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Saul Bellow
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Herzog Paperback – January 1, 2001

by Saul Bellow (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 847 ratings
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Herzog is alone, now that Madeleine has left him for his best friend. Solitary, in a crumbling house which he shares with rats, he is buffeted by a whirlwind of mental activity. People rumoured that his mind had collapsed. But was it true? Locked for days in the custody of his rambling memories, Herzog scrawls frantic letters which he never mails. His mind buzzes with conundrums and polemics, writing in a spectacular intellectual labyrinth. Is he crazy, or is he a genius?..
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  1. Print length
    368 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Group(CA)
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 2001
  5. Dimensions
    5.08 x 0.83 x 7.8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0141184876
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0141184876
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Group(CA) (January 1, 2001)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0141184876
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141184876
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 0.83 x 7.8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 847 ratings

About the author

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Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow

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Saul Bellow won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel HUMBOLDT'S GIFT in 1975, and in 1976 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 'for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work.' He is the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards, for THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH, HERZOG, and MR. SAMMLER'S PLANET

Photo by Keith Botsford [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
847 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

silviugherman
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2013
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This book deserves (and has got) more substantial reviews than the one I'm about to write. You go along the trials and tribulations of Moses E. Herzog, following his raging thoughts, musings and cries. He writes letters to the whole world and pretty much quarrels with everybody in an attempt to cure the source of his pain and understand Reality, for which he has a grim affection. The text is a beautiful mess of flashbacks, rants and slow-paced action. Highly recommended.
2 people found this helpful
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Claudia Reder
4.0 out of 5 stars Bellow is always Bellow
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2013
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Saul Bellow's classic- in my opinion- is Herzog. When Bellow gets it right, the writing sizzles. He stays always fresh. Even if you don't like his attitude towards women, you have to remember he is as hard on his male characters also. Bellow deserves a place in the canon.
One person found this helpful
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Avid Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Book for the serious sreadere
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2016
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This 1961book is still relevant. It may not appeal to everyone, but the tory of a philosophy teacher having a nerous breakdown and trying to recover by writing letters to people in power but never mailing them I sad and funny at the same times. His descriptions of Chicago, where I lived, are interesting in terms of the changes of the prsesseent . So many issues sthat poor Moses SHerzog raises still exist today. I enjoyed it very much.
9 people found this helpful
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bongo
3.0 out of 5 stars Slice of life of middle aged man in the 60's.
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2016
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Herzog is a book about a middle aged man and his reflections on life. He's had 2 failed marriages. He's a somewhat itinerant academic. He thinks about philosophy and history and literature. He tries to make sense of things. Tries. There's not a whole lot of plot. It meanders. Lots of him recollecting things, going off on mental tangents, to the point where most of the time I can't tell where he is or what time of day it is. He talks to friends, lawyers, his daughter. He writes letters that he never sends to intellectuals, world leaders and anyone he's in mind of. He ponders (a lot). Occasionally he looks around his environment - the train to the beach, a cab, graffiti, the store, etc.

Cons - it's rambling. I tried reading it a few times before I finally got through it. I kept waiting for something to start happening. I had to get past that expectation. Stuff does happen, but it's buried under an exceptional amount of discursion. Much of what happens is just in Moses Herzog's head.

Pros - Rambling could also be considered, more charitably, as non-linear. Moses overthinks things, but this is something many people, if not all, can relate to. There is some good description. You get a certain feel for what life is like from the eyes of a particular individual. That is something I especially like from a book.

