Book Review: "Herzog" by Saul Bellow

I'm not sure how many of you know this but there was one point in my life where I would not read Saul Bellow's novels purely because a few years' ago I got through The Adventures of Augie March with not a lot of the old 'will to live' left in me. I'm sorry if you loved it, but I just thought it went nowhere. The language is pretty good, but he's written objectively better books. I mean Ravelstein is a book I read much too late and yet, it's a masterpiece. I've tried The Adventures of Augie March more than once but, it seems like it's just not a book I'm going to gel with. Henderson the Rain King is also pretty good and here we are on another one: Herzog. Let's take a look...

Moses Herzog is 47 and encountering an existential crisis point in his life. Recently divorced from his second wife, Madeleine, who left him for his friend Valentine Gersbach, this university professor is upset to say the least. He mentally composes letters he'll never send and these imaginary correspondences give us insight into his character. They are to friends, philosophers, enemies, and historical figures and are less about communication and more about processing his fragmented thoughts. This was actually quite clever. I'd like to commend Saul Bellow by presenting us with this isolated character who shares his thoughts in a universal way. I think we have all thought about what we would say to people about our inner thoughts whether we know the people themselves very well or not.

The letters themselves are rambling, reflective, philosophical, and often self-deprecating. I think one of them might have even been to President Eisenhower or something. (I looked it up and that, is in fact true). Just an odd person to pick at this particular moment, but I understand Saul Bellow's reason for including him in the mix. Bellow's meditation on obsessive thinking is actually quite telling, especially in the fact that Herzog composes unsent letters to philosophers as well.

We learn that Herzog was married before Madeleine. He was married to a woman called Daisy and seems to be pretty upset at the way that marriage went as well. At least there was a quiet dignity to how that marriage ended - which he seems to accept. In his second marriage though, he was cheated on and so, rightly feels a bit more resentment towards his second wife. Above all that though, he is involved with a more liberated woman named Ramona whom he seems to suggest lacks emotional depth. There is definitely something up with this guy's needs and Saul Bellow also explores this in the novel.

A central idea of the novel is the conflict within Herzog himself between his intellectual pursuits and his emotional wants. He is a scholar who once aspired to write a significant philosophical work, but his personal crises have derailed these ambitions. He seems to be a Hamlet-like character in the sense that he is having these long momentary discussions with an imaginary audience which is basically highlighting his ironic inaction: actions he wants to take but simply cannot bring himself to do. I have no idea whether that was intentional by Saul Bellow, but that is definitely what it seems like.

I love a good novel about alienation from modern society and this is one of those novels. Alienation represented through emotional ranting which comments on things like society, materialism and feeling distant from others - it is such a timely critique. Disillusioned with politics, academia, and conventional morality, Herzog sees modern life as hollow and fragmented. We can definitely see that Saul Bellow is trying to do two things: one is to make us realise exactly how absurd and dystopian modern society actually is emotionally and the other is to showcase the true pretention of intellectuals (especially those working in academia). I think there is really one thing we can tell about Herzog through his unsent letters though: he has a yearning for genuine connection, moral clarity, and a return to humanistic values. Sorry Herzog, but we're in 2025 now and I simply don't think it's possible. In fact, it got even worse.

We get to explore people like Herzog's son and others he's become distant from. It's quite a treat to read such a good Saul Bellow novel. It's probably not as absurd as Ravelstein for me but it is definitely one of his best books. I am very impressed by this rage on the epistolary form.

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