Exhausting ennui: Bellow, Dostoevsky, and the literature of boredom.

Exhausting ennui: Bellow, Dostoevsky, and the literature of boredom. Now since boredom ... is the root of all evil, what can be more natural than the effort to overcome it? ... My method does not consist in a change of field, but resembles the true rotation method in changing the crop and the mode of cultivation. Here we have at once the principle of limitation, the only saving principle in the world. The more you limit yourself, the more fertile you become in invention. A prisoner in solitary confinement for life becomes very inventive, and a spider may furnish him with much entertainment. (Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 1843) Sifting through his "notes" for an unfinished "essayon boredom," the "slothful sloth��ful?adj.Disinclined to work or exertion; lazy. See Synonyms at lazy.slothful��ly adv. " narrator-protagonist of SaulBellow's Humboldt's Gift (1975), Charlie"Melancholy" Citrine citrineTransparent, coarse-grained variety of the silica mineral quartz. Citrine is a semiprecious gem that is valued for its yellow to brownish colour and its resemblance to the rarer topaz. , stakes his claim to originality asfollows: "I saw that I had stayed away from problems ofdefinition.... I didn't want to get mixed up with theologicalquestions about accidia and tedium vitae. I found it necessary to sayonly that from the beginning mankind experienced states of boredom butthat no one had ever approached the matter front and center as a subjectin its own right" (1996b, 308, 311, 199). The statement isstriking, if not downright paradoxical, flying in the face as it does ofa long and considerable literary history. Indeed, though he points heredisparagingly dis��par��age?tr.v. dis��par��aged, dis��par��ag��ing, dis��par��ag��es1. To speak of in a slighting or disrespectful way; belittle. See Synonyms at decry.2. To reduce in esteem or rank. to the tradition of medieval scholasticism scholasticism(skōlăs`tĭsĭzəm), philosophy and theology of Western Christendom in the Middle Ages. Virtually all medieval philosophers of any significance were theologians, and their philosophy is generally embodied in their and goes on tosingle out "Modern French literature" (to wit, Stendhal,Flaubert, Baudelaire) as "especially preoccupied with the theme ofboredom" (200), Citrine fails to acknowledge boredom'sconsiderable literary-intellectual pedigree in the intervening period.Given the importance of much of the literature and culture so elided toBellow's repeated efforts to awaken humankind to its slumberingpowers not only in Humboldt's Gift but in his other novels as well,that omission invites a reconsideration of boredom as a central subjectin his own work and of the relationship of that work to the actuallyvast literature of ennui. Abridged but no less tacit in Citrine's"boredom notes" and in much of Bellow's later fiction,this relationship is writ large in his first novel, Dangling Man (1944).For this reason, the novel in question repays closer scrutiny. Though the parallels between various "classics" ofExistentialism existentialism(ĕgzĭstĕn`shəlĭzəm, ĕksĭ–), any of several philosophic systems, all centered on the individual and his relationship to the universe or to God. and Bellow's Dangling Man and subsequent novels havebeen widely discussed, the debate provoked by such analyses and theirfindings has tended only to confirm Walter Kaufmann's conclusionregarding the so-called Existentialists themselves, namely that"one essential feature shared by all these men is their perfervidindividualism" (1956, 11). (1) There is, however, something elsewhich these latter share besides "the refusal to belong to anyschool of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body ofbeliefs whatever ... especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfactionwith traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote fromlife" (Kaufmann 1956, 12)--and that is the intellectual genealogyof boredom. Unlike Citrine's "boredom notes" (Bellow bellowone of the voices of cattle. Usually refers to the arrogant call of the bull used to announce territorial rights. Abnormalities of the voice include hoarseness as in rabies, or continuous repetition as in nervous acetonemia. See also low, moo. 1996b, 199), Sartre's Nausee (1938), with which Dangling Man hasoften been juxtaposed, (2) contained a nod to that genealogy in itsoriginal title Melancholia MELANCHOLIA, med. jur. A name given by the ancients to a species of partial intellectual mania, now more generally known by the name of monomania. (q.v.) It bore this name because it was supposed to be always attended by dejection of mind and gloomy ideas. Vide Mania., , after Diirer's rendering of theambiguous Renaissance disease/pleasure. And more overtly, in his studyof Baudelaire, Sartre acknowledges the emotional-intellectual kinshipbetween Existential "nausee" and Romantic "ennui"(1947, 36). The (proto)Existentialist