The Actual

On daryl sng's recommendation, I picked up two books by Saul Bellow from the library this weekend, The Actual (a novella) and Henderson the Rain King. Bellow won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer, and the National Book Award three times. Whoa.. My only regret is that I left Henderson the Rain King in the backseat of my friend's car and so my reading has been put on hold.

Very. Thought. Provoking. The Actual is by no means one of Bellow's canonical works but it made me hungry for more. It is written in the first-person and yet it had such a fluidity of prose that other minor characters were enlivened as well. The idea of Amy Wustrin being so ingrained in Harry Trellman's consciousness is intriguing. It may be more true of life than I like to admit. As Henderson's inner tormenting voice said (before I misplaced the book), "I want! I want! I want!"