Ravelstein

By Saul Bellow

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Saul Bellow's last novel, published in 2000, is narrated by Chick, an aging writer whose close friend Abe Ravelstein, an extravagant, much-loved professor of political philosophy, asks him to write a memoir of his life. As Ravelstein faces death from AIDS, Chick records their friendship and ideas, and later nearly dies himself. The character of Ravelstein is based on Bellow's friend Allan Bloom.

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• Barack Obama: “Some of the great books by Jewish authors like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, they are steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you're giving up — what you're willing to give up and what you're not willing to give up.”