ex��is��ten��tial��ism?n.A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the author who seems most aware of andis most explicit about boredom's complex genealogy, however, is theauthor with whom Bellow is most often compared. (3) By way of justifyinghis "violent spleen," the Underground Man of Dostoevsky'sNotes from Underground asserts that "excessive consciousness is adisease" and that its "direct, inevitable product isinertia" and "boredom" (1981, 2, 5, 18). He explains: naturally, to enter upon any course of action, one must be completely reassured in advance, and free of any trace of doubt. And how am I, for instance, to put my mind at ease? Where are the primary causes I can lean on, where are my basic premises? Where am I to find them? I exercise myself in thought, and hence, within my mind, every primary cause immediately drags after itself another, still more primary, and so on to infinity. Such is the very essence of all consciousness and thought. We're back, then, to the laws of nature. And what is the ultimate result? Why, the same thing again. (Dostoevsky 1981, 18) Here, in keeping with the literary-intellectual roots of his"illness" in Renaissance and Enlightenment thought (Dostoevsky1981, 1), the Underground Man presents the typical outcome ofphilosophical doubt as found in the "essayistic es��say��is��tic?adj.1. Of or relating to an essay or a writer of essays.2. Resembling an essay in nature or quality. " traditionextending from Montaigne to Sartre (Kwaterko 1994, 166). (4) UnlikeMontaigne and Sartre, however, the Underground Man sees fit to recall aproverbial, moral wisdom inconsistent with his own: "perniciousidleness ... as everybody knows, is the mother of all vices," hequips, self-mockingly as it were (Dostoevsky 1981, 37). Thus though heearlier describes his "inertia" as "voluptuous"(14), it obviously does not sit quite as well with him (or his creatorfor that matter) as it does with the former. (5) The reason is plain. InHerzog (1964), Bellow himself reflects, "The question of ordinaryhuman experience is the principal question of these modern centuries, asMontaigne and Pascal, otherwise in disagreement, both clearly saw.--Thestrength of a man's virtue or spiritual capacity measured by hisordinary life" (2003, 117). That is, although they share a similarstarting-point in life's bewildering be��wil��der?tr.v. be��wil��dered, be��wil��der��ing, be��wil��ders1. To confuse or befuddle, especially with numerous conflicting situations, objects, or statements. See Synonyms at puzzle.2. perplexities, Montaigne andPascal represent opposite moral ideals, the one conducive to theclassical virtues of indisturbance and indolence, the other to moralconversion and ethical action. The same goes, of course, for Montaigneand Dostoevsky. Though committed like Montaigne to exploring theself-in-flux, "the doctrinaire doc��tri��naire?n.A person inflexibly attached to a practice or theory without regard to its practicality.adj.Of, relating to, or characteristic of a person inflexibly attached to a practice or theory. See Synonyms at dictatorial. prophet" (so Camille LaBossiere concludes in his analysis of Dostoevsky, Gide, and Montaigne)"remains at odds with the indifferent artist" on the"question of the end(s) proper to art" (178, 186, 175). Mirroring as it does in reverse the dramatic situation ofDostoevsky's Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863) even as itframes Bellow's critical intoduction to that work, Bellow'snarrative of a "cold winter" spent in a Paris prostrated"under a perpetual fog" suggests his "agreement"with the "prejudices" of the "great radical" on thisscore if not on others (1994, 41, 39). In his Winter Notes, it will beremembered, Dostoevsky begins by tracing the origins of Russian"idleness" and "boredom" back to "the ways inwhich Europe has been reflected in us at various times and has imposedits civilization upon us" (1988, 10, 15). He then goes onspecifically to indict in��dict?tr.v. in��dict��ed, in��dict��ing, in��dicts1. To accuse of wrongdoing; charge: a book that indicts modern values.2. the modern, French counterpart of thatcivilization for its boredom-inducing individualism and materialism."Depressed and sunk in spirit," Bellow too finds Paris, withthe "pervasiveness of [its] literary culture" (Balzac,Stendhal, Zola, Strindberg, Camus, and Sartre are all mentioned insupport), unusually given to "melancholy and bad temper"(1994, 43). In fact, so demoralized by his milieu is Bellow that, intrue Dostoevskian fashion, he is willing to defy the law in the name ofthe spirit by purchasing the coal his feverish son needs for warmth onthe black market. For Bellow as for Dostoevsky, it seems, there is nosuch thing as "innocent sloth sloth(slōth, slôth), arboreal mammal found in Central and South America distantly related to armadillos and anteaters. Sloths live in tropical forests, where they sleep, eat, and travel through the trees suspended upside down, clinging to " (Bellow 2003, 75). Rather, asmuch criticism has