Chapter VIII

RAVELSTEIN
Chapter VIII

RAVELSTEIN

Saul B ellow ’s latest novel, Ravelstein was published in the year

2000. It is his thirteenth novel. The work is a reminiscence o f the

novelist. Ravelstein, the protagonist becomes the spokesman o f Saul

Bellow. But it is Chick, Ravelstein’s friend, who as narrator unravels the
mind of Ravelstein. Critics have pointed out that Bellow had drawn
Ravelstein on the model of his fellow professor, Prof. Allan Bloom at
Chicago University. He is an intellectual, a professor and a millionaire.
He has many students and friends, and he is also a good orator. He loves
highly fashionable places and people and he reads many books which
are related to humanity. As desired by Ravelstein before his death Chick

narrates about their relationship between Ravelstein’s life and his

affairs. The lamentation of the novelist at the brutal massacre and

inhuman treatment o f the Jews by the Nazis is a special feature of the

novel because it depicts how deeply Bellow feels psychologically one
with his Jewish brethren in going through their persecution at the hands
of the Nazis. But like all Jews Ravelstein has a big hope that one day
there will be justice and pure life for them when humanism will prevail
and the question o f their survival and their identity will be solved.
Lastly, the novelist visualizes a place like Athens in this contemporary
world which will restore their lost paradise. Bellow supports humanistic

* Ravelstein, U SA , Com pass Press, 2000. A ll further references to R avelstein are

to this edition o f the work and the title w ill be abbreviated as Rv.
1 David K. N ichols. “P erspectives on P o litic a l S c ien ce”, W ashington H eldref
Publication,Winter 2 0 0 3 , Vol. 32, I s s .l.p .l.
167

politics which alone w ill help in crating a justice world. He does not
favour politics which breed corruption. H e praises the politics o f ancient
philosophers such as Plato and A ristotle. He supports the Platonic

conception of an ideal w orld w here citizens enjoy equal rights and an

individual’s values and dignity are respected:

“Two m any years o f inw ardness!” He used to say I badly

needed to be in touch w ith politics - not local or machine
politics, nor even national politics but politics as Aristotle
or Plato understood the term , rooted in our nature.2

For Bellow the question o f identity doesn’t m ean the identity o f

Jews only. The novelist presents the novel from a broad angle and he

also underlines the contribution o f the Blacks to Am erican life and

culture. In the past the Blacks w ere the slaves o f the white people but

after the Civil w ar they got their rights and their spirit o f hard work
enabled them to come up in this com petitive world. In the present time
without Blacks A m erica cannot be the superpow er that it has become. In

every field the Black people are predom inant in contemporary American
society. For instance, in the field o f music:

He used to say that basketball stood w ith jazy music as a

significant black contribution to the higher life o f the
country - its specifically A m erican character.3

Ravelstein is a Jew, it is through him, not his friend Chick, that Bellow
presents his Jewish thought on existence. The protagonist is aware that
death is inevitable that even though he is a m illionaire and an

intellectual, he cannot carry all his w ealth or property w ith him into the
other world when he dies. Like everym an when he dies he will go alone.

2Ry(11)
3 Rv[69)
168

This is the nature o f this universe. H e is o f the view that one need not be
greedy for all that a man needs at the tim e o f death is a small piece o f

land for his burial. His thinking is realistic. The novelist stresses the

sanctity of life rather than the superficial coloring o f life. As he

observes:

W hat w ill happen to all this when I am gone? There’s

nothing that I can take w ith me into the grave. These
beautiful objects w hich I bought in Japan, in Europe, and
New York, for and wide, w ith so many deliberations and
discussions with experts and friends . . ,4

As in other novels of his, Saul Bellow, in this novel also discuses

the conflicting relationship betw een husband and wife. Chick and Vela
divorced because o f their uncomprom ising attitude towards one another.
Each of them was egotistical and demanded his or her identity and

freedom of choice to be respected. V ela did not like the nature and
lifestyle of her husband. She did not feel comfortable staying home all
the time. W hile she went to the University Chick was busy enjoying
himself in the company of other women. The issue of women’s
empowerment and demand for their rights and dignity and status created

differences betw een them:

“It’s a different content and you have a right to make

preparations. You talk to me in a very superior way, as if
you are putting me down as an ignorant woman. You
should please remember that i stand as high in my field as
you do in yours.”5

Though Ravelstein catches HIV infection because of his irregular

sex habits and is hospitalized he has not lost his zest for life. His

4 Rv(12n
5 Rv(128)
169

memory of his youthful days w hen he led an adventurous life is in tact.

