Specify Of Books Humboldt's Gift

Title	:	Humboldt's Gift
Author	:	Saul Bellow
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 487 pages
Published	:	June 1st 1996 by Penguin Classics (first published 1975)
Categories	:	Fiction. Classics. Literature

Humboldt's Gift Paperback | Pages: 487 pages

Explanation During Books Humboldt's Gift

The novel, for which Bellow won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1976, is a self-described "comic book about death," whose title character is modeled on the self-destructive lyric poet Delmore Schwartz. Charlie Citrine, an intellectual, middle-aged author of award-winning biographies and plays, contemplates two significant figures and philosophies in his life: Von Humboldt Fleisher, a dead poet who had been his mentor, and Rinaldo Cantabile, a very-much-alive minor mafioso who has been the bane of Humboldt's existence. Humboldt had taught Charlie that art is powerful and that one should be true to one's own creative spirit. Rinaldo, Charlie's self-appointed financial adviser, has always urged Charlie to use his art to turn a profit. At the novel's end, Charlie has managed to set his own course.

Present Books Toward Humboldt's Gift

Original Title:	Humboldt's Gift
ISBN:	0140189440 (ISBN13: 9780140189445)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Charlie Citrine, Von Humboldt Fleisher, Renata Koffritz, Rinaldo Cantabile, Pierre Thaxter, Denise Citrine, Demmie Vonghel
Setting:	Chicago, Illinois(United States) New York City, New York(United States)
Literary Awards:	Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1976), National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (1976), Society of Midland Authors Award for Adult Fiction (1976)

Rating Of Books Humboldt's Gift

Ratings: 3.86 From 8059 Users | 541 Reviews

Article Of Books Humboldt's Gift

I have mixed feelings about the overall literary quality of this book, but I'm glad I read it because Bellow is a good teacher, very good at mixing abstract thought (here death, the soul, and the possibility of a vital American poetry are the biggest concerns) with the plot, action, character, and the other stuff of life and novels. Really, Humboldt's Gift reads like a clinic on this novelistic skill, but more in the way of an exercise book than a masterpiece. The two writers I thought of most

This novel is divided into sections of uneven length, each section probably best described as a chapter, unnumbered. The narrative is in the first person, told by the writer Charlie Citrine, the erstwhile friend and protégé of Von Humboldt Fleisher, a poet whose greatest fame occurred in the Thirties, after which the friendship shattered as Humboldts reputation declined and Charlies rose. The syntax, at the beginning, is simple declarative sentences, but it becomes far more florid during long

Humboldt is a poet, once revered, eventually ridiculed; Charlie Citrine, the narrator, was his acolyte, friend and enemy. Citrine, of an inferior talent, enjoys much greater commercial success than Humboldt. This anomaly is the foundation for much soul searching about the relationship between the artist and commercial success in America. Humboldt fulfils societys most cherished expectation of the poet he goes nuts and dies ignominiously. In other words, hes too delicate for this world.

I mostly loved this novel, but there were spots of tedium here and there. The novel starts out a bit slow-to-read, but as it gets into the action of the plot, the pace picks up. The story takes place over a short span of time, but the narrator Charlie Citrine frequently recollects his past, giving temporal depth to the story. The subject of much of his remembrance is his former mentor, Humboldt Fleisher, now deceased. Their relationship was rocky, ended badly, and Charlie seems to be working

"Wrestling match between Vita Contemplativa and Vita Activa" Lets be honest! Humboldts Gift is exhausting. It is a masterpiece, a brilliant study of a man fighting the world and his inner demons by withdrawing from active participation, but it leaves the reader frequently frustrated with the narrator, Charles Citrine, and his non-response to the problems he causes by contemplating life rather than living it actively. Using a similar idea to the one explored in Dangling Man, it goes further,

I dont know where to begin to summarize this novel. It appears to want to be about everything. It is the relationship between a commercially successful writer and his literary mentor, now dead, who chose artistic integrity over money. It is about the capers between a once very wealthy writer and a ridiculously irritating low level mobster. It is about the midlife crisis of a famous writer as his life and loves seem to spin away from him. Through the conversations and internal monologues,

"Wrestling match between Vita Contemplativa and Vita Activa" Lets be honest! Humboldts Gift is exhausting. It is a masterpiece, a brilliant study of a man fighting the world and his inner demons by withdrawing from active participation, but it leaves the reader frequently frustrated with the narrator, Charles Citrine, and his non-response to the problems he causes by contemplating life rather than living it actively. Using a similar idea to the one explored in Dangling Man, it goes further,