urged, Bellow shares Dostoevsky's moralcommitment to overcoming "the self-imprisonments of the'wastelanders'" (Braham 1982, 17). (6) "The centralimpetus in both writers" avers Daniel Fuchs in his "SaulBellow and the Example of Dostoevsky," "is the quest for whatis morally real" (1984, 29). More specifically, Fuchs educes infavor of his case for "Russian influence" Bellow'sadvocacy of"[t]he idea of a writer as teacher rather than martyr,citizen rather than artist, journalist rather than aesthetician aes��the��ti��cianor es��the��ti��cian ?n.1. One versed in the theory of beauty and artistic expression.2. One skilled in giving facials, manicures, pedicures, and other beauty treatments. ; theidea of ... a literature that refuses to adopt the pose of objectivity,detachment, and disenchantment dis��en��chant?tr.v. dis��en��chant��ed, dis��en��chant��ing, dis��en��chantsTo free from illusion or false belief; undeceive.[Obsolete French desenchanter, from Old French, with life" (29). A look at Bellow's reprise of Dostoevsky's pivotal novelof 1864 offers plenty of circumstancial evidence in support ofFuchs's premises and conclusions. A "moral casualty of thewar" in that he is driven into idleness and solitude while waitingto be called up, Bellow's Dangling Man echoes Dostoevsky'sUnderground Man. "Radix The base value in a numbering system. For example, in the decimal numbering system, the radix is 10. (mathematics) radix - The ratio, R, between the weights of adjacent digits in positional representation of numbers. malorum est weariness of life," henotes in his third journal entry, borrowing from Goethe'sdescription, in his literary autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit ("Out of my Life: Poetry and Truth") (1811-1833), is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's autobiography. The German word "Dichtung" means both "poetry" and "fiction" in English, which indicates through an ingenious ambiguity a humorous notion , of"the sorest evil, the heaviest disease" (1996b, 18). Like theUnderground Man, Bellow's hero is a man without qualities drawn toanonymity and (ostensibly) averse to Romantic sentimentality. ThusJoseph immediately confesses himself "deeply disappointed" byGoethe's claim that "Nothing occasions this weariness morethan the recurrence of the passion of love," preferring hisanecdote about "an Englishman" who "is said" to have"hanged himself that he might no longer have to dress and undresshimself every day" (18-19). Indeed, as if to make patent his"compulsion to the centre of indifference" (Fuchs 1984, 42),Bellow's narrator-diarist even provides a literary analogue toGoethe's Englishman in the person of Shakespeare's"murderer Barnadine in Measure for Measure[,] whose contempt forlife equaled his contempt for death, so that he would not come out ofhis cell to be executed" (1996b, 18-19). The allusion to Shakespeare's morally ambiguous play of lovestifled if not stymied calls attention to the true source ofJoseph's "state" of emotional and spiritual malaise(Bellow 1996b, 37). Like Goethe, who "leave[s]" the"moral causes" of ennui "to the investigation ... of themoralist mor��al��ist?n.1. A teacher or student of morals and moral problems.2. One who follows a system of moral principles.3. One who is unduly concerned with the morals of others. " (1900, 2.159), Bellow does not specify this cause, but itis sufficiently tacit throughout Dangling Man. Joseph's"narcotic dullness" (1996, 18), after all, has its literalcounterpart in the drunkenness of his loveless "Dostoyevskiandouble" Vanaker (Clayton 1979, 118), as well as in the behavior ofhis friends at the Servatius party. These, in an episode which seemsinspired by Eliot's The Wasteland, resort to booze and evenhypnosis "to free the charge of feeling in the pent heart" andso make themselves insensible INSENSIBLE. In the language of pleading, that which is unintelligible is said to be insensible. Steph. Pl. 378. to "pain" (Bellow 1996b, 46,52). Likewise, well before that party, Joseph admits to using a form ofself-hypnosis akin to that by which Abt makes Minna "feelcold" (52). Sensing he is "grow[ing] rooted to [his]chair," he remarks, "I have always been subject to suchhallucinations. In the middle of winter, isolating a wall with sunlighton it, I have been able to persuade myself, despite the surrounding ice,that the month was July, not February. Similarly, I have reversed thesummer and made myself shiver in the heat" (13). Later, stuck"[i]n bed with a cold," a feverish Joseph persuades himselfthat January is July: "The icicles and frost patterns on the windowturned brilliant ... and the bold, icy color of sky and snow and cloudsburned strongly" (118). Moments after, however, he recalls a dreamof a "few nights ago" in which he guiltily because passivelywitnesses the ravages of war in "an atmosphere of terror such as[his] father many years ago could conjure for [him], describing Gehennaand the damned" (120, 121). In short, like Dostoevsky's Underground Man, who