An instant classic when it appeared in 1964, Herzog is the story of Moses E. Herzog, a tragically confused intellectual who suffers from the breakup of his second marriage, the general failure of his life, and the specter of growing up Jewish in the middle part of the 20th century. He responds to his personal crisis by writing a series of letters never to be sent, to friends and enemies, colleagues and celebrities, examining his life and times with wry perception and heartfelt revelation.
Viewing himself as a survivor of disasters both private and of the age, Herzog cannot keep from asking what he calls the "piercing" questions. The answers he finds will matter not only to him but to the listeners of this magnificent novel.
The book is a feast of language, situations, characters, ironies, and a controlled moral intelligence that transcends the fact that we are spectators at a hard luck story. Bellow's rapport with his central character seems to me novel writing in the grand style of a Tolstoi—subjective, complete, heroic... Eventually Moses Herzog becomes as natural an American phenomenon as the faces carved on Mount Rushmore.
About the Author
Saul Bellow (1915-2005), author of eleven novels and numerous novellas and stories, was the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards. He also received the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Book Award Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
