Rating: 
Summary: Henderson's African Adventure
Review: Eugene Henderson is a very wealthy, middle aged pig farmer who believes that he has led a very uneventful and, by his own lights, wasted life. Henderson regrets that he has always been in the process of "becoming," never arriving at a permanent state of "being." To turn his life around, Henderson decides to travel to Africa without his younger, attractive second wife, Lily accompanying him. He hopes to quell his insatiable restlessness and his obsessive thoughts of "I want, I want."The reader learns that Henderson is an arrogant, stubborn, and often foolish man, given to fits of rage and self-pity. He threatens to shoot a tenant's cat that is constantly going astray. While in Africa, Henderson's attempts to ameliorate a village's "frog problem" ends in disaster. He travels to another village where in a feat of strength he achieves a miracle and becomes the king's friend and right hand man. King Dahfu, who Henderson greatly admires, grants Henderson the special title of Sungo. Through King Dahfu's encouragement Henderson learns a great deal about himself and his untapped potential. If I had a problem with the book it was that I was never sure whether the king and especially the women around him were not poking fun at Henderson. He often appeared to be "Henderson the Clown" rather than "Henderson the Rain King." The author had Henderson dress in a baffoonish-like costume, with a silly pith helmet on top of his head. What is certain is that the Eugene Henderson at the end of the book is a far different person than at the beginning.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the large amount of your time
Review: It took me a long time to finish this book, but I am excessively glad I stuck it out until the end. What a journey! Saul Bellow carefully exposes his character Henderson as an extremely self-possessed, selfish man, yet also a man who is searching for something, that indefinable something. No, Henderson is not a good person - he is too incapacitated by his disillusionment at the world, yet he tries. The supporting characters in the novel are the ones who teach Henderson, who try to show him life is more than what he knows/wants. Henderson's wants are revealed through long passages of stream of consciousness thinking, revealing insights to readers about humanity as a whole throughout the novel. For example, "The world of facts is real, all right, and not to be altered. The physical is all there, and it belongs to science. But then there is the noumenal department, and there we create and create and create. As we tread our overanxious ways, we think we know what is real." Suddenly, a truth about life is revealed in the midst of Henderson's ramblings, and that is the essential beauty of Bellow's work. Philosophy need not be blunt, or pointed out to readers directly. Conversations between King Dahfu and Henderson are subtle discussions about the meaning of life, but never is the point obvious. It is our job as this novel's readers to reach our own conclusions, as Henderson is also doing. I love being allowed to think for myself while experiencing such superb imagery as, "Otherwise the words were as thick and heavy as tombstones...it was much like taking the limousine to La Guardia and passing those cemeteries in Queens. So heavy. Each of the dead having been mailed away, and those stones like the postage stamps death has licked." It's beautiful, really. You need to experience this book, and take your time reading it. It's more than worth your while.
Rating: 
Summary: In The Service Of The King...
Review: I a am a huge Counting Crows fan and they have a song titled " The Rain King" which was influenced by this book and the summary from Adam Duritz goes like this "I read this book in college when I was at Berkeley called "Henderson, the Rain King." And the main character in the book was kind of this big, open-wound of a person, Eugene Henderson, he just sort of bled all over everyone around him. For better or for worse, full of joy, full of sorrow, he just made a mess of everything," Caught my eye- a great book!I couldn't hav e described it better.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, Touching, Brilliant
Review: A terrific "quest" novel, one of the finest, about a man in search of himself. Hilarious from the moment Henderson steps onto African soil (practically every word out of his mouth is a pure delight), it is nonetheless a deeply affecting novel; a stunner; one that stays with you forever. Bellow's work is like that. Months after putting one of his books down, it will creep up on you. And somehow grow inside you. Oddly, as irresistible as he is I find him slow-going (in a good way). I simply cannot read Bellow quickly. So take your time. And enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A Novel That Roars
