tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post8484691514891906344..comments2024-02-06T16:17:25.826+00:00Comments on THE GRĂNMARK BLOG: Book Report Part 8: "Mr. Sammler's Planet" by Saul BellowScott Gronmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-77977797761804298912017-08-29T12:08:37.486+01:002017-08-29T12:08:37.486+01:00Burgess's work was eclecticly superb . The Mal... Burgess's work was eclecticly superb . The Malayan Trilogy , the royalties from which saved his financial life , is so delightfully crafted in its depiction of Colonial pedagogy and much else. <br /><br /> He had his small vanities, one of which was his preferred use of the title Dr , not normally a customary application of Honorary Doctorate recipients outside of the Third World.<br /><br /> He feared no literary critics bar one, viz., Cambridge University's George Steiner.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-29702892835759012032017-08-26T14:24:10.850+01:002017-08-26T14:24:10.850+01:00Now, that's uncanny - I cut out the bit where ...Now, that's uncanny - I cut out the bit where I mentioned that the adulation accorded Bellow by Amis and his coterie had put me off reading him: I assumed he'd be just another clever writer churning out clever books for his clever admirers to swoon over. Far from it. Bellow was, of course, very clever - a true intellectual - but wise with it. Little Mart's work (I exempt his very funny early novels, Dead Babies and The Rachel Papers, written before the lionisation process kicked in) strikes me as an extended exercise in impressing his chums, whereas, judging by Mr. Sammler's Planet, Bellow was actually trying to answer the question of how a decent person is supposed to live in a time of moral madness. <br /><br />One book that deserves to be revived, IMHO, is Anthony Burgess's Enderby's End (or The Clockwork Testament), 1973, in which his greatest comic creation end up teaching at a college in New York, where he is confronted by New Left lunacy in all its guises. During a scene where two black female students, Burgess uses the phrase "fellow melanoid", which has stuck in my head for some reason. I must read it again. Scott Gronmarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-52413506730597375522017-08-26T11:03:05.633+01:002017-08-26T11:03:05.633+01:00Saul Bellow's obvious racism manifested itself...Saul Bellow's obvious racism manifested itself when he asked the following question : "Where is the Zulu Zola?"<br /><br /> I was temporarily reluctant to read Bellow when I learned that he was one of Martin Amis's favourite authors.<br /><br /> Order was restored when I discovered the the Bellow quote was one of Kingsley Amis's favourites.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com