the pencil reads

I read this novel in two parts due to unforseen circumstances. But I finally finished it this weekend, and it was a wonderful read.

The setting of this novel is really quite something. Ralvelstein is set in New York and Paris; Herzog in the suburbia and countryside, Henderson is set in the heart of Africa. The textures and smells of this novel are fascinating. Bellow's descriptions of the two tribes E. H. Henderson encounters in his journey of self-discovery are so life-like that I googled the two tribes in the novel -- "Arnewi" the cow lovers and "Wasiri" the lion tribe -- to see if they had any ties with real tribes, but the search came to naught. I also googled "Grun-tu-molani", translated as "Man wants to live."

Typically, this novel by Bellow is deep. Bellow alludes to links between things you don't normally associate with one another. For example, one of the ideas in this novel is that you can take on the characteristics of the animals that you associate with -- that even inanimate object and animals have souls. Along these lines, Dahfu, the king of the Wasiri tribe, postulates that there is a link between our personality and our external features -- that we are our own authors of our faces, our noses, our bellies. Henderson is described as grunting, with a paunch between his belly, an extraordinary nose, and very strong. It is as if Bellow is trying to say that the world we live in is more alive with connections than we know.

Another interesting element in this novel is the journey Henderson makes to find himself. He is driven into Africa by a voice that says, I want I want I want! But the voice never says what it wants. Later in the novel, there is this passage:

"I had a voice that said, I want! I want? I? It should have told me she wants, he wants, they want..." (286)

"All you hear from guys is desire, desire, desire, knocking its way out of the breast, and fear, striking and striking. Enough already! Time for a word of truth. Time for something notable to be heard. Otherwise, accelerating like a stone, you fall from life to death. Exactly like a stone, straight into deafness, and till the last repeating I want I want I want, then striking the earth and entering it forever!" (297)

Henderson is like a microcosm of the world we live in. He takes on the desire, the fear, the preoccupation with death, and the suffering of the entire world. He suffers more than anyone else, perhaps like how Christ suffered for the sake of the whole world, except that Henderson contained within himself both sin and redemption. Dahfu alluded to the great figures of history as model forces:

"Do you think that Jesus Christ is still a source of human types, Henderson, as a model-force? I have often thought about my physical types, as the agony, the appetite, and the rest, to be possibly degenerate forms of great originals, as Socrates, Alexander, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus..." (303)

Even with dead persons in the past there are connections! Gmilo the lion is Dahfu's father, as Suffo the lion is Gmilo's. It is altogether extremely thought-provoking.

Posted on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 at 10:36 AM. :)