Rating: 
Summary: Odyssey of an American poet
Review: As in Bellow's "Herzog" and "Seize the Day," the protagonist of "Humboldt's Gift" is a highly educated late-middle-aged man who's made a minor mess of his life but weathers the storm with any resources of which he can avail himself. Charlie Citrine, an Appleton, Wisconsin, native transplanted to Chicago, is an author and a briefly successful playwright who spends the novel reminiscing about his longtime friendship with the late poet Von Humboldt Fleisher, an eccentric genius and self-diagnosed manic depressive, and describing the people and events in his life that somehow seem to shape themselves around his relationship with Humboldt.Humboldt once had a goal to raise the esteem of the poet's role in American society. In 1952 he believed an Adlai Stevenson presidency would allow the involvement of more intellectuals in government; when this hope crumbled, he sought and won an ephemeral poetry chair at Princeton, where he and Citrine concocted a strangely Sophoclean movie treatment about a doomed Arctic expedition and a man who became a cannibal. This was not the last of their show business aspirations; Citrine's play, "Von Trenck," based loosely on Humboldt's life and therefore vexatious to Humboldt, was a hit on the theater circuit and was made into a movie. Citrine's dubious fortune attracts all kinds of problems with love and money. His ex-wife Denise is straining him over an uncomfortable divorce settlement; his new girlfriend, a much younger woman named Renata, takes advantage of him and leaves him stranded in Madrid to babysit her son. A simple poker night results in an undesirable association with a small-time gangster named Rinaldo Cantabile from which he can't seem to extricate himself. Character creation is where Bellow really excels; he seeks the individual in every person he invents and never exploits stereotypes or resorts to caricatures for the sake of broad humor. Observe the swaggering confidence of Citrine's friend George Swiebel, an actor turned construction contractor; the smug demeanor of the dapper, cosmopolitan Thaxter, whom Citrine hires as an editor for a magazine yet (and probably never) to be published; the affectionate gruffness of Citrine's older brother Julius, a wealthy, sickly businessman who never shed his working-class sensibilities. These are people you'd be no more surprised to meet in reality than on the pages of a book. A criticism against Bellow is that he has a tendency to sacrifice cohesive plots for the random portrayal of human hysteria, a collection of disparate people thrown together haphazardly. The problem is not that his novels lack believability; rather, they are often too believable, and sometimes I think they would benefit from just a little more artifice. In that regard, "Humboldt's Gift" strikes me as one of his better novels along with "Henderson the Rain King," built upon a substantial story that achieves a certain amount of closure because the protagonist is finally entrusted with a responsibility (the "gift") that, handled properly, could change his life for the better.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning, brilliant, timeless classic
Review: Based on his encounters with the brilliant but doomed poet Delmore Schwartz, Humbold's Gift is like much of Saul Bellow's novels in that it's well-written and flows nicely. However, what makes it different from earlier works like "The Adventures of Augie March" is that the narrator is such a drip - a man who squanders his good fortune on bad gambling tips and dubious concubines. Bellow's characterization of the narrator Charlie Citrine is almost too convincing. Citrine becomes absolutely insufferable at times, and this makes sometimes it difficult to continue reading without wanting to slam the book down in disgust instead of reading on.
However, for those with a penchant for flawed personalities - and for fans of Delmore Schwartz, there is much here to entertain.
Rating:
Summary: Bellow's Resolution
Review: I think this is Bellow's materwork. An author who has always searched for evidence of the human soul in contemporary society, the questions Bellow raised in each of the novels leading to this point (Herzog particularly), finally find a resolution in this book, his last novel before winning the Nobel Prize. This is a story of Charlie Citrine, a sucessful author who finds himself struggling for meaning while confronting the ghosts of memory, particularly in the relationship with his friend, mentor; and, at many points, antagonist, Von Humboldt Fletcher. Curiously, the novel is thrown into action and suspense through Citrine's dealings with a minor gangster, Cantible. The relationship, though, turns out to be one that brings Citrine back to the "here and now." Just as he is on the brink of being lost in transcendental wanderings, Citrine is snapped back to his resposibility by Cantible. And, from such an unlikely source, the novel begins its reach towards resolution: to be fully human, Citrine must be spiritual but remain part of the world. Meaning and true spirituality come through compassion, empathy, caring. Once Citrine and the reader discover this, the novel reaches a resolution that marked the end of an era in many of Bellow's themes. This novel is simply a must for anyone who has enjoyed any of Bellow's earlier works, as well as for anyone who, like Chalie Citrine, struggle to find a place for the soul, the human spirit, in a world that seems to have forgotten such a thing may exist.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed, but frequently astonishing
Review: Saul Bellow's HUMBOLDT'S GIFT is one of his last major novels. It's narrated by Charlie Citrine, a writer (playwright, biographer, essayist), who's tormented by a Chicago hood, a financially-draining divorce, an unfaithful girlfriend, and the memories of his recently deceased one-time mentor and close friend Von Humboldt Fleisher (loosely based on Delmore Schwartz).
