Ravelstein
Encyclopedia
Ravelstein is Saul Bellow
's final novel.
Published in 2000, when Bellow was eighty-five years old, it received widespread critical acclaim. It tells the tale of a friendship between two university professors and the complications that animate their erotic and intellectual attachments in the face of impending death. The novel is a roman à clef
, written in memoir-form. The narrator is in Paris with Abe Ravelstein, a renowned professor, and Nikki, his lover. Ravelstein asks him to write a memoir about him after he dies, because he has AIDS
. After his death, the narrator and his wife go on holiday to the Caribbean. The narrator catches a tropical disease and flies back to the United States in convalescence. Eventually, on recuperation, he decides to write the memoir.
The title character, Ravelstein, is based on the philosopher Allan Bloom
, who taught alongside Bellow at the University of Chicago
's Committee on Social Thought
. Remembering Bloom in an interview, Bellow said, "Allan inhaled books and ideas the way the rest of us breathe air... People only want the factual truth. Well, the truth is that Allan was a very superior person, great-souled. When critics proclaim the death of the novel, I sometimes think they are really saying that there are no significant people to write about." But "Allan was certainly one."
Describing the novel in his autobiography, Martin Amis
wrote: "Ravelstein is a full-length novel. It is also, in my view, a masterpiece with no analogues. The world has never heard this prose before: prose of such tremulous and crystallized beauty." For Ravelstein is "numinous. It constitutes an act of resuscitation, and in its pages Bloom lives"
Literary theorist John Sutherland wrote: "The novel explores, in its attractively rambling way, two dauntingly large and touchy themes: death and American Jewishness ... Not quite American (as the Canadian-born Jew, Bellow, is not quite American), Abe Ravelstein is the American mind and Bellow its finest living (thank God) voice. We should all have such friends."
The literary critic Sir Malcolm Bradbury, stated: "Just when we didn't expect it, there now wonderfully comes a large new novel from the master... Our world is a world of ideas, pervaded by minds, thoughts, notions, beyond which lies what we seek with such difficulty: wholeness, silence and love. Via print, Ravelstein survives; and Bellow survives. So does fiction itself."
William Leith, writing in The Independent
, argued: "As you would expect, Ravelstein, as a character, is beautifully drawn. He is "impatient with hygiene". He smokes constantly. "When he coughed you heard the sump at the bottom of a mine shaft echoing." His "biological patchiness was a given". Those who invite him to dinner must reckon with "the spilling, splashing, crumbling, the nastiness of his napkin after he had used it, the pieces of cooked meat scattered under the table". Like many Bellow characters, he has developed a mean streak. "Nothing," he declares, "is more bourgeois than the fear of death."... This is the late late message from Bellow: death is humiliating. But there might be consolations. I almost forgot to say that Ravelstein is a brilliant novel"
For Ron Rosenbaum
, Ravelstein was Bellow's greatest novel: "It's a rapturous celebration of the life of the mind, as well as a meditation on the glory of sensual life and on the tenebrous permeable boundary we all eventually pass over, the one between life and death... a novel Bellow wrote in his 80s, which I found absolutely, irresistibly seductive, both sensually and intellectually, one in which the sublimity and pathos of life and art are not joined to each other with heavy welds but transformed into a beautiful, seamless, unravelable fabric."
On its publication, the Harvard literary critic James Wood
wrote: "How extraordinary, then, that Bellow's substantial new novel, Ravelstein, written in his 85th year, should be so full of the old, cascading power... Ravelstein... is large, flamboyant, and excessively clumsy. When he laughs, he throws his head back "like Picasso's wounded horse in Guernica". He loves fine clothes, Lanvin jackets, Zegna ties, but tends to spill food on them. Hostesses know to put newspaper underneath Ravelstein's chair at a dinner party. At home, he wanders around in an exquisite silk dressing-gown, chain-smoking. His apartment is stuffed with beautiful glass and silverware, with the finest Italian and French linens, and thousands of CDs. He reclines on a black leather couch, listening to Baroque music, is enormously learned, and given to oration on a thousand subjects... By all accounts, including Bellow's, this is Allan Bloom as his friends knew him."
