The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1964. By Zachary Leader. Knopf; 812 pages; $40. Jonathan Cape; £35.
CHIMING with the centenary of the birth of Saul Bellow and the tenth anniversary of his death comes a biography drawing on a wealth of previously restricted material and new interviews. “The Life of Saul Bellow”, by Zachary Leader, is the first in a two-part portrait of a writer whom Mr Leader calls “the most decorated...in American history”. This volume charts his initial struggles, burgeoning talent and first big artistic achievements, finishing with the publication in 1964 of “Herzog”, which many believe to have been Bellow’s masterpiece.
Mr Leader, an academic at the University of Roehampton in London, takes the reader through Bellow’s early years in Canada and his relationship with his Russian immigrant parents, particularly a “tyrannical” father who deplored his son’s “dreamy side”. Two formative events stand out. Aged eight, Bellow develops appendicitis and from his hospital bed becomes a reader. A year later the family is “smuggled...
from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1ezS2tb
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