concludesafter his "forty years underground" that "the best thingis to do nothing" (1981, 31, 42), Joseph suffers from sloth oraccidie Ac´ci`dien. 1. Sloth; torpor. as defined by Chaucer's Parson, who likens the condition to"the peyne of helle [traditionally a place of contradiction, offire and ice] ... for they that been dampned been so bounde that they nemay neither wel do ne wel thynke" (X.I.685). Indeed, Josephexhibits all the classic symptoms of accidie (lit."carelessness") found in the "early ascetics" hestudied "[b]efore he interested himself in the Enlightenment"(Bellow 1996, 128). Thus, although he longs to go out, he"can't even bring [himself] to go to the store fortobacco" (13); at "noon," the traditional hour of thedaemonium meridianum, he grows "restless, imagining that [he is]hungry again," but finds that he is "not hungry at all"once he arrives at the restaurant (15); he feels discontent with hissociety, longing for "a 'colony of the spirit,' or agroup whose covenants forbade spite, bloodiness, and cruelty" (39),but at the same time is "for refusing" "invitations toChristmas dinner" (31); and finally, as underlined by numerouslaconic la��con��ic?adj.Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise. See Synonyms at silent.[Latin Lac entries--"Slept until eleven o'clock; sat around allafternoon and thought of nothing in particular" (57); "Sleptuntil one o'clock. Out at four for a walk, I lasted ten minutes andthen retreated" (78); "Fairly quiet day" (112)--he istypically idle. (7) And so, with time, even he comes to suspect that heis "practicing some terrible vice" (148). Not surprisingly, then, Joseph's entry for January 13 containsan allusion to Part Two of Dostoevsky's Notes, "On theOccasion of Wet Snow," which points to a parity of moral insightbetween Bellow and Dostoevsky. Having "walk[ed] through largemelting flakes" of snow, Joseph "wander[s] through a ten-centstore, examining comic valentines," but buys "a bag ofchocolate creams" instead; he also goes "into a ChristianScience reading room Branches of the Church of Christ, Scientist normally maintain a Christian Science Reading Room in their community where the public can study, borrow, or purchase Christian Science literature. There are approximately 2000 Christian Science Reading Rooms worldwide. and pick[s] up the Monitor," but does not readit, ostensibly because he is busy "trying to think of the name ofthe company whose gas stoves used to be advertised on the front page ofthe Manchester Guardian" (Bellow 1996, 107). Meanwhile, asValentine's Day approaches, he finds himself "intenselyhungry" and eats ravenously rav��en��ous?adj.1. Extremely hungry; voracious.2. Rapacious; predatory.3. Greedy for gratification: ravenous for power.See Synonyms at voracious. , showing a predilection in particularfor sweets (oranges, caramels, mints, and especially chocolates) (117).But Bellow's diarist di��a��rist?n.A person who keeps a diary.diaristNouna person who writes a diary that is subsequently publishedNoun 1. remains unsated. Given the reference to PartTwo of Dostoevsky's Notes, in which the Underground Man similarlymakes his way through "the still falling wet and seemingly warmsnow" (1981, 96), the explanation seems obvious. As numerouscommentators have observed, by means of its two-part structureDostoevsky's Notes implicitly underscores the logical disjunctionbetween the life of studied indifference and the one of self-realizationthrough sacrifice and moral choice spelled out, for example, inKierkegaard's Either/Or (1843). (8) Simply put, bothDostoevsky's Underground Man and Bellow's Dangling Man sufferbecause they are "unable to love" (Clayton 1979, 113). Bothbegin with the self and so end, coincidentally, by complaining of a"loss of contact with anything alive" (Dostoevsky 1981,152)--a state of hellish indifference or accidie. Indeed, like the "half-cleaned chicken" he finds "onthe kitchen sink ... its yellow claws rigid, its head bent as though toexamine its entrails which raveled over the sopping draining board andsplattered splat��ter?v. splat��tered, splat��ter��ing, splat��tersv.tr.To spatter (something), especially to soil with splashes of liquid.v.intr. the enamel with blood," Joseph is intent on the"troubled density" of his "interior life" even as helooks without for sustenance (Bellow 1996, 24, 26, 24). "Mistsfaded and spread and faded on the pane as I breathed," he writesand then compares the "ruins before [his] eyes" to the"color of the fateful paper that [he] read[s] daily" (25, 26).No wonder then that he admires his aptly named cleaning woman Marie at"work" as she "washe[s] the windows": "cleaninghas its importance as a notion of center, of balance, of order," heexplains, somewhat unnecessarily as it were. "A woman learns it inthe kitchens of her childhood, and it branches out from sinks, windows,table tops, to the faces and hands of children, and then it may become,as it does for some women, part of the nature of God" (112, 113).By contrast, Joseph, with