Just Finished Reading Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow

After having recently read Chicago-area literary great Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March, I thought I'd continue right along and read another of his works.  To this end I checked out the 1975 novel Humboldt's Gift...and just finished reading it.  The characters are all different, of course...yet I sensed that once again Bellow has put much of his own personality and life into his main character and first-person narrator, in this case Charlie Citrine, a famous writer out of Chicago.  The "Humboldt" is a once-esteemed poet, Von Humboldt Fleisher, whom Charlie idolizes and befriends early in his own career as a writer.  The two, once close, have an acrimonious falling-out: just before Humbolt's death Charlie sees him living in poverty in Manhattan...but regrettably flees the opportunity for reconciliation...

Although Humboldt is the title character, Humboldt's Gift is about Charlie Citrine and how he is trying to come to grips with his life as he approaches 60...he has writer's block and has fallen behind with his commitments to publishers.  His ex-wife continues to take him to court to extract more and more money as his own funds dwindle.  A pseudo-gangster named Rinaldo Cantabile relentlessly hounds him, first to claim payment on a spurious gambling debt and then to get Charlie to help his wife with her literary thesis.  Charlie's girlfriend Renata wants to be his wife, but his cynicism about marriage stands in his way in spite of his clear affection for her.  And then there is Humboldt: it seems that the late poet had left some papers behind for Charlie: his "gift"...

Humboldt's Gift is not exactly driven by its plot, but rather by the various different situations and people that Charlie finds himself stumbling into.  People almost without exception are telling him to his face what's wrong with his thinking and behavior and giving him unsolicited advice as to how to change for the better.  Through it all, Charlie reacts with grace and equanimity...except for that ornery Cantabile, whom he treats with deserved contempt.  Charlie Citrine loves people and their company, but really wants to have peace in his personal life to develop his "higher thoughts".  He has been on a long-term, unfulfilled project to explore the concept of "boredom" and its effect on modern Western society.  And he is starting to come around to a faddish new philosophy dealing in metaphysics that others belittle him for...as well as for his continued interest in Humboldt...

I liked Humboldt's Gift because it deeply explored the thoughts and motivations of the protagonist...and by inference Saul Bellow himself.  As in The Adventures of Augie March, there is an overbearing and very materialistic older brother who disparages and openly criticizes the main character, in this case Charlie...Bellow had such a sibling in his life.  And as I discovered after finishing the book, Humboldt Fleisher was also based on a real poet whom the author knew.  But I also got a great kick out of Rinaldo Cantabile...what a character!  And there was a lot of good material here about philosophy, society, and relationships.  So Humboldt's Gift was another book of Saul Bellow's that I enjoyed...and recommend...