Rating: 
Summary: One of the best character sketches ever produced!
Review: Moses Herzog is simply the most true to life character I've ever read, a heart as his last name suggests. Bellow takes his reader into the heart and soul of this troubled man, takes us through his neuroses in some of the best prose produced in the latter half of the 20th Century. This book was written to be read twice just to get the full flavour of this awesome man. Moses Herzog, you've got a friend in me.
Rating: 
Summary: Seeking future purpose in the entrails of the past
Review: Moses Herzog, the central character of the book, is the ultimate in-action hero. This book, sublimely written in places, over- written in others, spends a lot of time looking through Herzog's rear view mirror of his life, piecing together his childhood, his marriage and latterly its collapse. Herzog tries to reconstruct his life by writing letters, some to his old enemies, others to his colleagues and friends. While many of these letters add a further dimension to the book, others appear rather to showcase the author's intellectual range than highlight the central character's struggle with the world and his place in it. The actual dialogues within the book illustrate the real dichotomy in Herzog's life; his words and deeds do not do justice to his thoughts and hopes: finally when he does act the result is tragi-comic. The book is a finely crafted analysis of the anatomy of failure. Moses undergoes a lengthy examination of his decline, and his gradual realisation of the really important things in his life; there is no ultimate closure at the end of the novel, only a general feeling (for the reader) of Herzog transcending his mortal problems and being ready to face the future. "Herzog" is a thoroughly lucid and engaging work, yet for me the book has too many cuts, inserts and digressions, for it to have the zest, verve and momentum to be a real masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: A lesson in closure.
Review: Saul Bellow is a brilliant writer, yet I must admit "Herzog" did not capture me as I had hoped it would. Bellow's mastery of prose is stunning, yet "Herzog" seemed to be a bit lacking in just that extra something that separates a really good book from a masterpiece. Moses Herzog seems to be a man who lives a great deal in his own mind, and is filled with inaction fraught with contemplation. He writes letters to persons living, dead, famous and obscure which are never sent, mostly in an attempt to purge his own soul of all the things he sees wrong in the world and his own life. Just as Eugene Henderson was a man of constant action with very little forethought,Herzog, conversely, is a man of too little action and paralyzed with overcontemplation. His letters show the brilliant mind of the man, yet some become quite heady and can quickly lose the attention of a reader who is not familiar with the particular subject which he is speaking about. Plot and action seem to take a back seat in this piece to masterful character development, and it is safe to say that anyone who has gone through an ordeal such as Herzog has will be able to understand and appreciate his feelings and what he's going through. The facts are cut and dried; his wife left him for his best friend, so he attempts to put himself back together and remain a part of his daughter's life. This book is about the journey as much as it is about the destination. It is highly autobiographical with a thin veneer of "fiction" attached to it, as the whole premise of the book echoes the events of Bellow's life at the time it was written, and not suprisingly, the point of view often switches from first to third person almost subconsciously. This work strikes me as a personal catharsis for the author, and a chance for him to indulge the audiences' voyeuristic side. It is clever, masterfully written, and is certainly a heart rending ride through not only Herzog's but also Bellow's life. It is a piece which has the ability to speak volumes to some, yet is without meaning to others. If you can appreciate the purpose the letters serve and the artful way the piece is constructed, you can forgive the sometimes sluggish plot. For those who have read this book as an introduction to Bellow and were turned off from his work by it, I suggest reading "Henderson the Rain King". Perhaps it will give you a greater appreciation of this fine author. "Herzog" can be very powerful to the right reader, and if nothing else, speaks volumes about the author himself.
Rating:
Summary: A lesson in closure.
Review: Saul Bellow is a brilliant writer, yet I must admit "Herzog" did not capture me as I had hoped it would. Bellow's mastery of prose is stunning, yet "Herzog" seemed to be a bit lacking in just that extra something that separates a really good book from a masterpiece. Moses Herzog seems to be a man who lives a great deal in his own mind, and is filled with inaction fraught with contemplation. He writes letters to persons living, dead, famous and obscure which are never sent, mostly in an attempt to purge his own soul of all the things he sees wrong in the world and his own life. Just as Eugene Henderson was a man of constant action with very little forethought,Herzog, conversely, is a man of too little action and paralyzed with overcontemplation. His letters show the brilliant mind of the man, yet some become quite heady and can quickly lose the attention of a reader who is not familiar with the particular subject which he is speaking about. Plot and action seem to take a back seat in this piece to masterful character development, and it is safe to say that anyone who has gone through an ordeal such as Herzog has will be able to understand and appreciate his feelings and what he's going through. The facts are cut and dried; his wife left him for his best friend, so he attempts to put himself back together and remain a part of his daughter's life. This book is about the journey as much as it is about the destination. It is highly autobiographical with a thin veneer of "fiction" attached to it, as the whole premise of the book echoes the events of Bellow's life at the time it was written, and not suprisingly, the point of view often switches from first to third person almost subconsciously. This work strikes me as a personal catharsis for the author, and a chance for him to indulge the audiences' voyeuristic side. It is clever, masterfully written, and is certainly a heart rending ride through not only Herzog's but also Bellow's life. It is a piece which has the ability to speak volumes to some, yet is without meaning to others. If you can appreciate the purpose the letters serve and the artful way the piece is constructed, you can forgive the sometimes sluggish plot. For those who have read this book as an introduction to Bellow and were turned off from his work by it, I suggest reading "Henderson the Rain King". Perhaps it will give you a greater appreciation of this fine author. "Herzog" can be very powerful to the right reader, and if nothing else, speaks volumes about the author himself.
