As the news of Saul Bellow’s death got around, condolences poured in.
I’m not talking about calls to Bellow’s family. I’m talking about the people who contacted me. Because I’m well known among friends as a devoted Bellow reader, a passionate appreciator, a zealous digger-up of uncollected stories, essays, and his short-lived journal,The Noble Savage.
Or, as Bellow put it in Humboldt’s Gift, “I’m quite a nut about such things.”
I have a favorite Bellow line for every occasion, although I don’t know I do until the occasion presents itself because, as Bellow said, I don’t know what I think until I see what I say. I’m a hostage to my tongue.
But after nearly 30 years reading Bellow’s novels, stories, plays, essays, lectures, interviews, travel pieces and journalism his work has become a part of me. I am marinated in Bellow, or, as Bellow put it in Herzog, I am mithridated — in the manner of King Mithridates — who immunized himself against poison by its steady ingestion.
Such close contact brings knowledge. Like Henderson the Rain King’s wrestling opponent I can say to Bellow, “Oh, I know you, sir. I know you now.” (Without checking the line I feel like the Bellow character who’s told “You’re not quoting quite right.”) And if you remind me that it’s too late for messages to Bellow I’ll quote you some Bellow who asked, “What is death? Dreams don’t recognize it.” Besides, as the man said, the living and the dead form one community.
This Bellow knowledge is sometimes no blessing. Trading quips in Latin doesn’t much help the down-on-his-luck hero of “Looking for Mr. Green.” Who comes off worse in his novels than intellectuals? Besides, Bellow gave his greatest lines to the Reality Instructors, tough guys who speak out of the sides of their mouths and give a hard time to guys like me. “I’ll bet you’re ass-deep in a crank theory right this minute” is what I quote to myself to when I need to be my own Reality Instructor.
Still, Bellow defended dreaming in America, and when I forget to run an errand I’ve always got one of Bellow’s high-minded excuses handy. There’s no shortage of them.
Augie March liked what came easily. Concentration without effort was his wonderful phrase. This was the “finding before seeking” of Humboldt’s Gift.
In “Cousins,” Ijah Brodsky closed his office door and spent much of his day reading obscure books by amateur anthropologists. He did this in the middle of Chicago. He didn’t think he was missing anything. Ijah knew what he was doing. He had a life plan. So do I. Unfortunately, my plan has the same flaw as Ijah’s. It is incomprehensible to my contemporaries. In fact, Ijah had no contemporaries. Just “contacts with the living. Not quite the same thing.”
In such situations I find it pays to have a sense of humor. Something along the lines of Bellow’s “If I am out of my mind, it’s all right with me.”
I’m aware that this Bellow infatuation is perhaps ridiculous, but it’s part of my quest to live a human life, which has always required some guidance. Past ages had their holy books and revealed wisdom. Today, the most ardent followers of those venerable traditions don’t inspire confidence. Which is not to say that Bellow had the wisdom because as he said somewhere, “I’m just an old silly.” But he insisted that there was such wisdom and, as his Mr. Sammler said, we know it, we know, we know.
Anyway, like Charlie Citrine said of Humboldt, for me Bellow had the old magic. He could really talk. And like Humboldt’s uncle said, “I miss him. How I miss him.” Bellow helped me in what Augie March called the “mismanaged effort to live. To live and not die.”
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