The novel, which Bellow initially intended to be a short story, is a roman à clef about Bellow's friendship with the poet Delmore Schwartz. It explores the changing relationship of art and power in a materialist America. This theme is addressed through the contrasting careers of two writers, Von Humboldt Fleisher (to some degree a version of Schwartz) and his protege Charlie Citrine (to some degree a version of Bellow himself). Fleisher yearns to lift American society up through art but dies a failure.
Novels for Students contains easily accessible and content-rich discussions of the literary and historical background of 12 to 15 works from various cultures and time periods. Each novel included in this new resource was specially chosen by an advisory panel of teachers and librarians -- experts who have helped us define the information needs of students .
This book sets out to write nothing short of a new theory of the heroic for today's world. The novels of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo serve as an anchor to the theory as it challenges our notions of what is heroic about nymphomaniacs, Holocaust survivors, spurious academics, cult followers, terrorists, celebrities, photographers and writers of novels who all attempt to claim the right to be “hero.”