On its publication, the novel caused controversy for its frank depiction of Ravelstein's (and therefore Allan Bloom's) love of gossip, his free spending, his political influence, and his homosexuality, as well as the revelation, as the story unfolds, that he is dying from AIDS.
Bellow claimed that Bloom, a philosopher and social critic, ostensibly aligned with many American conservative
ideas and ambitions, was anything but conservative in his private life, and in many of his philosophical views. Robert Fulford argued that, "[r]emarkably, no reference to Bloom's homosexuality has previously appeared in print—not in the publicity that surrounded his best-seller, or his obituaries, or even his posthumously published book, Love and Friendship. Accordingly, some took Ravelstein as a betrayal of Bloom's private life; however, Bellow rigidly defended his claim, citing private conversations between Bloom and himself where, Bellow insists, the subject urged Bellow to tell it all. Bloom was not a 'closeted' homosexual: although he never spoke publicly of his sexual orientation
, Bloom was openly gay, and his close friends, colleagues, and former students all knew of it. He was a bachelor
and never married or had children.
In his most famous book, Closing of the American Mind, Bloom criticizes homosexual politics in American universities on an issue relating to his core concern - liberal arts education, or 'Great Books' liberal arts curriculum, making a distinction between a politically self-defined group of homosexual activists and homosexuality per se. Although Bloom, in the wake of his literary stardom, explicitly stated, at a Harvard University
gathering, published in Giants & Dwarfs, that he was not a conservative, he was much admired by conservative publications, like William F. Buckley, Jr
's National Review
.
Arguing in support of Bloom in The New Republic
, Andrew Sullivan wrote: "Bloom was gay, and he died of AIDS. The salience of these facts is strengthened, not weakened, by Bloom's public silence about them. Of all people, he knew the centrality of the things about which we remain silent[...] Retaining the purity of that longing was his life's work. The reason he disliked the modern cult of easy sex was not because he scorned or feared the erotic life but because he revered it. He saw sexual longing as supremely expressed in individual love, and he wanted his students to experience both to the fullest. He not merely understood Nietzsche; he imbibed him. But this awareness of the abyss moved Bloom, unlike Nietzsche, toward love... One day, one hopes, there will be a conservatism civilized enough to deserve him...
Typical of Bellow's most accessible fiction, like the short novel surrounding a father-son relationship and the New York Stock Exchange
, Seize the Day, Ravelstein is a crisp mix of dialogue, narration, and unanswered questions. Abe Ravelstein is a parodox - the serious and mundane, the corporeal
and spiritual
, the conservative and radical
. The one constant is the kindness and friendship between "Chick" and Ravelstein. Few intellectual or personal subjects are taboo; although Ravelstein's philosophical insights are not part of the story. Chick makes it clear Ravelstein thinks he is too old to become a philosopher. Thus, a comparison can be made to Xenophon
's Socratic works and dialogues, such as Memorabilia
, where a non-philosopher describes the outward life of a philosopher, for Chick most definitely believes Ravelstein is a great thinker, even if he cannot judge the merits of the man's wisdom.
The story follows the physical decline of Ravelstein, a University of Chicago professor, and how his recent literary fame and financial success impacted his life. After Ravelstein's death, the remainder of the work deals with the narrator's own illness and hospitalization. Ravelstein is not aloof or uninterested by the Heideggerian
'fallen-ness' of everyday life. He is a consumer of goods and gossip, eagerly meeting people where they exist, without constructing artificial barriers based on presumed superiority. His friendships do not solely revolve around his own interests and concerns. Thoughts and opinions expressed by Ravelstein are often humorous, precisely because they are so 'common' and 'clichéd'. Upon lighting a cigarette to open a class, he mentions that students who dislike tobacco more than they love ideas will not be missed. He even rearranges the love lives of his students, often without being asked, going so far as to ask them to return with any gossip that isn't treason to repeat.