But physically his life is com parable to that o f a w ild turkey which can
do nothing but be tam ed like a dom estic pet. Like a good humanist
Ravelstein has a keen desire to live and to enjoy himself.

O f course he couldn’t beat his infection and he said, “I ’m in

no hurry to die” His social life flourished, In his best days
he flew like a hawk, as he him self said, “But now I flutter
like those wild turkeys on your place in New Hampshire.”6

But he feels hurt by the Christian hatred o f the Jews which is

attributed to the ancient conspiracy w hich put Jesus on the cross. The
person who conspired with the king was a Jew. This Christian belief

supposedly marked the turning point in the life o f the Jews. But Bellow
rejects that theory by admitting that in reality it was absolutely wrong to
think so and that it w as a myth created by some sections of society.

The Jew s had better understanding of their status with

respect to myth, why should they have any truck with
myth? It was myth that demonized them. The Jew myth is
connected with conspiracy theory.7

As a hum anist Jew he upholds the preciousness of human life in

this world. H e believes that the Jews are optimistic in life and that the
sense of optim ism rather than the nihilistic thoughts always
characterizes the m inds o f the Jews. Their optimistic outlook arises from

their unwavering faith in their Judaical religion. Respect for human life
and dignity and b e lief in life as such are important features of Judaism.
The novelist further affirms that the world is made for us and we human

6 Rv(165)
7 Rv(156-157)
170

beings should enjoy it. There are hints at the Jew ish m oral philosophy
which holds life in great esteem:

“Yes, Am erican — style — w ithout the abyss,” said

Ravelstein. “But the Jew s feel that the w orld was created
for each and everyone o f us, and w hen you destroy a
human life you destroy an entire w orld - the world as it
existed for that person.”8

II

Ravelstein is a novel by Saul Bellow which is regarded as tribute

paid to his friend Allan Bloom . Bloom had published his work on
education The Closing o f the Am erican M ind (1987) which brought him

great fame. H e w as a w ell-know n teacher and philosopher with whom

Saul Bellow has frequent exchange o f ideas. Ravelstein is also portrayed
after Bloom as a great intellectual who had a brilliant mind and brilliant
ideas. He becam e extremely popular among his students who rose to
great positions in life. He was widely loved and respected in spite o f his
personal w eaknesses. He had great political ideas and a large chunk o f
the novel is devoted to his intense preoccupation with the Jewish
question — the question o f their past their settlement their religious
beliefs and their interaction with the non-Jewish, Christian world. As a
recent critic, D avid K. Nichols, while commenting upon the content of
the novel observes :

The biggest mistake that reviewers make is their failure to

appreciate both the political and intellectual weight of

8 R v(191)
171

Ravelstein. It is a book about ideas and it is also a very

political book. There is no doubt that when Chick recounts
that during the Civil War people complained about
Abraham Lincoln’s funny stories and accused him of being
frivolous he reminds us of Ravelstein critics and their
failure to appreciate “that strict seriousness was far more
dangerous than any joke . . . from the beginning Chick puts
the reader on notice that frivolous stories may capture an
important political teaching.9

The novel is then done by Saul Bellow who creates his character
Click to become his substitute novelist who can in turn narrate the
entertaining story of his (Bellow’s/Chick’s) friend Ravelstein. It is then
the story of Ravelstein’s great ideas, his lifestyle and his tragic end due
to HIV infection.

