will be one year in which we shall not be able to complain about the failure of an American artist to spread his wings and make us something astonishing, organic, imaginative, and unpiddling. It is a grand book. As Stravinsky said of one of his symphonies, it is “composed to the glory of God.” It is at the same time funny, heroic, inspired, unpredictable.

More than any contemporary, Saul Bellow reminds me of Fielding, Charles Dickens and, of course, Mark Twain. What he has in common with these writers—apart from a tonic masculinity of temperament—is sheer ampleness. The moment Henderson the Rain King gets under way, you sense the joyousness of creation. Nothing is pinched or parceled out. Images, ideas, anecdotes, associations abound. Invention is unbridled. The narrative line soars.

RP

About the Author

Robert Phelps

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At 43, Saul Bellow has published his fifth novel, Henderson the Rain King (Viking, $4.50), and as a result, this will be one year in which we shall not be able to complain about the failure of an American artist to spread his wings and make us something astonishing, organic, imaginative, and unpiddling. It is a grand book. As Stravinsky said of one of his symphonies, it is “composed to the glory of God.” It is at the same time funny, heroic, inspired, unpredictable.

More than any contemporary, Saul Bellow reminds me of Fielding, Charles Dickens and, of course, Mark Twain. What he has in common with these writers—apart from a tonic masculinity of temperament—is sheer ampleness. The moment Henderson the Rain King gets under way, you sense the joyousness of creation. Nothing is pinched or parceled out. Images, ideas, anecdotes, associations abound. Invention is unbridled. The narrative line soars.