The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics)

A struggle to complete, notwithstanding, the clever prose. A defeatist attitude permeates throughout, reflected by the characters (excepting Augie's visually impaired mother and mentally disabled brother), whose goals are to defraud the underlying system via deceitful petty crimes, e.g., a collective victim mentality based upon distorted self-entitlement. Augie's non-threatening demeanor becomes the focus of everyone's projections, including negative reactions, particularly from bullying authoritarian personalities. The ennui of a grey world devoid of honesty, integrity, character; rather, a materialistic environment of laziness, sloth, lies. Augie's saving grace is his innate ability to discern the manipulations seeking to control him -- he remains sweet, hence, likable -- his redeeming quality. Thus, the tale is saved.

Two lists of the 100 best books in the English language ninclude this book along with such heady company as "Moby Dick," "Bleak House and "The Heart of Darkness." That said, I have decidedly mixed emotions concerning "The Adventures of Augie March." The book was a difficult and challlenging read. I am ever grateful for a tome which enhances my vocabulary with such word as copal, caracul and acedia. My take is the Bellow, at least in part, was deliberately showing off his knowledge of arcane mythological biblical, historical and mythological recondite allusions.It did keep me at Wikapedia. He referred to an Italian named lord who upon looking it up was a fictional character fabricated by Bellow to describe someone pompous and pretensious. What would have the reader done in the pre internet days? I could not fathom why Bellow shoehorned the Mexico trip into the narrative I found it so tedious that I left 2/3 of the way into Augie's journey.The dictionary definition of picaresque is "of or relating to an episodic style of fiction describing a rough, dishonest but appealing hero." Without a itdoubt this books encompasses this description. It paints a vivid picture of America notably but not limited to Chicago and Jewish live in the 1920s to 1940s.I especially like his writing style, often luminous but on occasion complicated to the point of being tortuous. Certtain passages paint a noteworthy word picture of various persons and events. Augie himself is a most engaging if flawed character. The rise and fall and rise and fall and once agin rise of his ever resourceful brother Simon is a superb character delineation worthy of the best such in literature.Despite the above cited faults or perhaps, in part because of them, and the demands of the reader "The Adventures of Augie March" deserves to be in the pantheon of great English language novels.

Bipolar Bellow. Just when you thought he had gotten the car back on the road he is off on another tangent into some obscure, archaic revelation that is supposed to somehow have something to do with the road trip on which he has embarked. Twenty pages later, he is back to describing his original premise, undoubtedly happy with the confusion and smoke and mirrors he has created. Just when you are about to give up, he comes back with beautiful, meaningful prose that keeps you with him on his erratic journey. Through Augie and Simon's stories we see the consequences of growing up poor and unloved. Indecision and aggression, empathy and anger are the hallmarks of these brothers. They are two sides of the same coin.Bellow is unquestionably brilliant. The book was both tedious and wonderful, but I'm not sure it was worth the time and effort to take the ride with him.

This novel is unquestionably one of the great masterpieces of our time.Saul Bellow paints portraits of characters like Rembrandt. He has a brilliant technique for divulging not only the physical nuances of his characters but also gets deep into the essence of their souls.He has an astute grasp of motivation and spins a complex tale with an ease that astounds. Even the most unusual twists of fate seem natural and authentic.Augie is a man "in search of a worthwhile fate." After struggling at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a penniless youth in Chicago, he ultimately discovers that alignment with the "axial lines" of his existence is the secret to human fulfillment.While his brother is engrossed in chasing after financial enrichment and social esteem, Augie learns through his own striving that such pursuit is "merely clownery hiding tragedy."Augie is a man dogged in his pursuit of the American dream who has an epiphany that the riches that life has to offer lie in the secrets at the heart's core. If, as Sartre says, life is the search for meaning, then Augie is the inspired champion of this great human quest.The true test of a great book is that you wish it would never end. Fortunately, Saul Bellow is as prolific as he is brilliant and there is much more to explore.Bellow is worthy of the characterization of one of America's best living novelists: he is a treasure. His wisdom staggers the imagination.Don't let this novel pass you by!

