The Adventures of Augie March
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By Saul Bellow
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The fictional autobiography of a rumbustious adventurer and poker-player who sets off his native Chicago in the spirit of a latter-day Columbus to rediscover the world-and more especially, twentieth-century America. This expansive comedy of American manners in the tradition of Twain’s ‘innocent abroad’ is a major classic of twentieth-century American literature.
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The Adventures of Augie March so very nearly entered my 'did not finish' category, but ever a sucker for punishment, I soldiered on to the very bitter end. Apparently, this is an American classic. It is a weighty, lengthy tome set in the period covering The Great Depression to World War II. The problem for me was the total absence of plot. Essentially, Augie, the protagonist drifts through life both in childhood and adulthood, has a succession of dubious, no hope type jobs and a matching conveyor belt of doomed relationships with women. I struggled not only with the terms of reference, but also aspects of the American peppered vernacular.
In its favour, some of the characters are highly memorable. Grandma Lausch immediately springs to mind as do Augie's mother and brothers. Although frustrated at Augie's unwillingness to apply himself to one meaningful goal and make the best of educational opportunities available to him, I did understand how other people's influences and advice impacted on his lifestyle. I became truly fascinated at one point with Thea Fenchel, a lady friend of Augie's, and her particular obsession with training an eagle, Caligula, to hunt down lizards and snakes in Mexico. This did amuse me and was unexpected in its eccentricity.
I suppose the novel did indeed reflect the hard times of the era and its meandering style mirrored the futility of the 1930s for some. So, credit to Saul Bellow for portraying that. He also unwittingly challenged me to Google lots of terminology and ancient Roman/Greek analogies contributing therefore, albeit briefly, to my knowledge set. Otherwise, my verdict is "ouch". I'll stick to Jane Austen and the Brontes for my preferred British classical fix.
