Ravelstein

Ravelstein is Saul Bellow's 2000 novel in which the title character is based on Allan Bloom, who taught with Bellow at the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. Critics took the book as a betrayal to Allan Bloom, a long time friend of Bellow.

Related Topics:
Saul Bellow - 2000 - Novel - Allan Bloom - University of Chicago - Committee on Social Thought

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Despite the controversy, Bellow's book is largely an (over-) affectionate apologia for Bloom that avoids the sticky questions of his elitist ideas and presents him as a sort of superhuman gourmand of life's sensual pleasures and sexual and emotional attachments. In the end, Bellow asks that the reader look beyond Bloom's writings and see him as a complex, flawed, but avid mind that left a unique, indelible impression on students, friends, and lovers.

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