Chick’s story model follows the funny story models of Lincoln

and the American writer H.L. Meneken. Though Chick’s narrative
offers some fun and frivolity if carries with it the serious ideas of
Ravelstein on his debunking of the popular current myths and give new
explanations or ideas which will inform the souls of a new generation.
Chick points out that one may not see any connection between a farm -
politician who speaks in praise of the virtues of free silver but died
while craving for Nebraska dinners like a great orator and the academic
philosopher who dressed in Armani suits, studied classical texts and
dined in the finest Paris restaurants.10 But as Chick points out, both the
politician and the academic philosopher died as a result of their hungers
and passions. They became objects of ridicule for preserving their
lifestyles based on ideas which were outdated. Though the two instances
emphasize the tragic fate of the two model figures who died sticking to

9 David, K Nichols, op. cit. p. 1.

10Rv(l-2)
172

their old, outdated ideas, Ravelstein at the end o f his life turns to his
own old-time religion. He considered the old religion as an alternative to
both the m odem and the ancient worlds o f ideas. Chick’s portrait o f

Ravelstein begins on the significant note o f his preference for old

religion which touched the soul o f man rather than his mind and was
therefore to be taken seriously.

Ravelstein’s lifestyle is interesting and entertaining like that of the

pop singer M ichael Jackson. Both stayed in the same luxurious hotel in

Paris. Ravelstein’s hotel suit was two floors above Michael Jackson’s
which pointed to the higher pop status of Ravelstein. There was

something common between the tastes o f the two figures — both had a
desire for living a lavish life, enjoying the grandeur of life and
entertaining the audience around them, the audiences which had become

their slavish admirers. Ravelstein’s style was marked by his Armanio

suits Vuitton luggage, Cuban cigars, Dunhill products, solid-gold Mont
Blanc pens or Baccarat or Lalique crystal glasses in which wine was
served to him or to his guests.11 He was temperamentally seeking these
luxuries and he had them even when he was not well provided to meet
the expenses. He was surely a man of tremendous spirit and energy
which could be seen by its effect on the surroundings when he used that
energy. Ravelstein’s greatness o f soul could not be seen but his

exceptional taste for such exquisite things like the M ont Blan Pens etc.
gave some reflections o f his greatness or of the depth he had within him.

There is no doubt that Chick presents the details of Ravelstein’s

life in such a high fashion as to make it unbelievable but he understood

11Ry(3)
173

Ravelstein’s nature better than any other friend or disciple did. More
than his nature it was his brilliant intellect which had made Ravelstein
“a millionaire” 12 which was “no such matter”.13 Ravelstein was higher
than the pop singer Jackson in that it was his brilliant intellect rather
than “glamour monkey”14 business or the act o f pondering to the
people’s temporary craving for entertainment that had made him

popular. Besides, Ravelstein’s greatness comes, as in the case of

Kissinger and N ixon from his acceptance of Crillon’s food. Ravelstein
asks Chick to write about J.M .Keynes’s account o f the negotiations over

German reparations in 1919; he asks him to be more political and to take

an interest in public life. He talks about M acaulay’s essay on Boswell’s

Life of Johnson, and at the end o f his life asks Chick to write a book on
their friendship too. Although Chick had drawn a pen portrait o f J.M.
Keynes Ravelstein was not “quite satisfied” 15 with it. Nor was he
satisfied with his writing about “Crazy Morford” who was Chick’s high
school English teacher. Ravelstein was interested in Chick’s account of
Keynes’s description of the peace conference because in the report he
pointed out the anti-Semitic noise created Lloyd George against one of
the German negotiators. As will be seen in section III of this chapter

Bellow was him self as intensely concerned as Ravelstein is in the novel

with the anti-Semitisms and his own Jewishness.16

Ravelstein is fond o f gossip. He gossips with his former students.

But sometimes these gossips lead to serious seminars on the political
and philosophic questions. Ravelstein him self favours the view that

12 E y (4)
13 ibid.
14 ibid.
|*Rv(6)
David, K N ich ols, op. cit. p.3.
174

political and intellectual supports a r e n ecessary fo r the advancement and

stability of a civilized society. B u t e v en m ore th a n that it is culture that

sustains society. H ow ever, Ravelstein cannot precisely define what he

means by human nature w hich re d u c e d hu m an behaviour to economic
calculation, nor w as he attrac ted to th e kind o f person who held such

views”.1 There is no specific m e n tio n o f an y political affiliations o f

Ravelstein by Chick. Chick w o u ld ra th e r like to say that he was attracted
to Ravelstein as a great soul. C h ic k repeatedly touches on the subject o f
Aristophanes’ account o f love in P l a t o ’s Sym posium :

