I’ve gotten through five chapters of this Saul Bellow classic though I haven’t posted anything yet on it. I’m impressed by the writing, a psychological realism style where we have the first person narrator, a fifty year old man named Eugene Henderson just talking to let the reader know where his head’s at. As he repeatedly mentions–an obvious guilt trip–he’s a millionaire. He also doesn’t have a warm, caring personality that extends towards his wives and family, though it’s obvious that he wants to be a man who loves and is loved. Through two wives that he conscientiously tries to avoid, he tries hard to find some meaning to his life–not so much for his opinion of himself it seems as much as to warrant value by others.
It reminds me somewhat of Updike’s Rabbit, the biggest differences being money and sense of humor. Henderson The Rain King is indeed written with a sense of humor, though it is a pathos the reader feels, regardless of the obnoxiousness of Henderson’s doings. We take it as a cry for help, mainly because Bellow has his main character putting himself down before we can do so.
Another interesting technique used is the opening line, "What made me take this trip to Africa?" It is a brilliant manner of foreshadowing that compells the reader to hang in through the backstory–which is so non-linear as to be worthy of a Borges labyrinth–to find out how this man ends up on this continent.
Which is where I am with him now.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology