''Humboldt's Gift'' is a 1975 novel by Canadian-American author

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 July 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only wr ...

. It won the 1976

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...

and contributed to Bellow's winning the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

the same year.

Plot

The novel, which Bellow initially intended to be a short story, is a ''

roman à clef ''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship ...

'' about Bellow's friendship with the poet

Delmore Schwartz Delmore Schwartz (December 8, 1913 – July 11, 1966) was an American poet and short story writer. Early life Schwartz was born in 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, where he also grew up. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when ...

. It explores the changing relationship of art and power in a materialist America. This theme is addressed through the contrasting careers of two writers, Von Humboldt Fleisher (to some degree a version of Schwartz) and his protégé Charlie Citrine (to some degree a version of Bellow himself). Fleisher yearns to lift American society through art, but dies a failure. By contrast, Charlie Citrine makes a lot of money through his writing, especially from a Broadway play and a movie about a character named Von Trenck – a character modeled after Fleisher. Another notable character in the book is Rinaldo Cantabile, a wannabe Chicago gangster, who tries to bully Citrine into being friends. Because his career advice to Citrine is commercially fixated, it is directly opposed to advice from Citrine's former mentor, Humboldt Fleisher, who prioritizes artistic integrity.

Reception

''Humboldt's Gift'' won the 1976

, Bellow's first after three previous works were finalists. In the novel Humboldt says, and Citrine agrees, that the prize is "a dummy newspaper publicity award given by crooks and illiterates". When asked about the description after winning the prize, Bellow laughed and said that he would accept the award "in dignified silence". Some critics, including

Malcolm Bradbury Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury, (7 September 1932 – 27 November 2000) was an English author and academic. Life Bradbury was born in Sheffield, the son of a railwayman. His family moved to London in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with ...

, see the novel as a commentary on the increasing

commodification Within a capitalist economic system, commodification is the transformation of things such as goods, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals into objects of trade or commodities.For animals"United Nations Commodity Trad ...

of culture in mid-century America. Throughout much of the book, Bellow also analyzes, through the voice of Citrine, his thoughts on

spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

, and success in

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Alvin Kernan, in his 1982 book ''

The Imaginary Library ''The Imaginary Library: An Essay on Literature and Society'' is a 1982 book by American literary critic and professor Alvin Kernan. In the book, Kernan considers literature as a social institution and considers ways in which the reigning Romantic ...

'', included a chapter on ''Humboldt's Gift'', arguing that the novel is representative of the declining relevance of the Romantic conception of literature to contemporary life.

References

*Bradbury, Malcolm. ''Saul Bellow.'' New York: Methuen (1982) 1975 American novels Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning works Novels by Saul Bellow Roman à clef novels Viking Press books {{1970s-novel-stub