In the beginning m e n an d w om en w ere round like the sun

and the moon, they w e r e both m ale and female and had two
sets o f sexual o rg a n s . In som e cases both the organs were
male. So w ent th e m y th . T hese w e re proud, self-sufficient
beings. They d e fie d th e O lym pian Gods who punished
them by splitting th e m in half. T h is is the mutilation that
m ankind suffered. S o th at generation after generation we
seek the m issing h a lf , longing to be w hole again.”18

As David Nichols com m ents o n th is “A ccording to Chick, this erotic

longing for wholeness is w hat d r o v e R avelstein. This longing animated

the spirited young men and w o m e n who w ere attracted to Ravelstein,

and it distinguished them from t h e bourgeois w ho w ere dominated by
fears of violent death.” 19 H o w e v e r, Chick is no t him self sure to whom
this myth could be ascribed o r w h o truly w as its author - whether
Aristophanes or Socrates or P la to or Chick him self? Entertaining the

readers with this kind o f story is surely a pleasant playfulness and the
strategy of Chick (or B ellow ) th e w riter o f the novel because it seems
Chick (or Bellow) have d e fin ite ly som ething serious to convey through

17 ibid.
!JB v(29)
David, K N ichols, op. cil. p.4
175

this interesting anecdote. Chick seems to ask a serious question — Are

we left in a w orld where “the sexual embrace given temporary self-
forgetting but the painful knowledge o f mutilation is permanent”?20 Or
“does Ravelstein share A ristophanes’ view o f eros?21. Chick states that
whatever be Ravelstein’s position on the truth o f Aristophanes’ myth
• • 22
“Nothing could move him more than a genuine instance o f this quest”.
As he also says earlier, that quest may be nothing more than a futile
romantic illusion, an illusion itself based on a rather bleak view of
human nature. “To be human was to be severed, mutilated. Man is
incomplete, Zeus is a tyrant. M ount Olympus is a tyranny . . . and the

quest for your lost half is hopeless” .23

The novel also throws light on Revalstein’s past, his tyrannical

father and some o f his contradictions. One important thought that haunts
Ravelstein’s mind is his concern with death. To overcome that thought
he tells Chick to write about him and their friendship. Ravelstein knows
that due to their deep friendship Chick will be haunted by Ravelstein’s
premature death due to HIV infection and therefore the only way to
liberate him self from that haunting obsession or the Damocles’ sword
hanging over his head will be to record their relationship in a book.

Chick was close to Ravelstein but not close enough as one o f his
admitting disciples, for he was too young to be his student. As Chick
points out, Ravelstein and Lincoln had one thing common between
them: they upheld the extraordinary measure such as suspending a
fundamental human right in a time o f Cold W ar to preserve the Union,

20 ibid.
21 : u : j
176

when due process of law could not be followed. Ravelstein had also
written a war-like act by w riting a book defending the “greatness ol
humankind” against “bourgeois w ell-being” .24 Ravelstein stood for
pursuit o f love, not self-preservation, and held it as the goal of life.

Chick has given some impression of Ravelstein’s scholars but has

not shown him in his classroom. Nor has clearly explained the
importance o f his ideas which attracted generations o f students to him.
Chick however admits that Ravelstein made him more aware of the
political dimensions of life and helped him recover his erotic longings.
Chicks first wife Vela had both eros and politics, two themes o f the

novel, in her. But because o f her strong belief in rationality and modern
scientific method Chick could not continue his relationship with her.

She believed in controlling the chaotic nature with modern scientific

intellect. Chick began to suspect V ela’s vision o f the world. He felt that
he could not have a place in her world. He knew that she was beautiful
both physically and internally in her soul. But Ravelstein’s persuades
Chick that V ela’s quest to know the mysteries o f the universe was a
futile quest. He also tries to convince him that her attempt to make
herself glamorous was also false because she did not truly possess erotic
force. Chick finally leaves her and marries Rosamund, a scholar of
Ravelstein w ith whom Chick rem ains contented for life. She becomes
the key to understanding the relationship between Chick and Ravelstein
and saves Chick who was nearly dying o f fish poisoning in the

caribbeans.

