When he taught in 1938 he used a reading list which included: Lawrence, Dostoevsky, Dreiser, Joyce, and Flaubert. They were pioneers in realism; Bellow thought that it is was the major event of modern literature. Realism became a feature of Bellow novels, and it includes the way in which he treats subjects such as sex, life and death, search for self, etc.

The main character is often a Jewish male, a writer or professor, and the stories are set in contemporary New York and Chicago. The stories reflect his life and his many marriages over six decades. The stories do not have heroes, but rather professional types, men and women, trying to solve mundane problems: jobs, legal problems, finances, marriages, sex, alimony, and similar. The characters have trouble getting married, staying married, and getting divorced - as we suppose Bellow did himself with his five marriages. There are no Hollywood endings; there are no strong antagonistic forces or characters; instead, the characters simply come to terms with their lives.

The early novels "Dangling Man" and "The Victim" were written in the 1940s. I found "Dangling Man" to be short, timid, and even tedious. I was relieved to learn that Bellow himself did not like these novels in later years. There was a third novel written in the early 1940s that was so bad that Bellow destroyed the manuscript. Some compare his style in "Dangling Man" with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground." But they are different. "Notes" is a series of essays - considered to be groundbreaking plus an almost electric short story. Bellow's prose is excellent but there is a claustrophobic feel and the story wanders. It took Bellow 10 years before he could drop all his "social inhibitions," and emerge with his own style.

"The Adventures of Augie March" was his breakthrough book in 1953. This book was liberating for Bellow. Here, he discovers his own uninhibited style. "Henderson The Rain King" follows in 1959. Again he experiments with style. The main character is very macho, not a thinker. That story is set among the tribes of Africa, and the plot and setting are far removed from the other works. After "Henderson," he returns to the New York-Chicago theme. Bellow hit his high with "Herzog" in 1964 and that book sets the tone for what follows. "Herzog" is far better than the first novel; it is multi-layered with time shifting and beautiful prose. With some pride, Bellow kept copies of "Herzog" on his desk, published in different languages.

In "Humbolt's Gift" the narrator Charlie Citrine tells us a bit about his philosophy of writing and the need to entertain the reader. Some of these novels have a warmth and charm, and have a certain tongue in cheek approach in describing the trials and tribulations of the narrator. The humor is mixed in with the meaning of our short lives, and the future of our souls.

After "Herzog" we have "Mr. Sammler's Planet." We have a much more serious individual than Moses Herzog. Sammler, a holocaust survivor, pokes fun at modern society. "The Dean's December" is a slightly grey look at Bucharest during the communist era. Bellow mixes in a bit of academia from Chicago. I think that the ideas of professor-philosopher Allan Bloom are quite strong in this novel (see "Ravelstein"). Bellow taught some seminars with Bloom in Chicago and wrote the forward to Bloom's most popular book "The Closing of the American Mind." We see some of Bloom's ideas in the Dean's viewsof education. Bellow wanted to stress "the importance of individual life, intellect and social responsibility against mass movements and mass culture."

A few novels are a bit slow to start, but once underway are mostly compelling reads. In "The Actual" for example, it seems to take 50 pages to get going, even though this small novel is just 100 pages long. Similarly, in "Mr.Sammler's Planet" the introduction is a slow moving 40 pages that describes an incident - among others with a pickpocket. That is somewhat off the main theme of the book: a holocaust survivor.

Bellow developed a distinctive literary style: he tends to make tangent after tangent off of the main subject, describing every character in great detail, and sometimes time shifting back many decades. Often he will interrupt the story with many pages describing a brother or former wife. For Bellow, the plot sometimes seems secondary. Sometimes, it is an endless description of small details and interesting people, including the shapes of women's bodies. It is a combination of light prose, deep thinking, and humorous descriptions, all in a mostly modern urban setting of writers, lawyers, judges, wives, etc. In his novels, he switches between first person and third person narrative form; the character talks directly to us or the reader observes.

Many stories after 1960 involve girlfriends and former wives, and men in transition between marriages such as Moses Herzog or Charlie Citrine. In many of the early novels before 1960 the wives tend to be in the background and play very minor roles. Later in some novels the wife has died, or she is distracted by an illness in the family. The girlfriends seem to play a more important role than the wives in many of the novels. In "Mr. Sammler's Planet" the niece Angela plays the role of the girlfriend; although, it is a proper uncle-niece relationship. Bellow often describes the women in term of their body shapes, figures, clothes, and sexual attraction - visualizing the woman as being naked. In the 1987 "More Die of Heartbreak," Bellow gives a different perspective. Another plot feature is the main character's older brother who is in business.

Most will be impressed with "Herzog" and "Humbolt's Gift." "Herzog" can only be described as spectacular after his first few novels. There is a dramatic improvement in his ability to put together a novel' His style was not static and keeps evolving. Bellow says that he became "uninhibited." Sometimes it is hard to separate the stories and characters from Bellow's own life, but indeed all the novels including the entertaining "Ravelstein" are works of fiction.

These are all great.

'Herzog (Penguin Classics)' 1964 National Book Prize, turmoil of divorce

'Humboldt's Gift (Penguin Classics)' 1975 Pulitzer Prize, more divorce

'The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics)' 1953 National Book Prize, 1930s Chicago

'Mr. Sammler's Planet (Penguin Classics)' 1970 National Book Prize, holocaust survivor

'Henderson the Rain King (Penguin Classics)' 1959, goes to Africa

'The Dean's December (Penguin Classics)' 1981, somber but good

'More Die of Heartbreak (Penguin Classics)' 1987, men versus women

'Ravelstein (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)' 2000, short but good

His other books in chronological order:

'Dangling Man (Penguin Classics)' 1944, slow sometimes painful read

'The Victim (Penguin Classics)' 1947, big improvement over Dangling Man

'Seize the Day (Penguin Classics)' 1956, just a novella

'The Last Analysis' 1966, out of print

'Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories (Penguin Classics)' 1968

'To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account (Penguin Classics)' 1976, non-fiction

'Him With His Foot in His Mouth: And Other Stories (Penguin Classics)' 1984, good collection

'It All Adds Up : From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)' 1994, essays

'The Actual : A Novella' 1997, short but interesting, surprise ending

'Collected Stories' 2002

'Saul Bellow: Novels 1944-1953: Dangling Man, The Victim, and The Adventures of Augie March (Library of America, 141.)' 2003