In this virtual roman à clef, Ravelstein's mentor 'Davarr' is based on a real figure, Leo Strauss, his friend 'Morris Herbst' on Werner Dannhauser, and the narrator's friend 'Rakhmiel Kogon' has elements in his character of German sociologist Edward Shils – as well as Polish political philosopher Leszek Kołakowski. 'Radu Grielescu' is based on Mircea Eliade.
In many ways, Bellow depicts Ravelstein- and by association himself- as one of the few remaining Renaissance men in modern universities. Although the difference between the two is that Ravelstein would enthusiastically agree with being called a Renaissance man
, and Chick would blush. The professor, turned best selling author, works to counter the impoverishment of the contemporary "market place of ideas", even if he is a little too attached to his own passions and personal vanity. Chick contrasts with Ravelstein as an older fellow, more cautious and predictable. When he claims he is saving Finnegans Wake
for the nursing home, Ravelstein asks, "Why wait?" Intellectual honesty binds these friends.
Bellow asks, via inference, in Ravelstein, how one is best remembered: for contributions to general knowledge; for contributions to humanity via the treatment of one's friends, intimates, and strangers; or for having attracted mass attention and a notoriety which thereafter decays. That last theme is poignantly exhibited in two instances: early on, in a chance encounter between Ravelstein and Chick and pop star Michael Jackson
(and entourage) at Paris' Hotel Crillon, and later, when Ravelstein recalls having followed Elizabeth Taylor
through an airport terminal in a sudden (and brief) obsession.
Bellow, in Ravelstein, reveals the crossing paths of purpose and truth in the trajectories of remembrance. In this pattern of coming and going, Bellow seems to imply, the best recollection of a man is a complete depiction of complication and chance painted against the higher ambition of an authentically shared existence.
produced an audio version of Ravelstein, narrated by Peter Ganim, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks.
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
's final novel.
Published in 2000, when Bellow was eighty-five years old, it received widespread critical acclaim. It tells the tale of a friendship between two university professors and the complications that animate their erotic and intellectual attachments in the face of impending death. The novel is a roman à clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
, written in memoir-form. The narrator is in Paris with Abe Ravelstein, a renowned professor, and Nikki, his lover. Ravelstein asks him to write a memoir about him after he dies, because he has AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
. After his death, the narrator and his wife go on holiday to the Caribbean. The narrator catches a tropical disease and flies back to the United States in convalescence. Eventually, on recuperation, he decides to write the memoir.
The title character, Ravelstein, is based on the philosopher Allan Bloom
Allan Bloom
Allan David Bloom was an American philosopher, classicist, and academic. He studied under David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon and Alexandre Kojève. He subsequently taught at Cornell University, the University of Toronto, Yale University, École Normale Supérieure of Paris, and the University...
, who taught alongside Bellow at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
's Committee on Social Thought
Committee on Social Thought
The Committee on Social Thought is one of several PhD-granting committees at the University of Chicago. It was started in 1941 by historian John Ulric Nef along with economist Frank Knight, anthropologist Robert Redfield, and University President Robert Maynard Hutchins.The committee is...
. Remembering Bloom in an interview, Bellow said, "Allan inhaled books and ideas the way the rest of us breathe air... People only want the factual truth. Well, the truth is that Allan was a very superior person, great-souled. When critics proclaim the death of the novel, I sometimes think they are really saying that there are no significant people to write about." But "Allan was certainly one."
Characters
- Abe Ravelstein, a 6'6" tall, renowned professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, based on Allan Bloom. Ravelstein studied under Felix Davarr and Alexandre KojèveAlexandre KojèveAlexandre Kojève was a Russian-born French philosopher and statesman whose philosophical seminars had an immense influence on twentieth-century French philosophy, particularly via his integration of Hegelian concepts into continental philosophy...
. - Nikki, Abe's Malaysian lover. Modeled on Bloom's real life lover, Micheal Wu.
- The narrator, a long-time friend of Ravelstein's who is somewhat older than the protagonist. While Ravelstein refers to him by the nickname "Chick", he otherwise remains nameless.