his "fever of vacillations"(Dostoevsky 1981, 12), might be likened to the darkly comical figure hesees hanging "above the restaurant" where he eats, apasteboard "hamburger with arms and legs balanced on a fiery wire,lean[ing] toward a jar of mustard" (Bellow 1996b, 107). That is,whatever alleviation his hunger finds in food will ultimately be bitter,not sweet, since it feeds only on itself. John Jacob Clayton concurs,adopting Dostoevsky's moral compass in describing"Joseph's selfhood" as "destructive": "itis his selfhood which keeps him isolated, which makes him hurt thosearound him" (1979, 83). There is a certain ironic justness, then, to Joseph'sinsistence that "[i]t isn't love that gives us weariness oflife" (Bellow 1996b, 168). In fact, had he continued to read fromGoethe's literary autobiography, he would have seen that whatGoethe stresses in the sequel as before is not so much the "passionof love" itself as the "melancholy" that its"return" can occasion by leading the youth (the context is adiscussion of The Sorrows of Young Werther) to "a contemplation ofthe transient nature and worthlessness of all earthly things.""[M]oral epochs change as well as the seasons of the year,"writes Goethe. "The graciousness of the great, the attachment ofthe multitude, the love of individuals,--all this changes up anddown...." Not even virtue and vice escape change and revolution:"how late do we learn to see, that, while we cultivate our virtues,we rear our faults at the same time! The former depends upon the latteras upon their root ..." (1900, 2.160-61). Such musings find theirecho in the Humanist Joseph. And with reason. In sympathy withBellow's Dangling Man, who prefers the philosophical indifferenceof Shakespeare's Barnadine and Goethe's Englishman to thepassion of love, Goethe goes on to single out English literature, inparticular that of the neoclassical period, the early Milton andShakespeare, for its profound melancholy (2.161-63). However, though"all diseases are apt to be of foreign origin" (Bellow 1994,39), the origins of ennui are of course historical, not national. Assuch, it hardly seems a coincidence that like the Underground Man, whocites Schiller and Kant on the "lofty and the beautiful" andRousseau on man in the opening pages of his Notes (Dostoevsky 1981, 6,10) and like Sartre's Roquentin, who is held up by epistemologicaldoubts in the midst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?"midmost of a study of a paradoxical eighteenth-centuryfigure, Joseph, too, begins "to dangle dangleNursing A popular term for the first movement a Pt is allowed, either after surgery under general anesthesia, or 'under local', where the recuperee allows his/her feet to dangle over the side of the bed " as he is at work on aseries of essays on Diderot and other eighteenth-century philosophers.Indeed, the phrasing he uses is tantalizingly tan��ta��lize?tr.v. tan��ta��lized, tan��ta��liz��ing, tan��ta��liz��esTo excite (another) by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach. apposite ap��po��site?adj.Strikingly appropriate and relevant. See Synonyms at relevant.[Latin appositus, past participle of app in its ambiguity:"it was vaguely understood, when I began to dangle, that I was tocontinue with them" (Bellow 1996b, 11-12). Appropriately, in view of the above, Fuchs has shown thatJoseph's "Spirit of Alternatives," or "'But onthe Other Hand,' or 'Tu As Raison Aussi'" as healternately dubs him (Bellow 1996b, 135), is modelled not onGoethe's but on Dostoevsky's Mephistopheles--that is, on"the incarnation of world boredom" distilled in the leading(post)Enlightenment ideas (Mochulsky qtd. Fuchs 1984, 41). Josephhimself invites this parallel when he relates an anecdote from hischildhood in which he is referred to as "Mephisto" (Bellow1996b, 77). And yet, though he follows Ivan Karamazov's andLuther's example in repulsing the "two-faced,""equivocal" spirit of non-being (141), Joseph, in Fuchs'view, ends by capitulating to him. Indeed, judging Dangling Man'sconclusion from a Dostoevskian perspective, Fuchs finds "little ofthe ambiguity sometimes attributed to it": "Joseph joins thearmy in the same way one joins the Grand Inquisitor's church,"he concludes (1984, 43). By contrast, Clayton, assessing the book'sending from a Humanist perspective, sees little else than ambiguity:"The ending of the novel is not happy; it is complex and ambiguous,partially hopeful.... Joseph is joining not only the army but the humanrace" (1979, 119). A closer look at Bellow's critical introduction toDostoevsky's Winter Notes on Summer Impressions provides anexplanation for this strong difference of views and perspectives onDangling Man. Noting the anti-Western and anti-Semitic attitudes postedin plain view in Dostoevsky's Winter Notes and in "the huge,crazy, foaming, vengeful, fulminating book called A Writer'sDiary A Writer's Diary (orig Russian Dnevnik pisatelya) is a collection of writing by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Taken from piece