Henderson the Rain King

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Summary: Into the Heart of Africa
Review: A few days ago I finished reading Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King, which was a great and entertaining read. The basic premise is comedic: a grumpy, spoiled, acerbic, rich American in his 50's seeks to discover meaning and wisdom and fulfillment by leaving New York and traveling to Africa to live and commune with a primitive African tribe. If this induces at least a subtle chuckle, then it is safe to say that you'd be laughing frequently through this hilarious and sometimes ribald romp. Not enough? Then consider that it has been named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the well-respected Modern Library.

Henderson is an independently wealthy man in his 50's who is unhappily married to his second wife, and when he gets to the point where he can stand his meager existence no longer and the trivial aimlessness of it all, he hires a guide to take him to the remote, African sahara, to the most primitive tribe they can find. They first end up with the Arnewi tribe, where Henderson becomes obsessed with the tribe's superstitious obsession with the frogs in the cistern, which keeps them from watering their cattle, and so in his attempt to rid them of this malady he ends up blowing up the whole thing while fending off the advances of a large women who is considered a beauty due to her "bittahness." After destroying the cistern, Henderson and his guide escape and try again with the Wariri tribe where he impresses the natives with his unparalleled feats of strength (Festivus, anyone?), which then propels him unwittingly into the position of sungo (rain king) when rain immediately follows. There he befriends the king of the tribe, Dahfu, and the tale of Henderson carries us on a humorous journey where we come face to face with lions, tall amazonian women, and scheming uncles.

Henderson is an interesting counter figure to someone like, say, Roth's Swede Levov (American Pastoral), where both men have a privileged adulthood but yet both are incapable of settling down into it. Levov gets tragically ripped away while Henderson is comically tied to it even in the far reaches of Africa. Henderson's pretentiousness and bombastic response to everything (his attempt to kill his little house cat still makes me laugh) makes him the perfect target for Dahfu's psychological experiment, for even in his gregariousness, Henderson's goal is to existentially discover the importance of being an intricate, vital element of some grand venture, which Dahfu supplies.

One might fall into the temptation of reading this book as a generic critique of the dangers of "civilization" within a sort of Rousseauian framework, although the "savages" in Bellow's book are something less than entirely "noble." Nevertheless, I decline to read it this way, for I think the book speaks to psychology, to the inner man, to the aspirations and "life-force" in a discontented soul, rather than to politics or history or the delimitating ways in which cultural norms interact with those on other continents. Or, one could just sit back and have a grand old time laughing at Henderson, and the fact that he laughs at himself, even in his gargantuan seriousness, makes us love him all the more. He's like that grouchy, eccentric grandfather we can't help but love, even in his most obnoxious cantankerousness.

The bottom line, though, is that this book is terribly funny and clever, and Bellow has a way of avoiding the negative qualities of stream-of-consciousness prose while at the same time distilling from it its funnier aspects. This was the first Saul Bellow book that I had ever read, but immediately afterwards I put several more on my reading list.

Rating:
Summary: Over-sold?
Review: I first read this in a literature class and then, remembering it but not remembering why I remembered it, I borrowed it from a friend and reread it. Now I remember that I remembered it for not being memorable, after the professor had billed it as great modern literature.

"Henderson the Rain King" tells of a very wealthy but unsatisfied man who seeks meaning in life by traveling to Africa. He "kinda" finds it. The story is also "kinda" great. The search for meaning, external to the self, through a quest, is a story-line that permeates much of our literature and film, including the colorful "The Wizard of Oz". "Henderson" is not a prime example of that quest. It's a noble pursuit, adequately (read "mediocre") done and written fairly well, but it just doesn't stand out.

I also think the search for meaning outside the self is rooted in a fallacy, as meaning is created by each of us, from within. For more on that viewpoint, see Viktor Frakl's "Man's Search for Meaning".

