This novel was released more than a decade ago, 1997 to be exact, but the 1976 Nobel Prize laureate was still on top of his form. This short novel is touching and at times comedic. It is about Harry Trellman, who grew up in an orphanage, but not an orphan, who looks like a Japanese and studied Chinese, but not Asian, who is enterprising, but not an entrepreneur. It is also about exile: exile by old age, emotional exile.
'A man's road back to himself is a return from his spiritual exile, for that is what a personal history amounts to - exile.'
'There is no leisure for anybody... Retirement is an illusion. Not a reward but a mantrap. The bankrupt underside of success. A shortcut to death.'
It is about feelings amassed and kept for years that there is no other recourse but to deal with it and blurt it out.
'Love objects, as psychiatry has named them, are not frequently come by or easily put aside. Distance is really a formality. The mind takes no real notice of it.'
It is so unfortunate that Bellow is not with us anymore. But even in this short work, written at the twilight of his years, we can see clearly the gift he shared with us for almost five decades.