Book Review: "More Die of Heartbreak" by Saul Bellow

I'm just going to attach some of my past reviews of Saul Bellow novels below if you'd like to read them...

Dangling Man

The Dean's December

Ravelstein

Herzog

And now, welcome to More Die of Heartbreak. A story that criticises Reagan's America, this book is an 80s classic of existentialism and melancholy. Mixed in is Bellow's classic wit and I have to say, it's probably up there with Ravelstein and Herzog as my top ranked Saul Bellow novels. I was approaching this one carefully because I'm not sure about Saul Bellow still - I often think that when he tries to write novels that are too long it can drag a bit because of his use of wit quite literally everywhere. But, he definitely proves that his longer novels are just as fantastic as the shorter ones here.

The story is narrated by Kenneth Trachtenberg, a young Russian-American academic and lecturer who studies Japanese literature. He's quite a sardonic man, he has several comments on the existentialist state of things and often makes observations that are quite obtuse. Through his witty and self-conscious narration, he introduces us to his beloved uncle, Dr. Benn Crader, a distinguished botanist and environmentalist. This character is a little bit more of an oddball. Though he's described as quite an intelligent man, there are little that make these two normal men in their society. Kenneth idolises his uncle though and we definitely see this through the way in which he is very protective over his status as a distinguished botanist and the way he lives his life.

Benn is gentle, naïve, and emotionally unguarded. He is a man who knows everything about plants and almost nothing about people. Bellow's want to present this man as innocent and pure as physically possible definitely contrasts with the America around him which is packed full of corruption and greed. He seems almost apart from the modern world. It is almost as though America's emerging moral chaos does not impact his life in the slightest. He is entirely detached from it. Kenneth, though younger and sharper in worldly terms, mirrors his uncle’s confusion about modern life. He is divorced, entangled in affairs, and intellectually restless.

Benn impulsively marries Matilda Layamon, a beautiful but emotionally opaque woman from a wealthy and dysfunctional family. Matilda’s father, Valerian Layamon, is a manipulative businessman who treats everyone, including his daughter, as assets or liabilities. This is definitely not the environment he wants to be caught up in nor does he have any experience of battling, but here he is and this is where the centre of the narrative is about to unfold. Benn, the innocent and gentle man of detachment and intellectual possibility and his wife's family - a satire of Reagan's America in one of the most obvious ways Bellow has ever depicted a satire. It is fantastic and also, keeps the reader invested over how much this will impact Benn's life - though we are not fully prepared for how Bellow's wit will turn to darkness and melancholy later on in the text.

Meanwhile, Kenneth is caught in his own failed love affair with a married woman. His intellectual justifications for his passion and his cynicism about love become part of the novel’s running commentary on emotional delusion. Emotional delusion is everywhere and yet, those who are the characters of satire exploit it so much that by the middle of the book the reader is almost losing their mind in trying to protect our beloved character of Benn. Kenneth though, we are not too worried about as he is younger, might recover quicker and has a better grasp on the fact he is delusional. Bellow makes this divide quite clear and yet, we cannot pull ourselves away from seeing a possibly tragic end result.

Benn begins to retreat away from Matilda after seeing her family's exploitation of his being. But, he is also left with physical difficulties because of his crushed emotional state. This is not the only thing that happens but we are left contemplating the America Benn lives in and whether Kenneth must now face the next decades in relatively the same way since he idolises his uncle. We constantly feel like Kenneth is perhaps more aware than his uncle, but if the twists and manipulation get any worse, will Kenneth fall down the same trap? Does intellectualism naturally incur a sort of delusion about the self? Is Saul Bellow trying to tell America to wake up to its own delusion? There are so many questions left by the end of the novel, I was quite surprised I was able to put it down.