written for a periodical it is normally published in two volumes the first covering those first published between 1873 and 1876, the second from that ," Bellow concludes that "his personal opinions were notrational" (1994, 45). But Bellow immediately adds a coda. "Asan artist," he writes, "[Dostoyevsky] was both rational andwise" (45). Whereas Dostoevsky the "journalist" is"fanatical" in his "principles," explains Bellow,Dostoevsky the artist is, like the author of The Marriage of Heaven andHell, a psychologist of unitary reality well acquainted with thecoexistence of "love and hate" (44). As evidence ofDostoevsky's artistic impartiality Bellow cites his correspondenceabout the composition of The Brothers Karamazov: Dostoyevsky had just concluded the section of The Brothers in which Ivan had declared that he doubted the existence of God--had offered to return his "ticket" to the Creator. Having made a powerful case for atheism, Dostoyesky now prepared the answer of faith. For this he turned to Father Zosima. He hoped, he told Pobedonostyev, to avoid polemics. These he considered "inartistic." To answer artistically is to do full justice, to respect propositions and harmonies with which journalists and polemicists do not have to bother their heads.... The writer's convictions, perhaps fanatically held, must be tamed by truth. (Bellow 1994, 45) Bellow concludes, "The degree to which you challenge your ownbeliefs and expose them to destruction is a test of your worth as anovelist" (45). Needless to say, it is this Dostoevsky, the visionary artist withthe "amphibian amphibian, in zoologyamphibian,in zoology, cold-blooded vertebrate animal of the class Amphibia. There are three living orders of amphibians: the frogs and toads (order Anura, or Salientia), the salamanders and newts (order Urodela, or Caudata), and the soul" (Wilson 1996, 34), the "child oflight who saw best in darkness" (Fuchs 1984, 38), with whom Bellowfinds himself in closest accord. "His [Bellow's] novels renderclearly the barriers that can be erected against [the process oftranscending]," writes E. Jeanne Braham, adding that "[i]nthis effort, Bellow is closer to the marrow of Dostoevsky thansimilarities of plot or the uses of doubles can ever document"(1982, 14). Contrary to what Fuchs argues, then, the disjunction disjunction/dis��junc��tion/ (-junk��shun)1. the act or state of being disjoined.2. in genetics, the moving apart of bivalent chromosomes at the first anaphase of meiosis. impliedin "[t]he idea of a writer as teacher rather than martyr, citizenrather than artist, journalist rather than aesthetician" (1984, 29)is in fact weak in Bellow's case. No mere "journalist andpublicist" such as Marx, Rousseau, Marat, Saint-Just, or even H.G.Wells (Bellow 2004, 175), Bellow might rather be described, likeDostoevsky in Soloviev's assessment, as an "artist ... in thepublicist business" (1916, 213). (9) In fact, in his fiction Bellowconsistently reads Dostoevsky's art, and by extension his own, as asynthesis of these opposed activies or impulses. Thus surveying"the classics of [the] condition" of "spiritualloneliness" to which his protagonists are similarly given in hisThe Dean's December (1982), a late novel which persistently sets upthe East as foil to the West (and by analogy, Dostoevsky as double toBellow), Bellow lists "Dostoevsky's apathy-with-intensity, therage for goodness so near to vileness and murderousness, Nietzsche andthe Existentialists, and all the rest of that" (1998, 161). The aim of Bellow's implicit rapprochement between his art andDostoevsky's, it seems clear, is to read the one as a naturaloutgrowth of the other and so, by extension, to reconcile his own dualvocation as artist and polemicist po��lem��i��cist? also po��lem��istn.A person skilled or involved in polemics.polemicist, polemista skilled debater in speech or writing. — polemical, adj. . Thus, like Hermann Hesse, who opposesthe "Asiatic Ideal" of "amoral impartiality" evincedin Dostoevsky's late work to "a European ... a hard and fastmoral, ethical, dogmatic standpoint" (1922, 607-08), Bellow findsin the "equivocal consciousness" of the author of ThePossessed a counterpart to his own Western skepticism (1998, 130); inthe words of Siddhartha, Hesse's novel of Eastern Enlightenmentmodelled on Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation,"in every truth the opposite is equally true.... Everything that isthought and expressed in words is one-sided" (Hesse 1951, 115).Accordingly, the Dostoevskian artist-polemicist who would remain true tothe riddling syntax of existence, "a murky glass" in which wesee only "guessingly" (Knapp 1998, 192), is vowed to silenceor enigma on matters of ultimate significance. (10) Bellow's doubling of Dostoevsky thus speaks a truth no lesseloquent for being understated, for passing under silence what unites(and divides) them. Mirrors, however, invert in��vertv.1. To turn inside out or upside down.2. To reverse the position, order, or condition of.3. To subject to