Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift

Gloria Cronin (Brigham Young University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Sean Seeger (University of Essex), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1975

Places

Canada (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Humboldt’s Gift (1975) represents a distinct change in tone and focus from Mr. Sammler’s Planet which preceded it. It is a comic novel that portrays the spiritual plight of Charlie Citrine, a Chicagoan with a taste for low pursuits, gangland excitement, pneumatic young women, and a poetic gift he has almost lost. This “Chicago condition”, which has destroyed his poet friend, Humboldt, engages Charlie in the same kind of dialectal contest fought by Joseph and Tu As Raison Aussi in Dangling Man; or, Tommy and Tamkin in Seize the Day, or Henderson and the lioness in Henderson the Rain King, and by Herzog and the modern philosophers in Herzog. On the surface it is a serious religious discussion couched in a deflecting comic idiom, while underneath it focuses on Bellow’s many losses and hurts. It...

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603 words

Citation: Cronin, Gloria. "Humboldt's Gift". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 November 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4618, accessed 07 December 2025.]

Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

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