His first major book of fiction: lyrical, personal, mythical, hilarious and mesmeric stories that shed new light on both the US and the writer through whose eyes we access this compelling and resonant land.
Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York, is a 'registrar of madness', a refined and civilized being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future (moon landings, endless possibilities). His Cyclopean gaze reflects on the degradations of city life while looking deep into the sufferings of the human soul. 'Sorry for all and sore at heart', he observes how greater luxury & leisure have only led to more suffering. To Sammler--who by the end of this ferociously unsentimental novel has found the compassionate consciousness necessary to bridge the gap between himself and his fellow beings--a good life is one in which a person does what is 'required of him'. To know and to meet the 'terms of the contract" was as true a life as one could live. At its heart, this novel is quintessential Bellow: moral, urbane, sublimely humane.
Stogodišnja Rosanne McNulty ispričat će vam priču. Mjesto u kojem je provela većinu svojega života, stara umobolnica u irskom gradiću Roscommonu, pred zatvaranjem je i Rosanne će je uskoro morati napustiti, kao, uostalom, i svijet. I zato valja pisati priču, sakriti je pod daskom u škripavom podu, i nadati se da će netko jednom pronaći taj tajni zapis, tu strašnu i preljepu ispovijest o odrastanju i mladosti, ljubavi i ljepoti, o patnji, ratu i ljudima koji ponekad mogu biti kao anđeli. Zapisi Rosanne McNulty tajna je ispovijest Irske. Oživljena u Rosanninim zapisima i razgovorima sa psihijatrom, dr. Greneom, to je povijest jedne žene i jedne zemlje, ali i povijest tisuća žena koje su, baš poput nje, nestale u ludnicama i samostanima samo zato jer su zanjele izvan braka, ili su ih muževi odbacili. Prelijepo napisana, ovo je pripovijest o životu obilježenom patnjom i predrasudama, a ipak punom ljubavi, starsti i nade. Nećete je zaboraviti.