There's not much action in HUMOBLDT'S GIFT. Much of the book is taken up by long passages of reminiscences, hyperactive philosophizing about the artist's--and any human's--place in modern society, and more general existential angst. These are written in furiously paced and often hilarious prose. The cadences of Bellow's sentences have unique rhythm and momentum.
At the same time, this is often a deeply moving novel. Charlie is haunted throughout the book by his memories of Humboldt, and in particular the moment when he saw Humboldt--down and out--on a NYC street and avoided him. It was the last time he would see Humboldt before his death. The many emotionally-charged and elegiac reflections on Humboldt and his ambition and his friendship and his manic depression and his eventual break-up, make up the heart of the book.
The first half of the novel is extremely strong. Then it tends to get a bit indulgent; the contrivences -- the character of Cantabile, for example -- begin to wear, and the penultimate change of setting to Spain seems to take the energy out of the book. Bellow's prose is often awesomely brilliant -- the language seems to jump off the page -- but it too has its moments of carelessness and self-indulgence.
Ultimately, I don't think this novel is entirely successful, but it is often magical, often moving, and continually thought-provoking.
Rating: 
Summary: Meandering
Review: They should have given Bellow his Nobel Prize a couple of years earlier, to avoid the aspersion this novel throws upon it. While this novel displays as well as any Bellow's stylistic fluency, the story really has no serious moral or intellectual interest, and thus the ornaments of style are wasted. The protagonist is capricious to the point of carelessness and free of the burden of any serious commitments, ethical or otherwise. He is so narcissistic that the reader is forced to doubt either his intelligence or his humanity. It would be comforting if the novel meant to expose a pathological frame of mind - albeit not of the most malignant kind - but the character's picaresque adventures, inconsequential struggles, ephemeral desires, and his shallow reflections upon them, are given far too much space for such a purpose to obtain. It is a matter of genuine puzzlement to me why Bellow chose to give such a generous platform to this impoverished character, whose moral substance is nothing beside, for instance, the much more weighty Mr. Sammler, through whom Bellow successfully accomplishes the only purpose this novel could have been meant for (and fails in), which is to examine the pressures which modern American society forces upon the articulate mind, evaluate the resulting changes in relations with others and oneself, and to convey the pathos of our failures to repair what is damaged thereby.
In a word, don't waste your time.
Rating: 
Summary: for some interesting ideas
Review: this book is captivating only if you have loads of patience to go through all the intellectual material loaded in it by the author. it is not the kind which can be whole heartedly endorsed to everyone. the plot is about Charles Citrine a famous author- now in decline- and his poet-friend Von Humboldt and their internal struggles. like everyone else, Citrine too faces all the common problems of life. these are all encompassing interms of physical (hairloss), material (eluding success, lawsuits and money), emotional (ex-wife, gold- digging girlfriend, ambiguous friends), and intellectual (philistinism, deciline in arts, Humboldt's failure etc). but the most important quest for him is to define consciousness. he is forever struggling with this enigma. he is in search of an answer for the following mysteries of nature. what is this consciousness, is there a spirit and a soul, what do they mean, is there a higher form of consciousness like the spirit, does this consciousness remain after death and if so what are its consequences and so on. he is scared of a conscious entity after death but again if there is none, he argues the futility of a single life. these enquiries of his range from topics like meta-physics to mysticism and spiritualism. though Bellow may not have actually attempted to deal with this subject, it forms the most interesting part of the book. the rest is in the higher realms of intellectualism which one may neither follow nor comprehend. but one is helped in tiding over these parts by Bellow's typical humourous and satirical prose. if you are really hounded by the enquiries mentioned above, then this book will prove an interesting read.
Rating:
Summary: Pulitzer Prize? My Gawwwwwd.
