Humboldt's Gift

Saul Bellow · 1915–2005 · Canada / USA

Why it matters

Bellow's alter ego narrator reckons with the wreckage of his mentor and rival, a once-brilliant, now-forgotten poet, while chasing his own success through Chicago's gangsters, ex-wives, and spiritual dabbling. A comic meditation on art and money that won Bellow the Pulitzer the year before his Nobel.

At a glance

Digressive, essayistic riffs on philosophy and anthroposophy interrupt an otherwise comic plot.