- Vela, the narrator's previous wife, a beautiful Romanian Chaos TheoristChaos theoryChaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
. Vela is based on Alexandra BellowAlexandra BellowAlexandra Bellow , is a mathematician from Bucharest, Romania, who has made substantial contributions to the fields of ergodic theory, probability and analysis.-Biography:...
. - Rosamund, the narrator's current wife.
- Rakhmiel Kogon, a professor. The character is based on Bellow's friend Edward ShilsEdward ShilsEdward Shils was a Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and in Sociology at the University of Chicago and reputedly an influential sociologist. He was known for his research on the role of intellectuals and their relations to power and public policy...
. - Marla Glyph, the chair of Ravelstein's university department.
- Ruby Tyson, Ravelstein's cleaning-lady.
- Felix Davarr, a now-deceased prominent academic and a teacher of Ravelstein. The character is based on Leo StraussLeo StraussLeo Strauss was a political philosopher and classicist who specialized in classical political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later emigrated to the United States...
. - Dr Schley, Ravelstein's cardiologist.
- Professor Radu Grielescu, a famous Jungian professor, rumoured to have been Nazi sympathiser during the Second World War; the character is modelled directly on Bellow's friend, a Romanian historian Mircea EliadeMircea EliadeMircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
. - Morris Herbst, a friend of Ravelstein's based on Bloom's friend Werner Dannhauser.
- Battle, a professor who moves to WisconsinWisconsinWisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
with his wife to retire. The character is based on the British geographer Paul Wheatley. - Sam Partiger, a friend of the narrator's. He gets introduced to Ravelstein when the man is dying.
- Roxie Durkin, a friend of Rosamund's.
- Dr Bakst, the narrator's neurologistNeurologistA neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...
in hospital.
Literary Reception
Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...
wrote: "Ravelstein is a full-length novel. It is also, in my view, a masterpiece with no analogues. The world has never heard this prose before: prose of such tremulous and crystallized beauty." For Ravelstein is "numinous. It constitutes an act of resuscitation, and in its pages Bloom lives"
Literary theorist John Sutherland wrote: "The novel explores, in its attractively rambling way, two dauntingly large and touchy themes: death and American Jewishness ... Not quite American (as the Canadian-born Jew, Bellow, is not quite American), Abe Ravelstein is the American mind and Bellow its finest living (thank God) voice. We should all have such friends."
The literary critic Sir Malcolm Bradbury, stated: "Just when we didn't expect it, there now wonderfully comes a large new novel from the master... Our world is a world of ideas, pervaded by minds, thoughts, notions, beyond which lies what we seek with such difficulty: wholeness, silence and love. Via print, Ravelstein survives; and Bellow survives. So does fiction itself."
William Leith, writing in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, argued: "As you would expect, Ravelstein, as a character, is beautifully drawn. He is "impatient with hygiene". He smokes constantly. "When he coughed you heard the sump at the bottom of a mine shaft echoing." His "biological patchiness was a given". Those who invite him to dinner must reckon with "the spilling, splashing, crumbling, the nastiness of his napkin after he had used it, the pieces of cooked meat scattered under the table". Like many Bellow characters, he has developed a mean streak. "Nothing," he declares, "is more bourgeois than the fear of death."... This is the late late message from Bellow: death is humiliating. But there might be consolations. I almost forgot to say that Ravelstein is a brilliant novel"
For Ron Rosenbaum
Ron Rosenbaum
-Life and career:Rosenbaum was born into a Jewish family in New York City, New York and grew up in Bay Shore, New York. He graduated from Yale University in 1968 and won a Carnegie Fellowship to attend Yale's graduate program in English Literature, though he dropped out after taking one course...
, Ravelstein was Bellow's greatest novel: "It's a rapturous celebration of the life of the mind, as well as a meditation on the glory of sensual life and on the tenebrous permeable boundary we all eventually pass over, the one between life and death... a novel Bellow wrote in his 80s, which I found absolutely, irresistibly seductive, both sensually and intellectually, one in which the sublimity and pathos of life and art are not joined to each other with heavy welds but transformed into a beautiful, seamless, unravelable fabric."