inversion.n.Something inverted. as well as reflect. Inreality, the harmony that Bellow and his critics see as existing betweenDostoevsky and himself is far from complete. Indeed, as Fuchs'sabout-face on Dangling Man suggests, Bellow's tacit likening ofhimself to Dostoevsky has much in it that is jarring to a reader ofDostoevsky. As Bellow himself more amply explains in an updated versionof his essay on Dostoevsky, "[the novel of ideas] becomes art whenthe views most opposite to the author's own are allowed to exist infull strength.... The opposites must be free to range themselves againsteach other, and they must be passionately expresed on both sides"(qtd. Braham 1982, 15). However, speaking of Dangling Man, Claytondetects a "conflict" or "schism" between"Joseph the spokesman and Joseph the character" (1979, 64,68). A devotee of the neoclassical harmonies found in Haydn and Brahms,Bellow's Dangling Man shares more in common with Kierkegaard'sMozart-worshiping Aestheticist than with his strait-laced Ethicist eth��i��cist? also e��thi��ciann.A specialist in ethics.Noun 1. ethicist - a philosopher who specializes in ethicsethicianphilosopher - a specialist in philosophy . He,too, "satiate sa��ti��ate?tr.v. sa��ti��at��ed, sa��ti��at��ing, sa��ti��ates1. To satisfy (an appetite or desire) fully.2. To satisfy to excess.adj.Filled to satisfaction. [s] the hunger of doubt at the expense ofexistence" (1959, 100). Indeed, as an allusion to his"warm[ing] [him]self" "at a salamander salamander,an amphibian of the order Urodela, or Caudata. Salamanders have tails and small, weak limbs; superficially they resemble the unrelated lizards (which are reptiles), but they are easily distinguished by their lack of scales and claws, and by their moist, " on analready warm day and in the midst of"[s]cenes of love andhorror" suggests (Bellow 1996b, 107), hellish contradiction andindifference are Joseph's natural element. (11) And yet, likeBellow's other heroes, Joseph is made to seek that "highest'ideal construction'" which "unlocks the imprisoningself" (153). It is here that Bellow and Dostoevsky part ways, for ifBellow's Mephistopheles is Dostoevsky's, his Faust isGoethe's. Hence Joseph recurs to Goethe as to an ame sceur later inDangling Man, tacitly conceding that he is descended from the"Werthers and Don Juans" and moreover giving Goethe'swork a decidedly Existentialist ring: "The sense in which Goethewas right: Continued life means expectation. Death is the abolition ofchoice. The more choice is limited, the closer we are to death," hewrites (1996, 89, 148). Bellow's defection from Dostoevsky'scamp may be traced back to his redefining of acedia here in Dangling Manand afterwards. Charlie Citrine, who like Bellow is fond of quotingBlake, Whitman, and Goethe on the "imaginative soul" and whoeven plans to retire to the Goetheanum at the conclusion ofHumboldt's Gift, explains: "Some think that sloth, one of thecapital sins, means ordinary laziness.... But sloth has to cover a greatdeal of despair. Sloth is really a busy condition, hyperactive. Thisactivity drives off the wonderful rest or balance without which therecan be no poetry or art or thought--none of the highest humanfunctions" (306). Leonard Forster has pointed to Goethe'ssimilar redefining of sloth as "a slackening of idealism" inhis Faust: Earlier theologians had defined the sin of sloth as 'aversion to spiritual and divine things'; in the secularized language of the eighteenth century it becomes equivalent to an absence of the desire to strive for something higher, or the loss of that desire. It may result on the one hand in pointless activity, on the other in sheer idleness, disinclination for physical or mental effort of any kind, and thus finally in apathy. (Forster 1971, 55) Concurrently, Goethe's Faust, unlike Marlow's, "isnot about the final destruction of a lost soul, but about the ultimateredemption of an earnestly striving, though necessarily erring, humanbeing" (Forster 1971, 54). Similarly, for Bellow's heroes, the"Faustian spirit of discontent and universal reform" isantidote to "a life of innocent sloth," to quote more amplyfrom Herzog's first letter to himself (2003, 75). (12) That is,like Goethe's Werther, Bellow's novels fuse the modes of"soliloquy soliloquy,the speech by a character in a literary composition, usually a play, delivered while the speaker is either alone addressing the audience directly or the other actors are silent. " and "dialogue" by "summon[ing] ...contradicting spirits" to engage in "a mental dialogue"(Goethe 1900, 158). What strife there is in Bellow, accordingly, is theartist's not the moralist's strife. (13) Bellow's relative agreement with himself, however, necessarilycomes at the price of his disharmony dis��har��mo��ny?n.1. Lack of harmony; discord.2. Something not in accord; a conflict: "the disharmonies that assail the most fortunate of mortals"Peter Gay. with his predecessor, since asevidenced by his choosing to follow his "artist'sinstinct" and not