Our reading will be Saul Bellow’s novella The Actual (1997). Bellow (1915-2005) was a major America writer of the 20th century, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. The Actual, written in his later years, is vintage Bellow. The narrator, middle-aged Harry Trellman, has been in love with the same woman, Amy Wurstin, since they were fifteen. After marriages and divorces on both sides, both are now living in Chicago. Harry believes the time has come for them to be together, but this characteristically Bellovian intellectual has always had difficulty communicating his real feelings to others. As with many of Bellow’s stories, this one mixes up cultural sophistication and streetwise urban language, situations, and relationships, and includes some very funny situations. The Actual is available in a Penguin Classics edition and as a pdf version.
Our reading will be Saul Bellow’s novella The Actual (1997). Bellow (1915-2005) was a major America writer of the 20th century, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. The Actual, written in his later years, is vintage Bellow. The narrator, middle-aged Harry Trellman, has been in love with the same woman, Amy Wurstin, since they were fifteen. After marriages and divorces on both sides, both are now living in Chicago. Harry believes the time has come for them to be together, but this characteristically Bellovian intellectual has always had difficulty communicating his real feelings to others. As with many of Bellow’s stories, this one mixes up cultural sophistication and streetwise urban language, situations, and relationships, and includes some very funny situations. The Actual is available in a Penguin Classics edition and as a pdf version.