Rating: 
Summary: License to bore
Review: Saul Bellow is one of those writers (like John Cheever) who, once he got tagged as a "Serious Writer" figured it gave him a license to bore. Bellow's book is utterly inconsiderate to the reader. It's a never-ending static character study that tests the reader's tolerance for pompous narcissism. You get occasionally elegant writing along the way, but it doesn't go anywhere. Don't torture yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Thou book de dumb
Review: The book starts ok, though it scores a constant bore. Saul Bellow might have been better off going into the army, instead of writing the book. The short longness of the novel was not welcomed.
Rating:
Summary: contemporary, like moby dick
Review: The funny thing about Herzog is that it's no longer contemporary fiction. In terms of language, operating philosophies, and identifiable character types, it's as far behind us as Moby Dick. That's part of the charm of reading Herzog-the discovery that 50 years ago is indeed a half century away. But, like Moby Dick, age doesn't make any difference to the power of Moses Herzog's story, the truths it depicts, or the awe Bellow can sometimes inspire. Herzog is a philosophical novel about a failed academic philosopher who can't help but search for the truth. Whether in love affairs, memories of his Jewish childhood, or the letters he obsessively writes, M. Herzog flings himself against hypocricy, alienation, and boredom. He never wins, but he never gives up, and somehow or another comes to accept his own soul. "The dream of man's heart, however much we may distrust or resent it, is that life may complete itself in significant pattern." Bellow creates that soul from his own, through long and brilliant analytical passages that turn philosophical propositions into intricate, heart-stopping interior monologues. These are interspersed with suggestive aphorisms ("God's veil over things makes them all riddles.") The real secret of Bellow's novel is the emotional pitch of spiritual imperitive and secular compromise so perfeclty rendered in his prose. Half a century later it still resonates. war on typos: p.302, line 9: "hinding behind the tree trunk" instead of hiding.
p. 227, line 16: "the sinstrument of the soul" instead of instrument.
Rating:
Summary: contemporary, like moby dick
Review: The funny thing about Herzog is that it's no longer contemporary fiction. In terms of language, operating philosophies, and identifiable character types, it's as far behind us as Moby Dick. That's part of the charm of reading Herzog-the discovery that 50 years ago is indeed a half century away. But, like Moby Dick, age doesn't make any difference to the power of Moses Herzog's story, the truths it depicts, or the awe Bellow can sometimes inspire. Herzog is a philosophical novel about a failed academic philosopher who can't help but search for the truth. Whether in love affairs, memories of his Jewish childhood, or the letters he obsessively writes, M. Herzog flings himself against hypocricy, alienation, and boredom. He never wins, but he never gives up, and somehow or another comes to accept his own soul. "The dream of man's heart, however much we may distrust or resent it, is that life may complete itself in significant pattern." Bellow creates that soul from his own, through long and brilliant analytical passages that turn philosophical propositions into intricate, heart-stopping interior monologues. These are interspersed with suggestive aphorisms ("God's veil over things makes them all riddles.") The real secret of Bellow's novel is the emotional pitch of spiritual imperitive and secular compromise so perfeclty rendered in his prose. Half a century later it still resonates. war on typos: p.302, line 9: "hinding behind the tree trunk" instead of hiding.
p. 227, line 16: "the sinstrument of the soul" instead of instrument.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: The middle-aged Moses Herzog is a notable literary-historical academic, the father of two children from two failed marriages, and the lover of a string of exotic women. His most recent wife, the Catholic convert Madelaine, has recently left him for his best friend. Herzog is lost. As he reflects on the continuing disaster which constitutes his life, and the choices which led him to this crisis, he begins writing unsent letters - to friends and family, colleagues and enemies, to famous figures both living a dead. As Bellow himself has noted, Herzog is a man who, in the agony of suffering, finds himself to be his own most penetrating critic. He reexamines his life by reenacting all the roles he took seriously - the professor, the son, the brother, the lover, the father, the husband, the avenger, the intellectual. It's an attempt to divest himself of these personae, and when he has dismissed them, there comes a pause - a moment of grace - which is infinitely more valuable than his trying to invent everything for himself, or accepting human inventions, the collective errors, by which he's lived. He's decided to go through a process of jettisoning or lightening. The effect is that this is something the reader shares. Bellow has the capacity in his novels to cover the smallest timeframe - a matter of days, or even hours in some cases - and yet through the subtle interleaving of flashbacks, meditations and philosophical musings, cover a vast amount of intellectual and emotional ground. His novels are vast in scope yet humanly scaled. The philosophical is made real by instantiation. "Herzog" is a wonderful example of this, and it also contains two of the most compassionate moments I've ever read: Herzog's reaction to a court scene in which the death of an abused child is recounted; and the subsequent scene in which Herzog witnesses, through the window of the marital home from which he's been banished, his best friend and betrayer bathing Herzog's own child. Bellow's genius is to take these moments, one horrifying and one tender, and make them emblematic - give them real cultural, historical implication - without losing for a moment the convincing personal immediacy they have for the characters living through them. That's quite an achievement, and it's why Bellow's novels can be so intellectually rich and so touching at precisely the same time.
Rating: 
Summary: Superb writing, but self-centred
Review: This book is such an established classic, that a little criticism is certainly not going to harm its reputation. The quality of the writing is superb: it is a pleasure simply reading prose of such quality, of encountering a novelist who can pace and structure so finely a work as complex as this. Yet, I was repelled by the constant tone of self-pity. I do not know the extent to which this novel is autobiographical, but the fact that Herzog is a middle-aged Jewish intellectual naturally links him with the author. The whole tenor of the novel seems to say: "Isn't life tough when you're a middle-aged intellectual like myself?" To which the obvious answer must surely be "No, not really". A novelist ought to be interested in the world around him.
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