On its publication, the Harvard literary critic James Wood
James Wood (critic)
James Wood is a literary critic, essayist and novelist. he is Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:...
wrote: "How extraordinary, then, that Bellow's substantial new novel, Ravelstein, written in his 85th year, should be so full of the old, cascading power... Ravelstein... is large, flamboyant, and excessively clumsy. When he laughs, he throws his head back "like Picasso's wounded horse in Guernica". He loves fine clothes, Lanvin jackets, Zegna ties, but tends to spill food on them. Hostesses know to put newspaper underneath Ravelstein's chair at a dinner party. At home, he wanders around in an exquisite silk dressing-gown, chain-smoking. His apartment is stuffed with beautiful glass and silverware, with the finest Italian and French linens, and thousands of CDs. He reclines on a black leather couch, listening to Baroque music, is enormously learned, and given to oration on a thousand subjects... By all accounts, including Bellow's, this is Allan Bloom as his friends knew him."
Controversy
| "There was no counting the cigarettes he lit in a day. Most of them he forgot or broke... But to prolong his life was not one of Ravelstein's aims. Risk, limit, death's blackout were present in every living moment." - Saul Bellow, Ravelstein |
On its publication, the novel caused controversy for its frank depiction of Ravelstein's (and therefore Allan Bloom's) love of gossip, his free spending, his political influence, and his homosexuality, as well as the revelation, as the story unfolds, that he is dying from AIDS.
Bellow claimed that Bloom, a philosopher and social critic, ostensibly aligned with many American conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
ideas and ambitions, was anything but conservative in his private life, and in many of his philosophical views. Robert Fulford argued that, "[r]emarkably, no reference to Bloom's homosexuality has previously appeared in print—not in the publicity that surrounded his best-seller, or his obituaries, or even his posthumously published book, Love and Friendship. Accordingly, some took Ravelstein as a betrayal of Bloom's private life; however, Bellow rigidly defended his claim, citing private conversations between Bloom and himself where, Bellow insists, the subject urged Bellow to tell it all. Bloom was not a 'closeted' homosexual: although he never spoke publicly of his sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, Bloom was openly gay, and his close friends, colleagues, and former students all knew of it. He was a bachelor
Bachelor
A bachelor is a man above the age of majority who has never been married . Unlike his female counterpart, the spinster, a bachelor may have had children...
and never married or had children.
In his most famous book, Closing of the American Mind, Bloom criticizes homosexual politics in American universities on an issue relating to his core concern - liberal arts education, or 'Great Books' liberal arts curriculum, making a distinction between a politically self-defined group of homosexual activists and homosexuality per se. Although Bloom, in the wake of his literary stardom, explicitly stated, at a Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
gathering, published in Giants & Dwarfs, that he was not a conservative, he was much admired by conservative publications, like William F. Buckley, Jr
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
's National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
.
Arguing in support of Bloom in The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, Andrew Sullivan wrote: "Bloom was gay, and he died of AIDS. The salience of these facts is strengthened, not weakened, by Bloom's public silence about them. Of all people, he knew the centrality of the things about which we remain silent[...] Retaining the purity of that longing was his life's work. The reason he disliked the modern cult of easy sex was not because he scorned or feared the erotic life but because he revered it. He saw sexual longing as supremely expressed in individual love, and he wanted his students to experience both to the fullest. He not merely understood Nietzsche; he imbibed him. But this awareness of the abyss moved Bloom, unlike Nietzsche, toward love... One day, one hopes, there will be a conservatism civilized enough to deserve him...
The text
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
, Seize the Day, Ravelstein is a crisp mix of dialogue, narration, and unanswered questions. Abe Ravelstein is a parodox - the serious and mundane, the corporeal
Corporeal
Corporeal may refer to:*Corporeal undead, See also: :Category:Corporeal undead*Matter *Body, of or relating to the body*Corporeal...
and spiritual
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
, the conservative and radical
Radicalization
Radicalization is the process in which an individual changes from passiveness or activism to become more revolutionary, militant or extremist. Radicalization is often associated with youth, adversity, alienation, social exclusion, poverty, or the perception of injustice to self or others.-...
