Rotten Reviews Omnibus: Saul Bellow

The Adventures of Augie March

“All of Those Words, in denominations of from three to five letters, are present.”

Library Journal


Henderson the Rain King

“The novelist who doesn’t like meanings writes an allegory; the allegory means that men should not mean but be. Ods bodkins. The reviewer looks at the evidence and wonders if he should damn the author and praise the book, or praise the author and damn the book. And is it possible, somehow or other to praise or damn, both? He isn’t sure.”

Reed Whittemore, New Republic

“At times Henderson is too greyly overcast with thought to be more than a dun Quixote.”

Time


Herzog 

“There is no effort toward decency—many of the conversations that come back to Herzog are foul-mouthed, and his own sexual actions and reminiscences are unrestrained.

America

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

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