Herzog
(Saul Bellow)
Saul Bellow's Herzog (1964) is the literary portrait of a man in his entirety expressed through thebizarrely mundane life and letters of Moses E. Herzog, professional everyman yet wanton abuser of himself: ode to the neurotic fixations born byhumanity. Indeed, little happens throughout the book, which details Herzog's middle years, caught in the in-between of every aspect of life (marriages, professional needs, friends, home and kin); the focus isdissection of the circumstances of American life and the toll it takes on identity. We see Herzog through his impulsive letter-writing,emotional outlets to any character who crosses his whim, often cut short or repeatedly appended, never meant to be sent, but vital to his sanity amidst a seemingly self-assured world with an indecipherable set of rules. When Madeleine, Herzog's second wife,a woman perfect inbeauty, cunningand emotional unattachment, runs off with his peg-legged best friend, Herzog must facethe loose ends he has left in a life of impulsive pursuits: children, past-wives, lovers, ideas and purpose. The search for self brings him through the unwelcoming homes of his past in an attempt to set himself straight by coping with his perceived failures and finallyembracing himself as an ultimately unstable entity--rightly so in an ultimately unstable world. With Herzog, Bellow attempts to express the conscious experience of modern life. Herzog is a man of mind; his body,a thing removed from him. He delves continually into his emotions and thoughts, while the world around him circles in full colour, each emerging character brighter and more bizzare than the last. To the reader, the neurotic Herzog and his various retreats beome an anchor in the chaotic world of human interaction. Like this, Bellow tells us that mind, no matter how neurotic, is man'sonly sane retreat.
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