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Summary: One of Bellow's most comic works
Review: This is one of the most comic of Bellow's novels, and one of the few that has an apparently non- Jewish hero. The internal cry of his hero Henderson , the 'I want, I want" that drives him to escape himself and search for another kind of world in Africa is the restlessness of the rich American who has everything materially but who seeks something more. Yet there is something likeable as well as comic in the huge and hugely appetited Henderson that gives the book a lighter spirit than Bellow's best works , " Herzog " and "Seize the Day". And it is a wonderfully enjoyable read.

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Rating:
Summary: Over-sold?
Review: I first read this in a literature class and then, remembering it but not remembering why I remembered it, I borrowed it from a friend and reread it. Now I remember that I remembered it for not being memorable, after the professor had billed it as great modern literature.

"Henderson the Rain King" tells of a very wealthy but unsatisfied man who seeks meaning in life by traveling to Africa. He "kinda" finds it. The story is also "kinda" great. The search for meaning, external to the self, through a quest, is a story-line that permeates much of our literature and film, including the colorful "The Wizard of Oz". "Henderson" is not a prime example of that quest. It's a noble pursuit, adequately (read "mediocre") done and written fairly well, but it just doesn't stand out.

I also think the search for meaning outside the self is rooted in a fallacy, as meaning is created by each of us, from within. For more on that viewpoint, see Viktor Frakl's "Man's Search for Meaning".

Rating:
Summary: A comic mid-life initiation story
Review: This is an interesting piece of expatriate literature. The "Lost Generation"--represented by the likes of Hemingway and Fitzgerald--churned out a host of literature that dealt with an America that was recovering from two world wars, and that was just beginning to realize its significance as a world power. This book belongs to the next generation of Americans, one who may not be able to find all of the answers in America but who nevertheless has a sense of national identity. It is a tale of a man named Henderson, an eccentric American millionaire who realizes he is searching for something and has to go to Africa to find it. Henderson, a man who never seems to do anything right, finds himself on the African continent, and learns enough about life to give him the direction he needs.

This book is very entertaining. Bellow's prose is intriguing and his dialogue interesting. At times, this book is so absurd it is downright funny, and Henderson is the perfect sort of unlikely and hapless hero that most of us can relate to. All in all, this is a great book for anyone interested in twentieth-century literature, particularly expatriate literature.

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Summary: Don't get your hopes up...
Review: This is the first book I read by Saul Bellow and it intrigued me enough to read two more books by this author. However, despite some interesting dialogue and a few paragraphs that are poetic and poignant this book is lacking. I find two major problems in all of Bellow's work.

1. Pacing. Bellows has a poor sense of pacing. There are sections that rapidly progress the plot interspersed with long winded boring sections that drag on for pages and pages with nothing happening. At times the plot can be quite entertaining, such as when Henderson finally gets to Africa and interacts with the villagers. I wanted Bellow to go into more detail between the villagers and Henderson rather than spend pages reading about Henderson's inner angst.

2. A lack of focus makes the book too long and seriously detracts from the moments of brilliance scattered throughout. In a word, Bellows likes to preach through his main character, and the voice you hear is very distinctly Bellows, not Hendersons. I didn't realize this until I read Humboldts Gift and I waded through pages of Charlie Citrines thoughts and ideas, which were very similiar to the thoughts and ideas of Bellow as Chick in Ravelstein. These thoughts and conversations, (In all three books) are amazingly convoluted, and sometimes I wonder if Bellow writes with stacks of textbooks near him so he can reference the theories of John Stuart Mills, Pope, Nietzsche, Davarr, Eriksen, Freud, Kierkegaard etc...and this is just a small sample. You can be rest assured that Bellow talks about every major and minor philosopher, psychologist, painter, writer, and poet at some point in time in all of his works, and most if it is pure psychobabble that has nothing to do with the plot. In short, if I wanted to read a textbook I would buy one. This is unfortunate because in Henderson the Rain King there was a good story and idea but Bellow lost the thread. Also, out of the three books I read by Bellow this one is the best. Needless to say I won't read another word by this author. Obviously he has connections to the people who hand out Pulitzer Prizes and Nobel Prizes, not to mention book reviewers.