Review: Six-foot-four, 230-pound Eugene Henderson is anything but a pleasant fellow, as he makes clear early in Bellow's vigorous 1958 novel. Henderson is the millionaire scion of a long line of prominent Americans, including a US Secretary of State, but he's also a ne'er do well alcoholic bully who raises pigs on his family's estate just to tell the neighbors (and the world at large) what he thinks of them. He is no one that you'd want to meet, and he knows it. He is also a seeker: all his life tormented by an inner voice crying "I want, I want" that his money, his women, his pigs, even surviving stepping on a land mine in WWII can't fulfill. Because he is tormented, he torments others. A trip into the least mapped areas of central Africa, he hopes, will offer him something worth living for, something to overcome his death wish. If you are put off by Henderson's unlikableness early on, or if you tend to have no sympathy with the problems of wealthy characters (even if they are physically strong, don't shirk manual labor and never lose a bar fight) you could miss something special in this novel of a 50-year-old's adolescent yearning. Henderson's journey is a bare-knuckled crawl from "becoming" to "being." "Being people have all the breaks," notes Henderson, and becomers are "always in a tizzy." Most of literature concerns itself with the balance between these themes, and Bellow adds an original voice to the mix in Henderson, a becomer if there ever was one. The native tribes have their good souls and bad souls, just like every society; Henderson is fortunate to meet more of the former. While his bull-in-china-shop manner continues to cause him trouble, he at least desires to expand his capacity to learn new tricks at a relatively old age. And isn't it learning that keeps us living? "Henderson the Rain King" marks my first encounter with Saul Bellow, but certainly not my last. He writes fearlessly and vividly, the reader feels the heat of Africa, smells the lions, tastes the slimy water with Henderson, and grows up a little with him, too, even as he grows up a lot.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: The first page of this Penguin edition states that Saul Bellow won three National Book Awards and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. Bellow, the author of thirteen books and numerous articles, also won the National Book Award Foundation Medal in 1990. This book, "Henderson the Rain King," written in 1958, made the list of the top 100 fiction novels of the 20th century. Some of his other works include "Seize the Day," "Herzog," "Ravelstein," and "The Adventures of Augie March." Why "Henderson the Rain King" made that top 100 list, I'll never know. I like classic literature and I have read a large number of classic works over the last several months, but "Henderson the Rain King" falls at the bottom of the list. Maybe I am not used to Saul Bellow's prose style, or the way he thinks, but I just don't like this book. Turning a page in this book felt like moving a mountain. I groaned and fretted my way through every nightmarish paragraph, every miserable word. When I start a book, I want to finish that book, no matter what. Every minute I held this book in my hands I wanted to stop reading it. Believe me, this albatross is one heavy bugger. "Henderson the Rain King" tells the story of Eugene Henderson, scion of a wealthy American family. His father wrote French history and his grandfather served as a Secretary of State. Gene doesn't quite live up to expectations, however. Frankly, he's a cad and a colossal idiot. He's an alcoholic, ignores his kids, starts fights with authority figures, and is working on his second marriage. His idea of a good time is raising pigs on the family estate and shooting bottles with a slingshot. Eugene's life is slowly falling apart when one day he decides to go with a friend and his new bride to Africa. Henderson bails out on them with a guide named Romilayu, and sets off for the desolate interior of Africa. Henderson first hooks up with the Arnewi tribe where he feels impelled to help them clear a pond of some troublesome frogs. The second tribe Eugene encounters is the Wariri. Henderson befriends the king of the tribe and becomes the "Rain King" when he lifts a statue no one else can move. His friendship with the king helps Henderson come to terms with his rampant insecurities until the twist ending reveals that Henderson might be in over his head. Along the way we get an awful lot of navel gazing from Henderson, and some gobbledygook science from the king of the Wariri. Even the twist ending, which did help speed up the plodding pace of the book, can't save this novel from the clutches of banality. The back cover of the book says this novel is a comedy full of "rollicking prose, offbeat inventiveness, and impulsive creation." In other words, the publishers don't understand this mess anymore than you will (impulsive creation is a code word for "huh?"). Sure, the prose occasionally rises to the level of a classic, but most of the time it is pretty plain. As for the comedy aspect, I'll grant that some of Henderson's blathering can be amusing, especially when he reveals himself to be a liar and hypocrite within the space of a few pages. But if you are expecting to bust a gut over this book, you can just forget it. If I were forced to give an answer as to why this book made that infernal list, I would say that this is the classic liberal/leftist novel that makes so many people feel warm and fuzzy inside. A rich, unhappy jerk abandons America and goes to primitive Africa in order to learn life lessons. When Henderson tries to help the Arnewi with the frogs, his Western learning causes more trouble than it is worth. Only when he relies on brute strength and turns his life over to a primitive does he learn his lesson. Yawn. Save yourself the pain and avoid this book. If you do have to read it for some reason or another, at least take comfort in the fact that it is only 341 pages long. Occasionally, some good prose and some nice set pieces will help propel you along, but not nearly fast enough. Maybe some of Bellow's other novels are better, and if they are, I'd like to know. Maybe I would read another one of his books, but I sure don't want to if it resembles "Henderson the Rain King" in any way, shape, or form. The best thing about this book is the cover.
