About 10 h 15 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 21 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
In Chicago, successful writer Charlie Citrine is entangled in a costly divorce, a relationship with the younger Renata and the career advice of small-time gangster Rinaldo Cantabile. He keeps remembering his friendship with the poet Von Humboldt Fleisher, who hoped art could transform America while Charlie learned to make money from it. Their friendship soured as their fortunes diverged, but the dead Humboldt has left Charlie a legacy that interrupts his present troubles.
Reader notes
Charlie narrates in long digressions, returning to remembered conversations and philosophical arguments while the immediate action waits. Much of the reading lies in following his restless thinking about art, money and friendship, so the novel's momentum is frequently interrupted by reflection.
How it reads
Writing style
Dense · Essayistic · Lyrical · Witty
Tone
Philosophical · Satirical · Warm · Wistful
Structure
Episodic · Fragmented
Driven by
Character · Ideas · Voice
Point of view
First person
Setting
Chicago
Reading complexity
Writing
4 / 5
Ideas
4 / 5
Structure
4 / 5
Background knowledge
2 / 5
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.
Themes
Ambition
Art and creativity
Friendship
Identity
Wealth
Work
Content notes
Violence
Mild
Sexual content
Mild
Swearing
Mild
Substance use
Mild
Abuse
Strong
Self-harm or suicide
None
Standing and awards
Canonical
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1976
National Book Award finalist, 1976
Library of America
Penguin Classics
Author: Nobel Prize in Literature, 1976
Questions readers ask
How long is it?
512 pages in the Penguin Classics 2008 paperback edition.
Which edition is shown here?
Penguin Classics · 2008 · Paperback. ISBN 9780143105473.
How long does it take to read Humboldt's Gift?
About 10 hours 15 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 512-page Penguin Classics edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
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.
