Herzog

Literary fiction · Tragicomedy

First published: 1964
Print length: 371 pagesPenguin Books, 2003

National Book Award for Fiction, 1965

Description

Over five unsettled days, Moses E. Herzog, a forty-seven-year-old professor of cultural history, tries to think his way through exhaustion, divorce, and humiliation. His second wife has left him for a close friend after moving him to Chicago and trying to have him committed. Now, from his house in fictional Ludeyville, Massachusetts, Herzog considers returning to New York and hesitates over committing to his current partner, Ramona. Much of his turmoil pours into letters he imagines addressing to relatives, friends, public figures, and the dead, though he rarely sends them. The unsent correspondence turns private disappointment into an argument with modern existence, as Herzog searches for a form of redemption that intellect alone cannot secure.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Dense · Essayistic · Stream of consciousness · Witty

Pace

Slow

Tone

Cerebral · Humorous · Melancholic · Philosophical

Structure

Fragmented · Nonlinear

Focus

Character · Ideas · Voice

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 5 / 5
Ideas: 5 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 3 / 5

Themes

GuiltIdentityIsolationLoveMental healthRedemption

About Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow was a Canadian-American writer whose novels join intellectual argument to volatile, intimate comedy. His characteristic protagonists are restless, articulate men under pressure: Herzog thinks through divorce and humiliation in a torrent of reflection; Augie March resists every attempt to define him; Charlie Citrine in Humboldt’s Gift weighs artistic ambition against money, memory, and disorder. Bellow often drew autobiographical elements into such figures, using dense, witty, sometimes essayistic prose to make thought itself part of the action. Jewish life and identity recur throughout his fiction, frequently alongside alienation and the experience of being out of place. Yet his field of attention is wider: modern civilization’s materialism, false knowledge, and capacity for madness coexist with a strong fascination with American energy and possibility. From Seize the Day’s compressed personal crisis to the crowded urban reckoning of Mr. Sammler’s Planet, his work moves readily between pathos, satire, and tragicomedy while keeping individual consciousness at its center.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Penguin Books
Language: English
ISBN: 9780142437292

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