Rating:
Summary: Top Ten of all the Books I've Read...
Review: ...and I've read a lot! This book is incredible! It is the story of Henderson, a rich, upper middle-aged man, married for the second time (or third-i can't remember) and with kids, who decides he needs to go to Africa. He adventures through the desert with a loyal and patient african escort, Ramilayu, who translates for him and acts as a voice of reason, though henderson seldom listens. henderson finally comes across a tribe he can really love, only to discover they are not quite what he believed. a charming and extremely funny book-the ending stays with you (or with me, anyway) and gives you hope. you will want to read it again! buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: I love saul bellow . . .
Review: Not allow me to clarify: This is the fifth book I have read by Mr. Bellow,following his career in some twisted, obsessively patterned quest to read his published work in order of publication. Luckily, this is his fifth book. Each novel, from Dangling Man up here to Henderson, are great. It is difficult being so blunt in praise, being unable to relate the details and intricacies of this varying character study. It is a funny, exciting adventure story of the profound, philosophical type. It details the bumbling, absurd adventures of a man nearly unable to care for himself, and using an crazy sense of logic to piece the shattered aspects of his life together. Saul Bellow, at least from the start of his career, was a consistant and far-reaching genius who studied human nature to a pinnicle extent, understanding much and offering interesting ideas in answer to the questions he raises.
Rating:
Summary: Hooray for humanity
Review: The title character of Saul Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King" is one of the most remarkable personalities in modern literature. Most first-person narrators just kind of lay on the page, passively hoping the reader will sympathize with or care about them; but Eugene Henderson is a three-dimensional creation, arrogant, energetic, restless, engaging the reader with his lively banter and gleeful impudence. 55-year-old Henderson is a millionaire by inheritance, aimlessly sleepwalking through life, married to a ditzy wife, and channeling ancestral spirits by playing his dead father's violin. Needing a vacation from his family and his dreary normal existence, and feeling that "...it's the destiny of [his] generation of Americans to go out in the world and try to find the wisdom of life," he travels to Africa and impulsively decides to go off into the wild. A hired guide named Romilayu leads him to two remote villages. The first is inhabited by a tribe called the Arnewi. He observes with delight that the Arnewi village must be older than the city of Ur -- this is what he was looking for, the cradle of civilization, unblemished by the advances of modern society. Here he finds the natives in a crisis: their precious cattle are dying of thirst because the water in the village cistern is undrinkable. On his own initiative, he tries to solve their problem; but his plan fails disastrously, and he and Romilayu leave the village in shame. They go to a second village, inhabited by a larger tribe called the Wariri, ruled by a king named Dahfu. The Wariri are suffering from a drought and go through elaborate rituals in order to conjure rain. When Henderson unexpectedly helps them bring a deluge, Dahfu proclaims him the "Rain King" and the two become close, almost brotherly, friends. Henderson learns that Dahfu cannot have complete sovereignty over the tribe until he captures the lion containing the soul of his dead father, the former king, and Dahfu asks Henderson to help him in the hunt. But human corruption knows no geographical boundaries, and Henderson and Romilayu soon find themselves in a dangerous situation from which it will require all their physical and mental capacities to save themselves. More refined and terser than "The Adventures of Augie March," "Henderson the Rain King" offers a wonderfully balanced mixture of philosophy, suspense, and humor. While Augie wandered through life looking for a purpose, a goal, Henderson seems to find his, affirming it through his own adventures and taking the reader along for the exhilarating ride. You'll be cheering for the guy, not because he's the hero, but because he's more human than most of the people you know.
Rating: 
Summary: So much ado about so little
Review: I read this book with an open mind as it has been suggested by many to be worthy. Unless you want to read an endless blather by a 55 year old whiner, go elsewhere. I suggest that anything by Nabokov or Cather or Conrad will be infinitely more enjoyable. Can I get a refund?
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