20th Century Victim: Amazon.ca: Saul Bellow: Books

Product Description

Book Description

Bellow's second novel charts the descent into paranoia of Asa Leventhal, sub-editor of a trade magazine. With his wife away visiting her mother, Asa is alone, but not for long. His sister-in-law summons him to Staten Island to help with his sick nephew. Other demands mount, and readers witness a man losing control.

About the Author

Saul Bellow's dazzling career has been marked with numerous literary prizes, including the 1976 Nobel Prize, and the Gold Medal for the Novel. His work includes Herzog, More Die of Heartbreak, Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories, Mr Sammler's Planet, Seize The Day and the essay To Jerusalem and Back. He died in 2005. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
ON some nights New York is a hot as Bangkok. Read the first page

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Concordance

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

3.2 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars The Victim, Dec 27 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: 20th Century Victim (Paperback)

Why is it that Canadians don't understand this book? While I agree it's not Bellow's best work, it's certainly a worthwhile read, painting a memorable portrait of a neurotic New Yorker tripped up by his own erroneous thinking.

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4.0 out of 5 stars a tight, beautifully composed narrative, April 23 2000

By

asphlex "asphlex" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 20th Century Victim (Paperback)

Surely this is not Bellow's best work, but it's deeply affecting nonetheless. Okay, I'll admit it: I'm an enormous fan of Mr. Bellow's and had this been written by another writer I was less familiar with, I perhaps would have gone the three star route (three and a half--but that isn't an option, so Saul gets rounded up), but there is still a lot to admire here. The prose is gorgeous and, while the story sometimes falls off track, anyone reading should be able to identify with one of the two main characters (or, in my own case, with both of them at different times). It deals with the struggles of the modern world and blaming your own mistakes and misfortune on others to keep up the thin stirrings of hope and an optimistic idea of the future. There is also a lot to say about conformity in a modern world (regardless of the 1947 date of publication, the focus on these elements seems to have become 'modern day timeless', lasting forever as the days and seasons change), and how we are dehumanized by the swift pace and grubbing filth and greed of inhuman business, automated people shuttling to and from whereever it is they for some reason need to be. The way these themes are expressed humanizes this sort of fear and explains the way many people feel as their lives settle down and the sky darkens, with an ominous future of nothing left to look forward to. Now if only Asa weren't so irritating (and believe me--I perfectly love unlikable protagonists, but this guy is kind of grating at times and you often find yourself wishing his nightmare could get worse and worse and worse and worse . . .)

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5.0 out of 5 stars A great early novel by our greatest living novelist., May 21 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Victim (Paperback)

Saul Bellow's novel, The Victim, first got under my skin about fifteen years ago. It is not an easy book to read, but not because it isn't well written or well conceived. The style of writing here is very clean, particularly in comparison to later works by this same author, and the plot is both very simple and very tight, maybe too tight for readers who prefer to luxuriate in a more leisurely unfolding of events. It seems to me that what makes the novel somewhat difficult is Bellow's nearly claustrophobic presentation of Asa Leventhal's character and dilemma. He places his reader so close to his main character that at times the proximity becomes unbearable. But this is what makes The Victim such a compelling read. I can think of no modern American novel I would recommend more highly than this one.

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Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Yawn-a-minute
Trying to broaden my literary horizons, I thought I'd pick up The Victim by Saul Bellow. After all, one of the quotes on the cover proclaimed "One novel by Bellow is worth a... Read more

Published on Mar 29 1999

1.0 out of 5 stars A slow journey into boredom
I was very excited when a buddy bought this book. We had both heard about what a great writer Bellow's was and the premise was very interesting. Read more

Published on Mar 24 1999