24 ibid.
177

Separating from Chick, V ela turns to a fellow scholar Radu

Grielescus but Ravelstein warns Chick about Grielescus being a man of
questionable past. Besides he w as a Jew-hater who had written o f the
“Jew-syphillis” that infected the Balkans.25 Ravelstein loves none except
his adopted Chinese son N ikke for whom he buys an expensive BMW
as a token o f his love. But his relationship with Nikke is a father-son
relationship and not a shared intellectual relationship. Chick’s friendship
with Ravelstein makes the form er see the possibility o f goodness in the
world which was pervaded by evil w hich Ravelstein saw manifested in
the hostility towards the Jews and “the atrocities to which it led.”26

Ravelstein was a nihilist but tow ards the end he developed faith in
religion and belief in love and friendship and dignity of the human
soul27

III

£
Written at the most m ature and advanced state of Bellows life,
Revelstein throws light on the history of the Jewish experience of
suffering and hurt psyche in a much greater measure than done ever

before in order to throw light on their situation in the twentieth century.

He points out that H itler’s mind was obsessed with the ridiculous
thought that the downfall o f Germany had come about because o f the
Jews. All the anti-Semitic groups supported H itler’s policy. After
becoming Chancellor Hitler had a series of laws passed by which the

Jews were deprived of their citizenship and other rights. Their

synagogues in Germany were destroyed. Thousands o f them were put in

25 ibid
26 ibid
David, K N ichols, op. cil. p.8
178

concentration camps.28 A m ajor part of German Jewish wealth was

confiscated and huge fines w ere imposed on them. Their children were
debarred from admission to public schools. They were not allowed to

conduct any business or profession or to own land or associate with non-

Jews. Entering public parks, library or museums were also disallowed.
They were ordered to live in ghettos. Anti-Semitism existed in all

Christian and Muslim countries. W ith the great success o f the German
army in the early years of World W ar II the Nazis and their supporters
had the Jewish population in Europe at their mercy. “From the Atlantic
to the Volga, from Norway to Sicily, Jews were deprived of all human
rights”. They were left like beggars when their property were
confiscated. Subsequently they were deported to Poland under inhuman
conditions. Hitler had some secret plan in sending them to Poland where
they might be either settled or annihilated. Thus arose “the Jewish

Question”, a human problem that always haunted Saul Bellow and

figures in Ravelstein too. The painful presentation of the Jews is

presented in great detail by Ravelstein:

“O f course that’s what this conversation is circling - what

it means to the Jews that so many others, millions o f others,
willed their death. The rest of humankind expelled them.
Hitler was on record as having said that once he was in
pow er he would have gallows, in rows, put up at the
Marienplatz in M unich and the Jews, to the last Jew, would
be hung there. It was the Jews that were H itler’s ticket to
power. He didn’t have, nor did he use, any other
programme. He became Chancellor by uniting Germany
and much o f the rest o f Europe against the Jews. 0

28
Encyclopaedia Britannica, V ol.6
29 ibid.
30Rv{204-205)
179

The piotagonist also adm its that then may be natural disasters as
the “Plague in A thens such natural calam ities are beyond human
control. In such situations hum an beings cannot do anything except to
take some precautions, but such m an m ade disasters creating the masses
of dead in the 20th century” 31 is brutal and inhuman.

Again, Saul Bellow seems to refer to the horrifying details o f the

persecution o f Jews and others. They w ere packed in cattle cars and sent
away into concentration camps and destroyed.32 The governments were
not bothered w hether these people lived or were suffocated to death in

gas chambers or w ere drowned in the rivers. The brutal inhumanity was
at its worst when the Jews were told that “they had lost the right to exist
and were told as m uch by their executioners - There is no reason why
you should not die” .33 The Jews w ere slaughtered on a mass scale - in
millions — on ideological grounds — “that is, w ith some pretext of
rationality”.34 This was the m addest form o f nihilism which the German
dictator, Hitler, carried out w ithout sham e or pity. The crazy military
junta carried out the massacre. They did not have to pay for their

inhuman crimes Ravelstein is at least clear about his view on these

matters but what could he do except sadly recall the demoralizing and

dreadful past. The entire world w atched the mass execution of Jews and
had no courage to protest the barbaric action. A poignant description of
the world’s stunned silence is presented thus:

31 Rv(205)
“ Ry(206)
ibid.
34 ibid.
180

“there was a general willingness to live with the

destructions o f m illions. It was like the mood o f the
century to accept it . . . But I’m thinking of the great death
populations o f the Gulags and the Germans labour camps.
Why does the century - I don’t know how else to put it -
underw rite so much destruction? There is a lameness c
that
comes over all o f us w hen we consider these facts.”