Review: This book is just one more example of how Pulitzer Prizes and Nobel Prizes don't mean squat. Saul Bellow is not one of the best authors of the 20th century and this book is not or should not be an American classic. Bellow suffers from what I like to call the Heinlien syndrome. He wrote concise short books with good stories at the beginning of his career and then increasingly got sidetracked by ethics, morality, intellectualism, and name-dropping in his works. Not to say a great book can't contain a moral but at least concentrate on the plot and story to support the moral. This book is agonizing to read. There is no straight forward time line. The narrator skips back in forth through time to different events and memories at such a bewildering rate that it becomes a chore just to keep everything straight. That wouldn't be so bad except for the absurd conversations between Von Humboldt and Citrine. Neither of these characters came off as believable to me in the least. The central focus of the book is the relationship between Von Humboldt, a poet, and Citrine, an award winning author but the plot actually takes place after Humboldt's death. Citrine comes off as one of the stupidest intellectuals I have ever had the misfortune of reading about. The all time lamest scene is when Rinaldo, a low level thug, kidnaps Citrine and then forces him into the bathroom at gunpoint while he relieves his bowels. WTF? In short, if you want to read about the depths of the human soul you would be much better off reading Rimbaud, Celine, Sholokov, Hesse, or even Hemingway. Stay away from this author and his pretentious and absurd novels.
Rating:
Summary: great narrative voice, drawn out story line
Review: This is the first Bellow book I've read and I finished feeling ambivalent about his talents. Humboldt's Gift is the story of a successful writer, Charlie Citrine and his fascination with his friend the poet, Von Humboldt Fleisher. Woven within the text are his relationships with a mobster, several women, and an unreliable literary friend. Citrine is an intellectual and a thinker. Interspersed throughout the story are philosophical thoughts and conjectures about life. Sometimes these further the story or provide more depth to a character, other times they seem like extraneous rambling. The strength of the book is Citrine's strong and unique narrative voice and the portrait of literary and mob life in Chicago, New York and Europe of the 1970s. What disappointed me about the book was that the lack of a strong story line made it difficult to continue reading. I felt the same story could have been told in a few hundred fewer pages. Overall, not a terrible book, but not especially memorable.
Rating:
Summary: great narrative voice, drawn out story line
Review: This is the first Bellow book I've read and I finished feeling ambivalent about his talents. Humboldt's Gift is the story of a successful writer, Charlie Citrine and his fascination with his friend the poet, Von Humboldt Fleisher. Woven within the text are his relationships with a mobster, several women, and an unreliable literary friend. Citrine is an intellectual and a thinker. Interspersed throughout the story are philosophical thoughts and conjectures about life. Sometimes these further the story or provide more depth to a character, other times they seem like extraneous rambling. The strength of the book is Citrine's strong and unique narrative voice and the portrait of literary and mob life in Chicago, New York and Europe of the 1970s. What disappointed me about the book was that the lack of a strong story line made it difficult to continue reading. I felt the same story could have been told in a few hundred fewer pages. Overall, not a terrible book, but not especially memorable.
Rating:
Summary: American Literature
Review: This novel won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The author was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature the same year. In reference to some of the other reviews, I would note that readers need to decide whether they want to read literature or to read brain candy. This novel is literature and requires some amount of concentrated thought. The author digresses and backtracks to fill in details of various characters. He also has a tendency to philosophize. It is past page 300 before you actually get to Humboldt's Gift. It took some effort to get into the novel but, once involved, it was worth the effort. Some parts are more interesting than others, especially the parts set in Chicago. Charlie Citrine is a writer who is at a crisis point in his life. His ex-wife is trying to strip him of everything he has. He is in trouble with the IRS over past tax returns. Investments have gone bad. He is threatened by a hoodlum, who really wants Charlie to help his wife on a PhD dissertation. He is having some conflicts with his girlfriend. He is almost out of funds, but everyone thinks he is rich. Charlie had been the protege of the poet Von Humboldt Fleisher. Humboldt had early success, than went downhill. He could be compared to Vincent Van Gogh, i.e., people were not buying his work; he was considered psychotic; and he died in poverty; but is now well regarded after his death. He was not as crazy as people thought, and he leaves a surprising legacy. The novel is a story of Charlie turning his life around, and rebounding to new found fame. He has help from Humboldt from beyond the grave.
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