{"id":2514,"date":"2015-06-08T09:31:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T13:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/?p=2514"},"modified":"2015-06-08T09:43:51","modified_gmt":"2015-06-08T13:43:51","slug":"saul-bellow-a-useless-old-gentleman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/2015\/06\/08\/saul-bellow-a-useless-old-gentleman\/","title":{"rendered":"Saul Bellow – A Useless Old Gentleman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Saul<\/a>

Saul Bellow<\/p><\/div>\n

Saul Bellow – A “Useless Old Gentleman,” <\/strong>according to\u00a0The NY Times Book Review<\/em>,\u00a0SAM TANENHAUS, APRIL 27, 2015, reviewing: \u2018The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1964,\u2019 by Zachary Leader \u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/05\/03\/books\/review\/the-life-of-saul-bellow-to-fame-and-fortune-1915-1964-by-zachary-leader.html<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It appears that The NY Times Book Review<\/em> is shamelessly dumbing down for shallow readers in their \u201c20s and 30s,\u201d who are in fact at times symptoms of the modern malaise, not trendsetters who ought to be encouraged. Instead of accommodating PC drivel, The NY Times<\/em> should be advising and encouraging them to strive to read and understand Saul Bellow.<\/p>\n

Lowering literary standards further, though, ought to help corrupt corporate publishers, who have no standards but the bottom-line, using their ill-begotten wealth to pay for the exorbitant cost of advertising in The NY Times Book Review<\/em>, and should make the plutocrats of Wall Street happy. Nothing like a dumb population to render them easy to control and rob\u2026 Bellow was a searing critic of media hacks throughout his novels and short stories. Perhaps that explains the betrayal.
\nSaul Bellow\u2019s material isn\u2019t a matter of fashion; it\u2019s much of the foundation of anything worth calling civilization, despite the lack of defense, if not dismissal, by Sam Tanenhaus:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many he now belongs among the useless old gentlemen. Bellow admirers in their 20s and 30s are increasingly harder to find. \u201cHumboldt wanted to drape the world in radiance, but he didn\u2019t have enough material,\u201d he wrote of one of his battered characters. Bellow had the material, in abundance, but it\u2019s gone out of fashion. The great midcentury emancipator is now in danger of slipping into a forgotten past.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tanenhaus\u2019 review makes clear he and The NY Times Book Review<\/em> aren\u2019t fit to touch Saul Bellow\u2019s shoelace, let alone untie it.<\/p>\n

See my essay \u201cSaul Bellow\u2019s Ravelstein\u2013The Closing of the American Soul\u201d in my book The Myth of the Enlightenment: Essays<\/em><\/a> (2014) for a deeper reading of the importance of Bellow and my further comments about Bellow castigating the corrupt media. \u201cSaul Bellow\u2019s Soul\u201d is in my book The Grove of the Eumenides<\/em> (2007) and in Saul Bellow and the Struggle at the Center<\/em> (AMS Press, 1996).\u00a0https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0982677839<\/a><\/p>\n

Frederick Glaysher<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saul Bellow – A “Useless Old Gentleman,” according to The NY Times Book Review, SAM TANENHAUS, APRIL 27, 2015. It appears that The NY Times Book Review is shamelessly dumbing down for shallow readers in their \u201c20s and 30s,\u201d who are in fact at times symptoms of the modern malaise, not trendsetters who ought to be encouraged. Instead of accommodating PC drivel, The NY Times should be advising and encouraging them to strive to read and understand Saul Bellow. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200],"tags":[792,444,186,791,294,600,4,794,599,793],"class_list":["post-2514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book","tag-biography","tag-fiction","tag-frederick-glaysher","tag-novels","tag-publishing","tag-sam-tanenhaus","tag-saul-bellow","tag-the-life-of-saul-bellow","tag-the-new-york-times-book-review","tag-zachary-leader"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fglaysher.com\/TheGlobe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}