. The one constant is the kindness and friendship between "Chick" and Ravelstein. Few intellectual or personal subjects are taboo; although Ravelstein's philosophical insights are not part of the story. Chick makes it clear Ravelstein thinks he is too old to become a philosopher. Thus, a comparison can be made to Xenophon
Xenophon
Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
's Socratic works and dialogues, such as Memorabilia
Memorabilia (Xenophon)
Memorabilia is a collection of Socratic dialogues by Xenophon, a student of Socrates...
, where a non-philosopher describes the outward life of a philosopher, for Chick most definitely believes Ravelstein is a great thinker, even if he cannot judge the merits of the man's wisdom.
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
'fallen-ness' of everyday life. He is a consumer of goods and gossip, eagerly meeting people where they exist, without constructing artificial barriers based on presumed superiority. His friendships do not solely revolve around his own interests and concerns. Thoughts and opinions expressed by Ravelstein are often humorous, precisely because they are so 'common' and 'clichéd'. Upon lighting a cigarette to open a class, he mentions that students who dislike tobacco more than they love ideas will not be missed. He even rearranges the love lives of his students, often without being asked, going so far as to ask them to return with any gossip that isn't treason to repeat.
| "He didn't ask, "Where will you spend eternity?" as religious the-end-is-near picketers did but rather, "With what, in this modern democracy, will you meet the demands of your soul?"" - Saul Bellow, Ravelstein |
In this virtual roman à clef, Ravelstein's mentor 'Davarr' is based on a real figure, Leo Strauss, his friend 'Morris Herbst' on Werner Dannhauser, and the narrator's friend 'Rakhmiel Kogon' has elements in his character of German sociologist Edward Shils – as well as Polish political philosopher Leszek Kołakowski. 'Radu Grielescu' is based on Mircea Eliade.
In many ways, Bellow depicts Ravelstein- and by association himself- as one of the few remaining Renaissance men in modern universities. Although the difference between the two is that Ravelstein would enthusiastically agree with being called a Renaissance man
Renaissance Man
Renaissance Man is a 1994 comedy film, directed by Penny Marshall, starring Danny DeVito, Gregory Hines, James Remar, and Ed Begley, Jr. It also features Mark Wahlberg in one of his earliest roles....
, and Chick would blush. The professor, turned best selling author, works to counter the impoverishment of the contemporary "market place of ideas", even if he is a little too attached to his own passions and personal vanity. Chick contrasts with Ravelstein as an older fellow, more cautious and predictable. When he claims he is saving Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake is a novel by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's...
for the nursing home, Ravelstein asks, "Why wait?" Intellectual honesty binds these friends.
Interpretation
| "But I would rather see Ravelstein again than to explain matters it doesn't help to explain..." "You don't easily give up a creature like Ravelstein to death." - Saul Bellow, Ravelstein |
Bellow asks, via inference, in Ravelstein, how one is best remembered: for contributions to general knowledge; for contributions to humanity via the treatment of one's friends, intimates, and strangers; or for having attracted mass attention and a notoriety which thereafter decays. That last theme is poignantly exhibited in two instances: early on, in a chance encounter between Ravelstein and Chick and pop star Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
(and entourage) at Paris' Hotel Crillon, and later, when Ravelstein recalls having followed Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
through an airport terminal in a sudden (and brief) obsession.
Bellow, in Ravelstein, reveals the crossing paths of purpose and truth in the trajectories of remembrance. In this pattern of coming and going, Bellow seems to imply, the best recollection of a man is a complete depiction of complication and chance painted against the higher ambition of an authentically shared existence.
Adaptations
In 2009, Audible.comAudible.com
Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming.Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers....
produced an audio version of Ravelstein, narrated by Peter Ganim, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks.