The best of Bellow in one great volume : This remarkable volume contains what are in my opinion the three best novels of Bellow. One is the remarkable short novel, 'Seize the Day' the second is his African adventure the wildly comic 'Henderson' the third , his arguably best book, 'Herzog'. Herzog is his great meditation on history and civlization as he traces five - days in the life of Moses Herzog, a former university teacher, a historian, who is struggling to survive in the wake of his divorce from his second wife. In the course of this work Herzog writes letters to the living and the dead, including the famous dead a feature which gives special life to the book. In 'Seize the Day' the upper West Side of New York is the scene of the hero, Tommy Wilhelm's loss of a hold on his own life. As he pleads for money with his successful patronizing father Dr. Adler he falls into the clutches of the charlatan- wiseman Temkin and blows his last seven- hundred dollars on a speculative venture Temkin has recommended. The pathos of this tale of money- machine- murder of the soul- is great. It is a masterpiece of concise comic description and deep insight into the human heart. The final funeral scene is a truly great one.
These novels are among the finest twentieth- century American Literature has given us.
'Library of America' has done a service by putting them together in one most attractive volume.

Male mid-life crisis, but good psychological studies. ( )