| Saul Bellow is considered the foremost writer of twentieth-century fiction. He is also the most significant of the writers of the genre of Jewish-American literature. His novels have received much critical attention, yet no one has attempted to relate the world view presented in his works to his personal ethos. This study fills this lacuna by examining the impact of his own religious background upon his characters, the settings in which he places them, and the basic problems of life with which they struggle. Bellow's rich biblical background and his frequent reference to Talmudic and Rabbinic materials generate an elaborate study of those areas.; The essential conclusion that emerges from this study focuses on Bellow's equivocality in the presentation of the American Jew, the evolution of his position in America since the beginning of the twentieth-century, his emergence as the major victim of the Holocaust, his survival of the Second World War, and his role in the establishment of the State of Israel.; Bellow's life work remains, of course, unfinished, but the major objective of his future works would be to clarify some of the still unanswered questions posed in the works of his early youth and maturity. |
