The Adventures of Augie March
Books | Fiction / Classics
3.9
Saul Bellow
'The Adventures of Augie March is the Great American Novel. Search no further' Martin AmisA penniless and parentless Chicago boy growing up in the Great Depression, Augie March drifts through life latching on to a wild succession of occupations, including butler, thief, dog-washer, sailor and salesman. He is a 'born recruit', easily influenced by others who try to mould his destiny. Not until he tangles with the glamorous Thea, a huntress with a trained eagle, can he attempt to break free. A modern day everyman on an odyssey in search of reality and identity, Augie March is the star of star performer in a richly observed human variety show, a modern-day Columbus in search of reality and fulfilment.The Adventures of Augie March includes an introduction by Christopher Hitchens in Penguin Modern Classics.'Funny, poignant, crowded with carnivalesque types and yet narrated by a voice that is lonely and simple, it is Bellow's fat comic masterpiece' Observer
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Author
Saul Bellow
Pages
560
Publisher
Penguin Books Limited
Published Date
2012-07-27
ISBN
014191372X 9780141913728
Community ReviewsSee all
"I've been meaning to get around to reading some Bellow, and I finally did. Only almost not, because this book took me two months! Shame. It is not too difficult; it is well written; it was not a page-turner for me. The second half was much more enjoyable for me, but that could probably be said for most books. Or, maybe I got sick of only being halfway done with it at a month and a half and devoted more time and effort to it. All that aside, it's good reading. Just good mostly, and at times really good. Maybe it made less of an impression on me in the year I read the similarly themed and set books, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn and Dos Passos' The 42nd Parallel, both of which I thought were better books. Bellow is just as good a writer, but much more philosophical in his fiction (at least in this, my only example), which I prefer in my nonfiction. <br/><br/>I should have started with something shorter."
Andrew Greene