The painful history of the inhumanity to the Jews cannot be forgotten by

humanity. In his last days Ravelstein is heavily obsessed with that
history. He talks more and more about the Jewish massacre rather than
about Athens or Jerusalem, w hich he no doubt, regarded as the two main
sources o f higher life. As he emphatically remarks:

“Why not talk about them? In the south they still talk about
the war between the States much more than a century ago
but in our own time m illions were destroyed, most o f them
no different from you. From us, we must not turn our backs
on them . . . ,j6

Ravelstein lays bare the thinking o f the leaders who ordered destruction
of European Jews. As they formed the ruling class or the bourgeois they
37
were told that if they were destroyed “a new great era would begin”.

Ravelstein, as Chick explains, was apprehending that there were always

chances o f fresh instructions coming for more extermination o f Jews
from anti - Semitic forces working in the world:

“T here’s no telling which corner it will come from next -

the French Corner? No, no, not France. They had their glut
o f blood in the eighteenth century and they wouldn’t mind
if it happened, but they wouldn’t be the ones to do it. But
w hat abut the Russians? The protocols o f the Elders o f Zion

35 Rv(207)
36 R v(213)
37 ibid.
181

were a Russian forgery. A nd not long ago you were telling

me abut K ipling” .38

R a ve ls te in points to the sarcastic rem arks o f the B ritish W riter Kipling

against the A m erican Scientist, Jew , Einstein:

“This w as early in the century. As said that the Jews” had

already distorted social reality for their purposes. But not
satisfied with that, E instein was disfiguring physical reality
with his relativity theory, and the Jews w ere trying to give a
falsifying Jewish tw ist to the Physical universe.39

Ravelstein notes that there is a distinction between natural

nihilists and intellectual nihilists and prefers the former to the latter. Me
prefers the lorm er because they are frank and accepts them in that
condition but the latter are m anipulators and dangerous. Chick points to
the inhuman nihilism o f R avelstein’s obsession w ith the writings o f

Celina, a writer who recom m ended, “that the Jews be exterminated like
bacteria”.40 Allhough in his novel Celina observed sonic restraint
because of the influence o f art on him but in his propaganda he was a

staunch propagandist for the destruction o f Jews. Even though he is

himself on his death-bed R avelstein cannot overcom e his psychic

anguish. He laments the inhuman and brutal torture and massacres o f the

Jews by the Nazis. Obviously, his lam entation m ust awaken the Jews to
know their rights and their history so that they may fight for their
survival and their identity. It is also a clear m anifestation o f his
ob session w ith the J e w is h suffering and their right to justice:

38 Rv(214)
39 Rv(214)
40 n
182

And one o f these conclusions w as that a Jew should take a

deep interest in the history of the Jew s - in their principles
of justice, for instance.41

j | ()\vcvei B e llo w locuses on the painlul past o f the Jew s. Il is to

nfed does n°t hide the inhuman things done bv the Jews too.
be n
. jtself shows the objective thinking and goodness of heart of the
fhis
velist- Ravelstein encourages one to read Celine's work which points
,vVeaknesses o f the Jews. Ravelstein believes that Celine's anti-
to tnc
Senlitie writings were largely responsible lor turning the Huropean
countrieS against the Jews even though the Europeans did not support
t^e ideas of the Nazis. However Celine’s writings were useful for
making the Jewish people aware o f their faults and misdeeds. They had
to learn a lesson from his writings:

“But then, from left field, or do 1 mean right Held,

Ravelstein urges everyone to red Celine. Well, by all
means. Celine was widely read before the war he published
his Bagatelles pour un massacre. In this pamphlet Celine
cried out against and denounced the Jews who had
occupied and raped France . . . you can see how insane it
was”.42

In Ravelstein again Bellow shows the Jewish way of life, the

Jewish belief in Judaism. Judaism promotes belief in existence, life,
values and dignity. Committing suicide is against their religion and it is
a sign of cowardice. The Jews sacrifice their lives if they cannot fight
the opponent. Before they die they kill their children too so that they
may not be victimized like their parents.

n ^(220)
%249-5q)
183

By w hom is suicide forbidden?” “It’s against my religion.