In closing, if you want a taste of Bellow read this book, if you enjoy it maybe you should pursue him more but be warned it doesn't get better.

Rating:
Summary: A Mid-Life Crisis Comedy
Review: Saul Bellow seems to me to be one of those writers who is only fully appreciated by readers who have reached a certain age and thus have a certain amount of life experience under their belts. Before "Henderson the Rain King," the only other Bellow I'd read was "Seize the Day," and I read that one in high school. The two books are similar in that they both have middle-aged male protagonists who are at some point of crisis in their lives. "Seize the Day" was completely lost on me, but I wonder if I read it now whether I might find more meaning in it.

I've still got a ways to go before I become middle-aged myself, but nevertheless, there's a lot I related to in the character of Eugene Henderson. Affluent, arrogant and pig-headed, Henderson seems like the kind of man who should want for nothing, since he's rich enough to buy what he doesn't have and aggressive enough to bully his way into getting anything he can't buy. But he still finds himself haunted by an internal voice that chants "I want, I want," and because he doesn't know himself what it is that he wants, he takes an impulsive trip to Africa to see if he can find it in the desert wilds.

"Henderson" the novel is actually very funny, and Henderson the character is himself quite charming. Bellow is careful to only fill you in on Henderson's belligerent (and sometimes abusive) behavior as something that has happened in the past. The Henderson we come to know over the course of the novel is one who is open and respectful to new cultures and is eager to learn that which can only be taught by others. He strikes up a close friendship with Dahfu, King of the Wairiri, an African tribe, and it's their relationship--and primarily what Henderson learns about himself from Dahfu--that comprises the majority of the novel's plot.

"Henderson the Rain King" should appeal to anyone with politically left leanings and especially those who are frustrated by the materialist obsessions that plagues our culture. As others have said before this, the plot is actually quite simple, and one drawback to the book is that its story does not warrant its length. I didn't find Bellow's prose dense as some others have, but you do have to exhibit some patience with him as a writer, as he's prone to tangents and ruminative wanderings.

All in all, however, this was a very enjoyable book and led me to believe that I might enjoy Saul Bellow after all.

Rating:
Summary: I want..I want..I want an explanation.
Review: This book is both profoundly meaningful and intensely funny - a rare combination in literature. The character of Henderson is big, loud, jovial, and full of passion. He performs a constant high-wire act, tiptoeing between extremely loveable and just plain annoying, and always manages to fall in the direction of the former. He is educated and experienced in life, but at the same time ignorant and naïve in many ways as well. He is a lover of adventure and challenge and yet has managed to coast through most of his life until he comes face to face with his African adventure. It is the dueling forces at work inside him that make him such a fascinating character.

Saul Bellow creates a highly entertaining, though also highly stereotypical, African world as the setting for Henderson's life awakening. At times I felt guilty for laughing at the way he characterizes the African tribes, with their silly superstitions and bizarre traditions. In a way it seemed a bit racist, but in the end I concluded that Bellow was simply exaggerating the Western stereotypes of black Africa, so really he was poking fun at us, not at them. I found the dialog between Henderson and King Dahfu superbly written. The educated, intellectual voice of Dahfu gradually became more and more natural, but was a constant reminder of the preconceived notions that most white people have about other races.

So what was this book about? I think it was about the human urge to explore both the far edges of the earth and the far edges of the human spirit. Henderson seeks adventure, but he also seeks to find something within himself, something that he knows is there but that he can't find at home. He challenges himself, and through this challenge he grows as a person. And it is because of this growth that he is able to return to where he began, and truly appreciate that place.

I think there is also a strong message about the commonalities that exist between all humans, regardless of where they come from. Henderson travels thousands of miles to places where white men have never gone before, and yet he finds there a king to whom he can relate quite easily. Though this is a highly fictionalized account, there is a good bit of truth to the underlying message.