Dear Jonathan,
I, too, am grateful that Bellow wasn’t held back by his disinclination to write “a certain kind of novel.” But is this a novel at all? Roman à clef falls short of describing the way Ravelstein hugs the shore of lived reality. Bellow’s disguising of real people stops at providing them with pseudonyms. He was diagnosed with ciguatoxin, it did happen in the Caribbean, and Souls Without Longingwas the actual working title of The Closing of the American Mind. Bellow doesn’t even bother to provide Chick with fictionalized friends. (How would Chick have known John Berryman?)
You mentioned Tuesday that knowing who modeled for the Mona Lisa doesn’t matter to you when you look at it. Me, neither. But it probably mattered to her boyfriend. The big complaint about the book from Allan Bloom’s acquaintances, of course, is that Bellow “outed” Bloom. Not as a homosexual, but as having died of AIDS–a secret that Bloom, otherwise the chattiest of men, kept from even very close friends. Of course, you can’t “out” a fictional character. That this is a non-literary complaint is precisely the point–because this “novel” devotes considerable energy to pre-empting it. Ravelstein says, “Be as hard on me as you like.” Chick says Ravelstein “never flattered anyone, nor did he level with you in order to put you down. He simply believed that a willingness to let the self-esteem structure be attacked and burned to the ground was a measure of your seriousness.” Those parts of the book that we agree fail as fiction–e.g., the wifely chitchat–often fail because they’re serving non-fictional ends, protecting Bellow from charges of unfairness. Bellow is asking to be judged not just on the interest of his Bloom character but on the faithfulness of his Bloom representation.
Why insist on Ravelstein as fiction? In fact, this book has greater force read as a “mere” account of a heroic friendship than read as a novel. Figuring out exactly what Bellow is driving at demands more knowledge of both Judaism and Greek philosophy than I possess, but these are my impressions:
Civilization is for Ravelstein a dialectic between Athens and Jerusalem, between reason and faith. (In this he follows his mentor, “Professor Davarr,” modeled on Leo Strauss.) Ravelstein claims to be an Athenian reasoner through-and-through. As Chick says: “He didn’t ask, ‘Where will you spend eternity?’ as religious the-end-is-near picketers did, but rather, ‘With what, in this modern democracy, will you meet the demands of your soul?’” Ravelstein is fixated on man’s search for his complement–the “missing half” Plato describes in the Symposium–and on Eros.
Chick is more religiously inclined, a Jerusalem man. He notes that Ravelstein owns paintings he doesn’t care about. In one, “Judith was holding the head of Holofernes by the hair. His mouth open. Her eyes turned to heaven. The painter wanted you to think of Judith as the simple daughter of Zion, a natural chaste beauty, even though she has just cut off a fellow’s head. What was Ravelstein’s view of all this?” Probably nothing. Crassly put, Ravelstein likes ideas and “Great Politics.” Chick likes God and the things of this world. (And for this, Jonathan, your description of “a Jewish mysticism that keeps its feet on the ground without negating the possibility of something more” is perfect.)
The actual Bloom followed Plato (Republic, Book I) in lampooning the religiosity of the aged. Ravelstein’s an atheist. And yet, the dying Ravelstein drifts towards Jerusalem. “It was the Jews he wanted to talk about, not the Greeks,” Chick recalls. “He was full of scripture now.” Does this mean that the Athens-oriented Bloom/Ravelstein was just wrong?
No. Because religion is more than Chick’s “personal metaphysics.” While Chick is more “Jewish,” Ravelstein is more of “a Jew.” There is a historical (Athenian, if you will) component missing from Chick’s view; it is not he but Ravelstein who concludes that “a Jew should take a deep interest in the history of the Jews.” Ravelstein upbraids Chick for being seen in public with a Rumanian Nazi collaborator, whom Chick tolerates because he flatters Chick’s Eastern European wife. (Chick admits: “I can’t seem to get a tight grip on the meat-hook people.”) Here, paradoxically, it’s the ethereal Ravelstein, not the earthy Chick, who “keeps his feet on the ground.”
In this important matter, as in so many seemingly unimportant ones, each is the other’s necessary platonic complement. It’s touching in this light that both Chick and Ravelstein avoid the word “smugness,” preferring the French suffisance. Bellow’s lament is that he has been rendered unwhole–insufficient–by the lack of his friend.
Finally, note Bellow’s constant use of the word “esoteric”–a favorite Straussian word, one repetition that is masterfully handled throughout. Ravelstein thinks “all the great texts had esoteric significance.” Ravelstein’s black housemaid Ruby Tyson tells him “the esoteric, psychiatric secrets of [her other clients’] wives.” And Ravelstein warns Chick that he, too, will be dead soon, with “the secret, esoteric confidence of the man of flesh and blood.” Ravelstein is an esoteric work. It is a love letter to Bloom, “parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi.” If this big-souled lament for a dead friend recalls Montaigne’s, it also draws its power from the same source–from its not being fiction.
Best,
Chris
