Saul Bellow's Heart
Saul Bellow鈥檚 eldest son is a retired psychoanalyst, a profession that suited him because he was 鈥渁ble to relate to boys who suffered broken hearts,鈥� Greg Bellow writes in Saul Bellow鈥檚 Heart: A Son鈥檚 Memoir.
The emotional anguish Greg suffered in childhood was the result of a father who pursued 鈥渁 life where everything and everyone was subordinated to art,鈥� who engaged in 鈥渆pic philandering鈥� that contributed to the dissolution of four marriages and drove a wedge between him and his firstborn child.
But Greg Bellow鈥檚 memoir is not a bitter screed about an absentee father who cared more about fictional creations than real people. It鈥檚 a balanced expos茅 of a Nobel Prize-winning author whose memorable, fallible narrators (including in 鈥�The Adventures of Augie March,鈥� 鈥淗erzog,鈥� and 鈥淗enderson the Rain King鈥�) closely resemble Saul Bellow at various stages of his emotional and intellectual lives.
鈥淢y father鈥檚 novels are full of well-meaning friends, lawyers, schemers, and advisers brimming with helpful solutions for a series of narrators. Like Saul, his narrators usually ignore the advice and follow their own misguided efforts, which draw them into a destructive vortex.鈥�
Bellow鈥檚 oeuvre has been examined many times by literary critics and biographers, but his son has unique insights into the author鈥檚 heart, born of long conversations over many years about topics that a less liberal parent would have avoided.
鈥淏eginning in my adolescence, when the two of us were alone, my father would inquire after what he termed my inner life. Initially I was a bit confused, but soon realized he was asking me to consider whether or not I was content with myself. This began a regular dialogue we came to call 鈥榬eal conversations.鈥欌�� they became a regular feature of our time together.鈥�
The relationship between Greg and Saul is informed by Saul鈥檚 difficult relationship with his own father, Abraham, whose 鈥渇ailure to earn an adequate income aggravated his already volatile temper. He often blamed parenthood for his impoverishment and gave each of his boys a whack to cover their presumed sins when he got home from a day of hard work.鈥�
Abraham thought Saul was emotionally soft, and he pressured his youngest son to enter the family鈥檚 coal business.
鈥淲hen Saul resisted, Abraham derided him and his bookish friends with a vacuous tongue.鈥�
Saul can be equally biting in his criticism, Greg writes, but he was not physically abusive.
鈥淚n conscious contrast to his father, Saul took pride in not hitting me and made a point of telling me so.鈥�
And yet Saul鈥檚 abuse could be emotional and intellectual, as he took little interest in Greg鈥檚 career and acted recalcitrant towards other family members and longtime friends.
鈥淸H]is self-justification: that his career as an artist entitled him to let people down with impunity.鈥�
Which isn鈥檛 to say that Saul wasn鈥檛 betrayed by those closest to him, too. His second wife had a longtime affair with his best friend, and his son even now struggles to understand how his father could have been so deceived.
鈥淭he answers lie in his facility with logic, his inclination to trust, and his inability to see guile in others that his hardheaded older brothers would never have missed.鈥�
Understanding Saul鈥檚 difficult relationships with women is central to understanding the man and his fiction, his son writes. Like Augie March, Saul was 鈥渁doptable,鈥� and his demeanor 鈥渃ommunicated a hint of softness and pliability that drew out protective feelings in women along with the illusion that they could shape Saul into what they wanted him to be.鈥�
The illusion never lasted. And the young, dashing Saul, who was rebellious and humanistic, became more conservative and paternalistic with age, much to his son鈥檚 chagrin.
Changes also took place in how Saul was seen by others, particularly younger writers like Martin Amis and Jeffrey Eugenides, who knew Saul mostly through his writing. When Saul died in 2005, Greg felt shoved aside by these literary sons of Saul Bellow.
鈥淎s Saul鈥檚 firstborn, I believed our relationship to be sacrosanct until his funeral, an event filled with tributes to his literary accomplishments and anecdotes about his personal influence on those in attendance that set in motion my reconsideration of that long-held but unexamined belief.鈥�
Ironically, he decides that the best way to examine his relationship with his father is by reading his father鈥檚 books. In the end, he knows that鈥檚 where Saul Bellow鈥檚 heart can be found.
Cameron Martin is a Monitor contributor.聽