Saul Bellow’s narrator Augie March - a 1930s working class, Chicago-born boy with vaguely European aristocratic connections - tells the story of his efforts to work out what to do with his life. Early on he develops an interest in high brow culture, though the books he reads are derelict Harvard classic cast offs, or books shoplifted in a scam designed to supply students at the local university. Shoplifting and other petty crime might not suggest a good person in the strictest sense, though with his warmth and inability to resist helping anyone in trouble, Augie often seems like a person who is too good for the rough world in which he lives. The writing itself presents a similar irony, breaking all kinds of grammatical regulations, and yet achieving beauty.Amongst all this confusion you keep wondering how Augie is going to find his own path in life. He finds himself assisting a number of powerful people, who he realises manage to “intercept the big social ray, or collect and concentrate it like burning glass.” Tolstoy, in War and Peace, portrayed Napoleon in a similar way, as someone whose larger than life image was due to the way he caught the way things were looking, rather than deciding on the way things should look. Tolstoy suggested that a humble person, like Augie, free from all the “social rays” shining on Napoleon, would ironically have more control over his life. Saul Bellow, in the end seems to suggest the same thing.By the end of Augie’s long journey it’s not clear if he has discovered the answer to finding a good path through life. The book does not provide any clear advice you can sum up in a review. This is not a self-help book you could call How to be Rich, Fulfilled, Powerful and In Charge of Your Life because categories of good and bad, wealth and poverty, power and humility, don’t make much sense in its pages. There is, however, at least a suggestion of that reassuring idea John Lennon described in All You Need Is Love, when he said: “there’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.” It’s that suggestion which makes this book not so much a self help book, as a book that helps

Bellow is a great literary writer and some of the language is exquisite. Worth reading just for that reason. The problem is structure. When asked what "Augie March" is about, the author himself replied "It's about 200 pages too long." It's rambling and digressive, attaching great focus to some things and not to others.For example, the scene when he gets stranded and has to make his way back to Chicago goes on for pages and pages but doesn't really have any significance. Scenes seem to exist for their own sake. Too often it looks like an exercise in writing rather than a novel.Often, the intense literary style goes up a notch as if he's turned it on. But then it lapses back into the usual flow so it seems inconsistent, like he's saying, "Wait – here's a bit of good writing!"If, as Bellow suggested, the book had been a third shorter and more narratively honed, it would have been amazing. This is a problem with very many literary greats. Style isn't enough to make a book brilliant.

I've finally finished it! And though it's a very dense read (not one to take to bed; you need to be 'on the ball' to cope with Bellow's prose), it's also extremely enjoyable.The storyline follows our eponymous 'hero' from humble origins in Depression era Chicago, child of a simple-minded mother and unknown father, through a succession of jobs and relationships. From lowly work to getting 'taken up' by wealthier individuals, Augie's narrative includes wonderful, often very humorous, descriptions; interposed with his story are conversations on life which he has with his various acquaintances.I don't pretend to have picked up on all the philosophical musings, but there's a lot of powerfully expressed truths in those I did. For example, on human dissembling:"Even in a few minutes' conversation, do you realise how many times what you feel is converted before it comes out as what you say? Somebody tells you A. Your response is B. B you can't say, so you transform it, you put it through the coils of your breast. From DC to AC, increased four hundred volts, filtered. So instead of B, there comes out gamma sub one....Mind you, I'm a great admirer of our species. I stand in awe of the genius of the race. But a large part of this genius is devoted to lying and seeming what you are not."A challenging book (536 p) but one I'm glad I read.

The Everyman's Library Classics Edition books are, in my opinion, the best quality books available in the price-range. They are quality bound, with acid-free paper, dust jacket, and ribbon page marker.There are also a great range of authors available in this collection, and they are very reasonably priced.

i love Saul Bellow and this novel is like a grand tour, i actually experience, his sensual and daring descriptions and honesty. so rare so unputdownable and as watchable as Coronation Street. I love also Herzog , tragicomic adventure into marriage and divorce , hillarious and profound. all educational, life changing, adictive, i went on to read everything, even the sadder ones , all glorious