. Spinning .

"I want.  I want…"  (many, many pages)

It seems lately that every book I select from the shelves, out of hundreds, seems to mean something relevant to my life and situtions at the time.  But then that’s what a reader’s supposed to do: relate, experience, take out and put in.

More on Henderson’s wants later–I must vacuum.

I’ve gotten through five chapters of this Saul Bellow classic though I haven’t posted anything yet on it.  I’m impressed by the writing, a psychological realism style where we have the first person narrator, a fifty year old man named Eugene Henderson just talking to let the reader know where his head’s at.  As he repeatedly mentions–an obvious guilt trip–he’s a millionaire.  He also doesn’t have a warm, caring personality that extends towards his wives and family, though it’s obvious that he wants to be a man who loves and is loved. Through two wives that he conscientiously tries to avoid, he tries hard to find some meaning to his life–not so much for his opinion of himself it seems as much as to warrant value by others.

It reminds me somewhat of Updike’s Rabbit, the biggest differences being money and sense of humor.  Henderson The Rain King is indeed written with a sense of humor, though it is a pathos the reader feels, regardless of the obnoxiousness of Henderson’s doings. We take it as a cry for help, mainly because Bellow has his main character putting himself down before we can do so.

Another interesting technique used is the opening line, "What made me take this trip to Africa?"  It is a brilliant manner of foreshadowing that compells the reader to hang in through the backstory–which is so non-linear as to be worthy of a Borges labyrinth–to find out how this man ends up on this continent.

Which is where I am with him now. 

This Saul Bellow novel was not my first choice.  I pulled out three possibilities from the shelves:  Barth’s Lost in the Fun House, Cortazar’s Hopscotch, and On the Nature of Things by Lucretius.  Since I’m only halfway through Borges’ Ficciones, the fact that I’d be reading this at the same time as another selection held sway over my decision.  One tough read at a time is enough.  Barth’s is an anthology and I wanted a novel.  Lucretius will be next up but scheduled behind my finishing of a couple other "study’" texts.  Hopscotch just looks like such great fun and yet it will demand a greater concentration in reading.  And just look how well the Bellow book matches the colors of this site!

But my, what fun to stand at the shelves covered with so much good literature just waiting for me.  I’m down now to just a couple books ordered at a time and while I don’t even know if I’ll live long enough to read what I currently have, it just bugs the hell out of me to think they’re not there, ready to open at whim.