Wednesday, January 14, 1976
daily nebraskan
page 9
Latest Belfow novel risks peril
revealing American artist's fate
By Bill Roberts
Humboldt's Gift, by Saul Bellow The Viking Press,
New York $10.
Saul Bellow took some big risks with his latest novel,
Humboldt's Gift. Besides the commercial danger of pro
ducing a book with little sex and shoot'em-up action, the
author ventures the perils of writing about writers. But
because of his skill and insight, Bellow succeeds and gives
us a thoughtful and satisfying book.
During the 1930s, Von Humboldt Fleisher wrote
Harlequin Ballads, a book of verses, and it created a
sensation. Young and brilliant, Humboldt seemed to be
the poet everyone was waiting for. It was hoped his
creative fire would light the way for a new generation.
Instead came drink, drugs and death for the young
genius.
"Humboldt did what poets in crass America are
supposed to do," we are told. "He chased ruin and death
even harder than he chased women. He blew his talent and
his health and reached home, the grave, in a dusty slide."
This could only happen, of course, in crass but wealthy
America.
"Maybe America didn't need art and inner miracles.
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Arts & Sciences Senator
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It had so many outer ones."
Protege narrates
With this account of the American genius's fate as a
backdrop, Humboldt's Gift concerns Humboldt's protege,
Charlie Citrine, who narrates the novel. .
Citrine worships Humboldt. After reading Harlequin
Ballads, Citrine left the Midwest for New York and took
a job selling Fuller Brushes to be near the poet. They
become friends, although Humboldt begins to lose his
sanity.
But then Citrine writes a play.
Artistically mediocre the play is a Boradway smash
and the movie made from it turns the protege into a rich,
respected author. Humboldt is enraged and, as he is taken
to a sanitarium, denounces Citrine. .
More an intellectual than imaginative writer, Citrine
is embarrassed. Embarrassment comes to him as naturally
as deep thought and nothing embarrasses him more than
the depth of his thought. ,
He lives in this private world of his thoughts, pop
ulated by capitalized words such as Freedom, Pure
Consciousness, Subject and Object.
Citrine's former wife slashes away at his bank account
in the divorce courts. A small-time hoodlum entangles him
in dangerous schemes. His girlfriends feel sorry for his
overtaxed and, to them, incomprehensible brain, All the
while, Citrine is planning his essay on human history
viewed from the perspective of the problem of Boredom.
Quivering in inane
Citrine describes himself as "a person keenly aware
of painted veils, of Maya, of domes of many-colored glass
staining the white radiance of eternity, quivering in the
intense inane and so on." His wry view of himself makes
him a character type somewhere between Hamlet and
Woody Allen.
Saul Bellow took on quite a problem when he decided
to write about the artist and the intellectual in contem
porary America. But the portrayal of Citrine gives the
novel honesty and integrity, making it a joy to read.
Humboldt rejected America and became a stranger to
the proper subject of his art. It cost him his art.
Citrine first allows America to swallow him, nearly
whole. But with the help of Humboldt's legacy, Citrine
comes to terms with his nation in the ironic and satisfy
ing end of the novel.
Bellow, unlike some of the characters in his book, took
the difficult way out in writing this. Humboldt's Gift,
an excellent novel, is a testament to his skills.
tssLizLr- ;
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& 1MW3.
Photo courttsy of Vikino Prast
Author Saul Bellow, whose latest novel, Humboldt's
Gift portrays the '"artist and the intellectual in
contemporary America."
Faculty art shown
By Charlie Krig
The Biennial Faculty Art Exhibition opened last night
at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and will be featured
until Feb. 8.
Dan Howard, art dept. chairman, contributed a sextet
of oil paintings that view life from a fragmented perspec
tive. Gail Butt achieves a sense of distortion using water
colors that run and blend together.
Sculptors Tom Sheffield and Doug Ross used plastic
and metal, respectively, to create forms with a feeling of
flight and suspension.
Other artists and their media include Kathy Gower and
Richard Trickey, torn paper; James Alinder and Peter
Worth, photographs; Pat Rowan, rock and wood, and
Mike Nushfwa, Keith Jacobshagen, David Seyler, Marvin
Spomer and Jim Eisentrager, paintings .'
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