Jews don t com m it suicide unless they lost the siege as they
did at M asada, or are about to be hacked to pieces, as in the
Crusades. Then they put their children to death before they
kill them selves” .43

After recounting the history o f the different occasions on which Jews

had to undergo painful ordeal B ellow aspires to do something for his
race before he dies o f HIV infection. He believes that the prophecies of
the religious philosopher A.N. W hitehead might show the Jews the way
to be followed. That way a N ew A thens might be created. The society
needs a new advanced educational center. In this way the novelist

desires to create a world w here intellectual people can exercise their

minds for the betterm ent o f the society. As prophesied by whitehead,

Ravelstein believes that Chicago may be that center which will create
and spread the new light all over the world:

It was also a fact that A.N. W hitehead had prophesied

during a sojourn in C hicago that it w as destined to lead the
modern world. Intelligence was here for everybody’s free
use, and so it was highly possible that this city might serve
to be a new A thens.4

The light o f new Athens had obviously to be derived from the

humanistic attitude to life. It has to be both ‘intuitive’ and ‘intellectual’
and it has to be directed tow ard the achievem ent o f humanistic order in
the family, in the society and in the world.

As Chick narrates, R avelstein w as deeply absorbed in discussing

two subjects, religion and governm ent, as these according to the French

Philosopher Voltaire were the tw o poles o f human life. Voltaire too was

43 Rv(265-66)
44 Rv(283)
184

a violent hater o f Jews. Given a chance to add another subject for

Ravelstein’s discussions he m ight have selected ‘Voltaire’ too. In his
last days in particular, as Chick points out, “he (Ravelstein) was
following a trail o f Jewish ideas or essences. It was unusual for him
these days, in any conversation, to mention even Plato or Thucydides.
He was full o f scripturc now. lie talked about religion and the difficult
project o f being a man in the fullest sense, of becoming man and nothing
but man”.45

A close friend o f Ravelstein, Morris Herbst confirms about the

subject of contemplation and discussion that Ravelstein was obsessed

with. It was the subject o f persecution o f Jews all over the world and the
failure o f the civilized world to banish this evil of hostility toward the
Jews. The subject of universal silence over the Jewish persecution was,
according to Herbst, a problem o f “top priority, because its connected
with the great evil”.46 The evil kin the world seen through Jewish eyes,
was not merely scriptural in essence but even political and it involved
the whole o f mankind. As Chick rightly interprets not only Ravelstein’s
but possibly Saul Bellow’s mind too:

“I well understood w hat he meant. The war made it clear

that almost everybody agreed that the Jews had no right to
live.”47

Obviously, as the novel develops this subject further, the Jews

being “the chosen” people, according to Bible, had no choice o f options.
They have been treated not as “the chosen” but as an accursed lot. That
is what the novel seems to emphasize:

45Rv(218-219)
46 R y (2 19)
47 ibid
185

Such a volum e o f hatred and denial o f the right to live has

nevet been heaid or lelt, and the will that willed their death
was confirm ed and ju stifie d by a vast collective agreement
that the w orld w ould be im proved by their disappearance
and their extinction.48

According to this non-Jew ish, hostile opinion the world over the
Jewish race sym bolized viciousness and this evil required to be wiped
out of existence:

Rismus, which w as Professor D avarr’s word for

viciousness, hatred, determ ination to be rid o f this intrusive
population in furnaces or m ass graves.49

One possible cause o f this universal hatred o f the Jewish race is

hinted in the concluding observation o f Herbst and Ravelstein on the

subject. As Chick narrates,

The Jews, R avelstein and H erbst thought, following the line

laid down by their teacher Davarr, w ere historically
w itnesses to the absence o f redem ption.50

