(Vancouver Island, around Kamloops, BC)
"We didn't speak the same language..We had endearments, kisses, warm looks. What we were missing was the words."
-Saul Bellow
He brings me to tears (of laughter, joy, et plus). Do you ever have a novel that you hide for some reason in some dusty crevice in your bookshelf, then one day you are absolutely compelled and near maniacal to find, read, and DESTROY all who cross paths with you and that book..?
I did this three nights ago with More Die of Heartbreak. Words written like they were just for me. At the most paramount moments. When all my own thoughts and opinions on myself and past are dry and empty. I can't explain anything I do. But Bellow is dragging me in; he's a tugboat in the foggy deepest of blues. And I was nearly a sinking wreck.
That is the power of Bellow. He causes his reader to think with him. First he feeds the reader's soul with keen observations and quirky descriptions. He gives the reader experiences which compels one to ask the vital questions about any human life. Then as a team (you and him) there begins the passionate seeking to the answers of those questions as if your life depends them. Ultimately, what Bellow does is reveal human nature by making his reader participate in it's distinctive activity: thinking; loving to think, feeling pleasure in and love for the lofty things (the refining of feeling) and then comes the acting according to both love and thought simultaneously. The result: The charm of the passions mixed with the rigour of thought. Behold humanity in the words of Bellow.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous (Nick),
ReplyDeleteWe shall speak soon.