In sum - I'm glad I read it, for the most part, but I wouldn't say it left me wanting more. My guess is that a lot of people can't get past the first chapter or two but that those that do really click with it. So the rating of the book is skewed that way. (Though maybe this is true for all books.)
21 people found this helpful
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Sean
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful
Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2022
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Beautiful cover as well as the language. Bellow's writing is slow and tends to be drawn out, but his usage of language and luring you into his world is unammountable and articulate.
One person found this helpful
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Dr. E. Carter
4.0 out of 5 stars It improved with (my) age
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2017
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I like this a lot more, understand much mord, than when it was required reading for me 35 years ago, so I'd recommend it, just not so much to young co!lege kids.
9 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Effortless drama
Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2018
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Love this book with such poignant drama around human relationships. SB is the master of seeing thru to the core of normal human desires. Last time i read this was before i had kids so the scenes with his little daughter are that much more gripping now. Great book.
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Beverly
1.0 out of 5 stars Herzog - A Bore
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2016
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I would not have read this book except someone in my Book Group picked it. Even though I am interested in psychology and how people think, I found this character completely uninteresting. The book has no plot, just the inner life of Herzog who somehow got his PhD, did some teaching, and wrote a good book - prior to the beginning of this novel, in which he did almost nothing. He spent a great deal of time ruminating about his second wife's having divorced him to be with his best friend. His main pastime was composing letters to dozens of people he hated, living and dead, and never mailing them. I found the prose hard to follow and difficult to understand. It took fortitude to finish this book. It definitely was not worth it. I understand Saul Bellow wrote a better book before this one.
6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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João Silva
5.0 out of 5 stars Bom, mas veio com a borda amassada e página um pouco arranhada
Reviewed in Brazil on August 1, 2022
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João Silva
5.0 out of 5 stars Bom, mas veio com a borda amassada e página um pouco arranhada
Reviewed in Brazil on August 1, 2022
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One person found this helpful
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B Snitman
5.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable
Reviewed in Canada on February 6, 2022
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Intense but filled interesting ideas and memorable situations
Serious but enjoyable read
One person found this helpful
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F
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting work
Reviewed in Italy on July 2, 2021
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Interesting work, if you're into experimental fiction and anti-novel.
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CarlosCC
3.0 out of 5 stars Hay que tenet un buen inglés para leerlo
Reviewed in Spain on April 12, 2017
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Procuro intercalar lectura de novelas en español y en inglés. Esta novela no es fácil de seguir si no tienes un buen nivel de inglés pero, para alguien que lo domine, seguro que es una buena novela, si no dominas inglés, para disfrutarla, mejor en español.
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therealus
5.0 out of 5 stars His second best?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 24, 2015
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Herzog, more than any other, reveals James Joyce’s influence over the novels of Saul Bellow. It is for much of its length an internal conversation conducted by Moses Herzog with himself, some of which he occasionally commits to paper as part of a series of notes to personages both dead and alive, ranging from existentialist philosophers to his former sexual partners. He remembers his hardscrabble childhood, with his family’s migration from Canada to Chicago, echoing Bellow’s own, and the struggles of his father in making a living, including his foray into bootlegging which earns him a serious beating.

Occasionally other people intrude. He spends a night with his latest girlfriend, Ramona. He rather creepily stalks his ex-wife Madeleine and her partner at her home one night, watching them through the window. He takes his daughter to the zoo carrying an antique pistol, loaded, wrapped in a blanket of czarist roubles, is involved in a minor car crash and finds himself in the police station charged with possession of an unlicensed weapon. In amongst this he travels around New York, Chicago and his country pile in the Berkshires.

For the reader there is little doubt that Herzog is a little unhinged. How else to explain his resentment at the anger displayed by Madeleine when she collects their daughter from the police station? How else to explain the capricious wanderings by train, plane and automobile? How else to explain the compulsive scribblings?

Some of Herzog’s musings reveal a streak of misogyny. It is not possible to say definitively that this reflected Bellow’s own attitudes, but some of the circumstances in the book reflect Bellow’s own at the time. His musings in particular on his treatment by Madeleine suggest it is she, not him, who is the crazy one; he twists her every action so it appears to him a part of a typical feminine conspiracy effected over a long period of time which somehow included marrying him and having his child just out of spite. In his later novel, Humboldt’s Gift, the protagonist Charlie Citrine finds himself strung along by Madeleine’s alter ego, Renata, who ends up dumping Citrine in favour of an undertaker. Ramona on the other hand ostensibly represents a different side of women, more nurturing, forgiving. But she, too, is able to dump lost causes, and it is possible to see Ramona and Renata, and therefore also Madeleine, as the same woman, just seen from different angles.

Returning to this novel after forty years – my college dissertation addressed the works of Bellow – I was struck by how much it is a novel of its time. Published in 1964, it represents a time before the collapse of the post-second world war boom; the big battles of the Civil Rights struggles of the sixties were yet to come, and the counterculture was still in the wings. It is instructive to read it to acquire a sense of what in those days were common modes of discourse, even in the context of liberal art, on a variety of subjects. More prosaically, it is shocking to find Herzog being questioned in the police station, following his road accident, with an untreated head wound. Surely, it occurred to me, a cop nowadays would ensure somebody involved in such an incident would first receive medical attention to ensure there is no concussion? Different times, different priorities, apparently.

Malcolm Bradbury, in the Introduction, suggests that this is Bellow’s best novel, but I don’t agree: Humboldt’s Gift I would say is better executed, has a more interesting worldview, and is also more amusing. Herzog has its moments, and is certainly a fine piece of literature, but four decades on I was less captivated by rereading this than I was when I reread Humboldt’s Gift a couple of years ago. But all that means is that it’s worth trying both to see if it’s me or Malcolm you agree with.
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