191) father Morris and the son's reluctant realization of how different they view the world. 191, 203) son Woody Selbst and his octogenarian (p. Best word - Schwärmerei, meaning excessive sentimentality.Ī Silver Dish (1978) is the best short story in the book, based on the subtle games Bellow plays with the narration as well as the symbolism. It is a story about how father (Max) and son ( Zet) do not see eye to eye about what defines a successful career and how greener pastures do not always lie ahead. Zetland: By a Character Witness (1974) is really about Bellow's childhood friend Isaac Rosenfeld, who died at age 38, which explains a rather abrupt ending.

But we've come to a point where it's only money that doesn't stink' (p. 'Even Vespasian when he collected his toilet tax had to justify himself: Pecunia non olet. 'To read Beidell's mind you'd need a proctoscope' (p. 161) a question that would be unanswerable were it addressed to her.īest lines - ''He runs a Procrustean flophouse for bum ideas'' (p. Upon returning home she exclaims to her daughters Soolie and Pearl 'What kind of day did you have ?' (p. 91), symbolic of her own 'elevated' position with no egress. 86), that takes the elevator to the top floor of a department store, where toys are sold, but refuses to get back on to leave (p. She has 'been trying to write a children's story about an elephant' (p. She wears ostrich-skin boots (p.88), a metaphor for her retreat from conventional life. Katrina is 'daunted' by Victor's 'intellect, she casts herself in the role of his pupil, paying erotic tuition happily for the privilege of sharing his conversation' (p. 115) on his dealings 30 years earlier with Pavel Tchelitchew, a neo-Romanticist painter (his famous 'Hide and Seek' painting in photo). Much of the story is tied up with a chance meeting with Larry Wrangel in Buffalo (then again in Detroit when snow forces an unscheduled landing), who challenges Victor (p. tu connais la caresse Qui fait revivre les morts.' Victor senses a Baudelairean phase of their relationship and quotes the Chanson d'Apres-midi from Fleurs du mal: '. Such a Bellow-ism !And more, Victor called her hands 'her touch-cock fingers' (p. Victor is still a sexual player and has 'a silken scrotum that he might now and then.be touching, leading out the longest hairs' (p. 63) and expert in art, modelled after Bellow's friend Harold Rosenberg. Victor is a 'world-class intellectual' (p. What Kind of Day Did You Have (1984) is the story of Katrina Goliger, divorced, who is summoned to Buffalo from Evanston (Illinois) by her septuagenarian lover, Victor Wulpy, to share a plane ride back to Chicago. The blurred and rambling letter implies that the narrator merely wants to listen to himself: 'The writing of this letter has been the occasion of important discoveries about myself' (p.

An italicized 'Personal Note' infers that this draft letter is more of an apologia to unnamed readers rather than an apology to Miss Rose. He is living in British Columbia to avoid being sued for a financial swindle perpetrated by his brother Philip. The letter introduces subjects far beyond the scope of the apology. Miss Rose said that he looked like an archaeologist in his cap, and he replied that she looked 'like something I just dug up' (p. 4) of apology to a Miss Rose, a librarian at a New England college, for an unwarranted rude remark made to her many years ago by one Herschel Shawmut (p. That being said, this collection that spans a decade before publication (1984) is well worth reading. Large sprawling novels are better suited to revealing the masterly writing of Saul Bellow than short stories.

Pecunia fleur