Saul Bellow Against the Grain (Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction)

Pifer contends that Bellow's fiction is radical. Going against the grain of contemporary culture and its secular pieties, the novelist undermines accepted notions of reality and challenges the "orthodoxies" created by materialist values and rationalist thought. Bellow's ten novels actually test the assumptions of traditional realism—the genre with which his fiction is usually identified. Pifer contends that Bellow's fiction is fundamentally radical. Going against the grain of contemporary culture and its secular pieties, he undermines accepted notions of reality and challenges the "orthodoxies" created by materialist values and rationalist thought. Charged by his belief in the soul, his 10 novels test the assumptions of traditional realism. Pifer stresses the importance to Bellow of the invisible world, the longing for revelation, and the capacity to love and to suffer. She also shows how Bellow's hero is a man torn between his modern predilection for secular rationalism and a primordial attachment to the soul, and how he is led to demolish reigning idols of contemporary thought and culture. ISBN 0-8122-8203-5: $29.95

Pifer contends that Bellow's fiction is radical. Going against the grain of contemporary culture and its secular pieties, the novelist undermines accepted notions of reality and challenges the "orthodoxies" created by materialist values and rationalist thought. Bellow's ten novels actually test the assumptions of traditional realism—the genre with which his fiction is usually identified.

This critical analysis of Bellow's writing has as its central theme the argument that the conflict between rationalism and intuition informs each novel. It involves a close scrutiny of Bellow's language, touching on plot and character, and defining plot shifts and changes.