- I met Saul in the 1950s, 1956.
I was a young 23-year-old instructor in English
at the University of Chicago
and he came to visit one of the classes
that a friend of mine taught and that's when we first met.
And we had coffee afterwards and I was of course
in awe of him at that time.
I'd read "Augie March" several times by then.
The first time was in college
when it was like nothing I'd ever read before.
And then when I got to Chicago as a graduate student,
a few years earlier, I read it again.
It was my guidebook to Chicago.
He was a great literary hero of mine.
Well, he was always dressed very dapperly,
very sharp, in the Chicago way.
He was very handsome, had these wonderful expressive eyes,
wonderful face.
He could be very biting, as we know.
When I first knew him, he was not really in love
with me and so he could be very biting
and didn't make any difference to me,
I was in love with him.
And we didn't really become friends
till Saul and Janis moved to Vermont,
which was not that far from my house here in Connecticut
and we began to see each other.
And then I would make an annual pilgrimage
with some friends to Vermont.
We stayed in a nearby inn and we spend half the week
with the Bellows and that was always very precious time.
Then I saw him when he came to New York
and we spoke on the phone quite frequently.
- "Augie March" was a revolutionary book.
Its fullness, it wasn't just abundant,
it was super abundant, speaking of the language
and there was a ferocious energy,
there was a kind of inspired carelessness.
It wasn't a weak carelessness,
it was an audacious carelessness.
"Herzog" was an ingenious book.
Ingenious in its inventions, especially inventions
of those letters that he writes through the great
and ingenious in its depth of feeling.
And above all, of course, Saul was a great portrait painter.
The principle fascination in these books is character,
not the narrator necessarily,
but the great Brobdingnagian figures that surround him,
the great big figures that surround him.
And Saul was very moved and excited by large,
energetic, audacious people.
And those people wind up in the books
and they're great fun to read about.
And this is the Chicago-ness of the books.
He got something of the, what he called the moronic inferno.
I think that's the phrase that Martin likes too.
The moronic inferno of business, of commerce,
of popular culture.
All that came through in these large figures, you know?
- Yeah, well, that was monsters in quotation marks.
But yes, he did like transgressive souls.
He did like people who spoke audaciously,
who spoke at whatever level of discourse,
who spoke creatively, even monstrously.
The monstrous in human life did not delight him.
In a crucial place in "Herzog," he goes to a courtroom,
he happens to be in the court building
and he has time to waste and he goes into a courtroom
where they're trying a man and a woman for killing a child.
The lover of the woman had hurled her little child
against the wall, smashed his brains out
and Herzog sits there watching
and when he leaves the courtroom, he says,
"I fail to understand. I fail to understand."
So he was shaken by the monstrousness.
When I see monstrous characters,
I wasn't speaking of that kind of violent monstrousness.
The 20th century, the first half of the 20th century
in America literature is dominated by two major figures,
William Faulkner and Saul Bellow.
Saul extends into the second,
third quarter of the century too.
But the two major figures are the backbone
of American literature in the 20th century
was Faulkner and Bellow.
And you could say Faulkner was a southern writer.
Well, he was a southern writer.
But his importance is a big influence on American writing,
and a powerhouse, Saul was a powerhouse.
Faulkner was a powerhouse.
Melville was a powerhouse.
Henry James was a powerhouse.
There are only three or four in each century, you know,
who could say have great power
and force, conviction, authenticity, range.
- Absolutely, he's the very definition of a powerhouse.
His books knocked you over.
He has great power.
The power of language, the power of creating character,
the power of engaging deep issues,
power of deep contemplation,
the power of considerable erudition.
There are very few tools that he couldn't pick up and use.
You know, he had a big toolbox.
- Yes. He threw his head back.
I think it would roll off, you know?
He'd throw his head way back and laugh.
He loved to be amused.
He was amused often.
He was outraged, just as often.
He could be angry, he could be biting, as I said.
He could be intolerant, I thought.
He could be narrow-minded.
He was a man.
But he had a great capacity for pleasure
for the sensuous life, a great passion for music,
and for of course, for literature and for thinking.
He had a great mental life.
There was once a joke that Saul liked, that I now remember.
And it was a very simple joke that I told him.
It's about two guys walking down the street.
One guy's coming from this direction,
one guy's coming from this direction.
And one says the other one, "Excuse me,
do you pronounce the word Hawaii or Havaii?"
And the guy says, "Havaii."
He says, "Thank you."
He says, "You're velcome."
(both laugh)
So when you tell me, "Thank you,"
I was tempted to say, "You're velcome."
It's the essential joke.
It's the first joke I think I was ever told.
(gentle music)