Ranging from the depths of poverty to the heights of success, this is the chronicle of a modern-day Columbus in search of reality and fulfilment.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Excellent writing:
What can I say other than this novel is a true 20th Century American classic. The use of language is incomparable.
This is Not Carl Sandburg's Chicago:
These seem to be Chicago days for this reviewer. He has just done some reviews of Chicago's Chess Records that essentially defined the sound of the electrified blues in what would be old Augie's old neighborhood. Furthermore, I have reviewed the work of Chicago's Nelson Algren who takes more than one look at the downside of Chicago life in the raw - what happens to the Augies when they do not break out of that place between the working poor and the lumpenproletariat. And this is a good place to set up the... more info
Growing up in the depression:
I read Augie more than 20 years ago and again in 07 and still found it an enjoyable read, engrossing, entertaining, gives one an idea of what life was like back then during the depression. It's really a sprawling succession of stories, not particularly cohesive but what life story is? It's the experiences that matter here. Bellow's themes about family are here as are his usual excessive references to just about every intellectual pursuit known to humanity. If he leaves anything out he'll be sure to mention... more info
Great big YES to America:
The Adventures of Augie March is Bellow's most exuberant, most optimistic book. A memoir from the point of a man about to enter middle-age, it sums up his great American youth - from a boy in Chicago, bought up by the redoubtable Grandma Lausch, to an adolescence and early adulthood filled with drift and uncertainty. Augie March is a dreamer, an idealist, a man who America offers no fixed place or route for but he keeps knocking and banging the door down anyway. He takes on a multitude of jobs: thief,... more info
