Humboldt's Gift is a slice-of-life novel with undertones of dark comedy. From the perspective of Charlie Citrine, a poet and essayist of considerable success, it examines life in America from the 1930s through the mid-1970s. Much of the novel consists of Charlie's memories of his childhood in Chicago and his days in Greenwich Village with his mentor, Von Humboldt Fleischer, who has already descended into madness and death at the time of the telling. Charlie is driven throughout the novel by memories and recriminations of Humboldt.
Citraine intersperses his reveries over Fleischer with his adventures or incidents with Rinaldo Cantabile, a try hard mobster who attaches himself to Citraine after a card game.
This is wonderfully written and gives a fine view of America into the early '70's with the start of the celebrity culture. The novel was published first in 1975.
Charlie is too weak for my liking wandering through life semi-detached due to his success- he has money troubles, women troubles, gangster troubles - all due to his desire that all life should be " nice" "artistic", for a want of better words. In the end Charlie was frustrating, he needed a good slap to bring him back to the real world.
But in saying this, I will read this again, it is great and I can see why Bellow is Martin Amis's hero and I can also see why Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities is very similar, a man completely out of touch with what is happening about him.
There is several layers to everything written in this novel and I was not able to comprehend them all at the first go, but I will go back as there is much more to get from this.
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