Book Review: "The Dean's December" by Saul Bellow

If you know me, you know of my struggle with Saul Bellow. Though I enjoyed his books It All Adds Up, Dangling Man and Ravelstein, I have also despised the more famous Adventures of Augie March and Herzog. I don't know why, but the latter two seem to have too much of Saul Bellow trying to craft a perfect story whilst not focusing enough on constructing characters - this makes the characters often, deeply unlikeable and you end up not really caring how they turn out. So, today I have finished reading The Dean's December - a book by Saul Bellow that I have never actually heard of and yet, I still find myself sitting atop the fence, looking down over both sides and wondering why I'm here.

Albert Corde is the dean who has been an academic and before that, a journalist - he has also married a woman from Romania who happens to be a scientist. As her mother is lying on her deathbed, Albert travels with his wife to Bucharest in order to see her one last time. This is something I recognised from Ravelstein as well, dealing with someone who was close to death and someone else had to come and visit them to fulfil any last wishes they had for this life.

In this return to Bucharest, we get a deep contrast between communist life in Romania and life in America. Communism is dull and dreary, it has rations and everything is metaphorically grey (or sometimes even just literally grey) and life is harsh, cruel and depressing. Whereas, in America, life is corrupt - it is ruled by crime and has little consideration for morality. This I found strange because the 'America' part is set in Chicago, not in New York or LA (which were both far more known for their relaxed morals). For Chicago, a city of crime and mobsters, this descriptions seems a bit expired by the 1970s-1980s.

The book also deals with the problem of academia, a similar problem that we face today - does academia indoctrinate and is it meant to guide ideology or give ideology? Albert reacts to this in a way which is somewhat shocking to the reader because by that point that it happens in the book, you would think he had more resolve than to just do *that* (which I will not say as it will spoil a part of the ending for you).

This is why I found the main character somewhat unlikeable. He was neither here nor there. One minute he has a lot of resolve and he is ready to face the world and the next minute he has absolutely none whatsoever and has pretty much given up on his resolve. I think part of this is to blame on the way this book deals with the death of his mother-in-law as something that incites a revelation about the universe which he discusses with his wife. This almost romanticised way of thinking and conversing is not seen in the book ever again or even before and thus, changes the character's resolve of action.

In conclusion, this hasn't been my favourite Saul Bellow novel, but it has not been as bad as it possibly could be. I think that it's better if I read a little bit more of his work, come back to this one and rethink it because I might just have a different opinion the next time you see me reading this. I'm sitting on the fence, I don't know whether I like it or not. The concept is definitely very good, but the character of Albert is somewhat flawed, inconsistent and unlikeable at times.