Landmarks
Thursday 5 May 2005 21:30-22:00 (Radio 3)
"If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog." So begins one of the great books of the last century written by the Jewish American author Saul Bellow who died last month. Paul Allen and guests discuss Herzog in the latest of the Landmarks series which celebrates the greatest works of culture.
Programme Details
Is Moses Herzog losing his mind? Or did he lose it a long time ago? Hardly you would think the most promising premise for a novel - let alone one which has been acclaimed by some as being a Landmark book. Nightwaves discusses Herzog by the late great American writer Saul Bellow, who died last month.
In the latest in the Night Waves continuing Landmark series, which explores great cultural works of our time, Paul Allen is joined by the distinguished Irish novelist John Banville and the critic James Wood to discuss why they think Herzog - Bellow's only commercial success - is a Landmark book, and how it has come to shape fiction even in the 21st century. It's not for nothing, that it's quoted in the epigraph of Ian McEwan's latest novel, Saturday, and continues to be an inspiration to Martin Amis too.
Written in 1964, the eponymous Herzog has been described as an American Leopold Bloom. And it won't come to anyone's surprise, that its author, Saul Bellow, was a devotee of James Joyce's as well as the writings of William Faulkner and Dosevtosksy - all writers obsessed by internal pain and suffering as well as the torments of the human mind. So how can Saul Bellow make the ravings of one man so attractive - and such an important piece of literature?
Listen to another Nightwaves Landmark at 9.30pm here on BBC Radio 3
Presenter: Paul Allen
Producer: Ariane Koek
Additional Information:
Herzog by Saul Bellow is published by Penguin