So the roots o f the problem lay in the mythical conspiracy o f the

origin of the race in the pre-C hristian times. And since it was not
humanly possible for the Jew s to disclaim their origin as Jews, the only
possible way for them to redeem them selves is to know their history,
“their principles o f justice for instance”51 and learned their “religious

legacy”.52 The principles o f justice, if followed, w ould certainly instil

humanism in the thinking and behaviour of man who would like to be
identified as civilized human beings. Humanism with emphasis on the

Rv(219)
49
ibid
1Rv(220)
ibid
! ibid
186

principles o f justice may then be not merely R avelstein’s but also the
Bellovian way to overcome the hurt psyche o f the Jewish race as well as
mankind.

Thus it is not difficult to surmise how deeply Saul B ellow ’s

psyche was affected and hurt. The intensity o f the pain may be imagined
from the details o f the rem iniscence of the brutal extermination of the
Jews by Hitler and by other anti-Semitic countries. In Ravelstein as I
argue, Bellow gives for the first time a free vent to that hurt psyche o f
his own as well as the rest o f the Jews o f the world. Never before in the

earlier novels has Bellow allowed his pen to move without restraint in
expressing him self in that traum atic experience w hich the entire Jewry

had gone through in Europe. The elaborate rem iniscence turns the novel

into a memoir with political overtones. The central burden o f the

novelist clearly appears to be to recall and expose to world view the
brutal inhumanity perpetrated by the German dictator against the Jewish
race. His purpose is not only to recall the said human history but to
suggest that the whole o f the Jewish race has not only been maliciously

maligned but that they have also the human right to exist and live
according to their own lights with honour and dignity. In terms of
humanistic concerns of Bellow, Ravelstein is a great leap forward in his
work as a novelist in that he raises afresh the question of human right to
life of a people or a race who had been denied such a right through the

ages, who had been scattered over different continents and countries,
and who need to be reunited, integrated and given the justice that all
human beings deserve both as human beings and as members o f a race.
187

It is important to note that Ravelstein masks the progression of

Bellow’s literary or naturalistic hum anism into political humanism. The
novel in effect, may be read as a w ork with a political purpose to re-

enkindle the Jewish nationalist pride and prestige and express a desire
for his spiritual reunion with the Jewish brotherhood. By recalling their
past suffering he too suffers and becom es one with them. It is, therefore,

in this novel that he achieves to a large extent the sublimation o f his

deep desire to expose the hurt psyche of the entire Jewish race and
present afresh the case o f the m aligned Jewish race before the civilized
world that they have been in Shakespeare’s words “more sinned against
than sinning” and that they deserve the justicc o f being treated humanely
as equal members o f the civilised humanity. It also appears that Chick is
not only the narrator but the other, good part o f the personality of
Bellow, who shows how a good m an should live, how he should not

yield to the intellectual vices that Ravelstein has fallen a prey to. As a
good man he also find an equally good intellectual wife, Rosamund, a

former student o f Ravelstein, who puts the interests o f Chick before her
own interests. In this novel Rasamund, the second wife o f Chick, is a
type of an ideal woman. H er character is unique as compared to some

women characters in other novels o f Bellow. Rasamund is a good

woman, a good wife with good moral principles. Her humaneness is
incomparable; she not only shows humane sympathy to her husband and
other friends. She also shows humaneness to animals. She cannot bear to
see the scene o f the lunch spot where ribs, Chicken, lobster are treated
188

“with flames spurting straight u p ”53 or the “torture o f the lobsters” .54
She extends care to the anim als w ith her human impulses:

Back in New H am pshire w hen she saw salamanders in the

road she picked them up and carried them to safety.55

It is she who reminds Chick to fulfil the prom ise he had given to
R a ve lste in that the m em oir of their friendship etc. w ould be written after
his (Ravelstein) death. H ence the com pletion o f B ellow ’s thirteenth

novel conies about w ith a clear focus on w hat w ere the central obsession
of both Ravelstein out his creator Saul Bellow — the hostility towards

the Jews and the need for a hum anistic understanding o f their
predicament.

53 Rv(226)
54 ibid
55 : l : j