to reinsert Re`in`sert´v. t. 1. To insert again. in Part One of Notes from Undergroundthe censored passages where "[he] had" (in his own words)"deduced the need for faith and Christ" (Fanger 1981, xxv),Dostoevsky presents the spectacle of an artist "at war withhimself" (Magarshak 1975, 3). (14) In contrast, by conflating theroles of artist and polemicist which he would keep distinct in hispolemic with Dostoevsky, Bellow effectively sins against not only themoralist's but the artist's creed he finds at work inDostoevsky as well, thus at best duplicating a conflict found in theoriginal and overcome, by most critical accounts, only in The BrothersKaramazov. (15) In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , and as might be expected, given theirimportant differences, Bellow and Dostoevsky's relationship in thehistory of words and ideas does not so much correspond to a dialogue inthe traditional sense as to "a vicious circle A Vicious Circle (1996) is a novel by Amanda Craig which dissects and satirizes contemporary British society. In particular, it describes the world of publishing -- its aspiring young authors, busy agents and opportunist literary critics. " (to borrowBakhtin's figure for boredom's confinement in Notes fromUnderground) in the form of an "internal polemic with another andwith [one]self." From this "endless dialogue" of the mindwith itself [1984, 230]), Dostoevsky escapes in the direction ofreligious ascetism, Bellow in that of gnosis gno��sis?n.Intuitive apprehension of spiritual truths, an esoteric form of knowledge sought by the Gnostics.[Greek gn and silence. Here and inthis sense only do the two meet, Western skepticism answering to Easternmysticism, doubt unto faith, as deep unto deep. Notes (1) For a survey of the "contradictory views among the criticsconcerning Bellow's existentialist tendency" (Aharoni 1983,44), see the first three pages of Ada Aharoni's "Bellow andExistentialism." Aharoni quotes Helen Weinberg to the effect that"Bellow would repudiate TO REPUDIATE. To repudiate a right is to express in a sufficient manner, a determination not to accept it, when it is offered. 2. He who repudiates a right cannot by that act transfer it to another. any systematized finding," includingthose of existentialism (1983, 43). (2) Clayton (1979, 57-59) and Aharoni (1983, 42). (3) Although he "can see no reason for calling Dostoevsky anexistentialist," Kaufmann believes that "Part One of Notesfrom Underground is the best overture for existentialism everwritten," anticipating as it does all "the major themes"of that literature (1956, 14). Comparisons between Bellow and Dostoevskyare not hard to find, in particular in the early reception ofBellow's novels. Less explicit, but no less telling, are theallusions to such Bakhtinean notions as "heteroglossia In linguistics, the term heteroglossia describes the coexistence of distinct varieties within a single linguistic code. The term translates the Russian raznorechie ,""dialogic," "double-voicing" and"interillumination" which have become de rigueur in currentBellow criticism. For some recent examples, see the essays by Kuzma(1990, 1993), Kemnitz (1982), and Nevius (1972). (4) Whether we proceed inductively or deductively, Montaigne arguesin the Essais, X must be investigated by way of -X, -X by way ofanother, unknown term, and so on "a l'infini": "nousvoila voi��l��?interj.Used to call attention to or express satisfaction with a thing shown or accomplished: Mix the ingredients, chill, and au rouet," he says of such vicious circling (1962, 2.12). Allreflexive thought, Sartre concurs, is inconclusive and so characterizedby the "languissante degustation" or slow delectation of theself by the self: "Il s'ennuie, et cet Ennui ... c'est legout gout,condition that manifests itself as recurrent attacks of acute arthritis, which may become chronic and deforming. It results from deposits of uric acid crystals in connective tissue or joints. que l'homme a necessairement pour lui-meme, la saveur del'existence" (Sartre 1947, 33). Though the statement isapplied here to the nineteenth-century flaneur fla��neur?n.An aimless idler; a loafer.[French, from flaner, to idle about, stroll, of Germanic origin; see pel Baudelaire, it is thefigure of an indolent indolent/in��do��lent/ (in��dah-lint)1. causing little pain.2. slow growing.in��do��lentadj.1. Disinclined to exert oneself; habitually lazy.2. Montaigne which comes to Sartre's mind inNausee when he seeks to paint the contrast between the inward-lookingcontemplative and the duty-bound man of action (1979, 119). Notsurprisingly, given his aversion to such men of action and to all formsof positivism positivism(pŏ`zĭtĭvĭzəm), philosophical doctrine that denies any validity to speculation or metaphysics. Sometimes associated with empiricism, positivism maintains that metaphysical questions are unanswerable and that the only , Dostoevsky's protagonist in Notes fromUnderground--"neither bad nor good, neither a scoundrel SCOUNDREL. An opprobrious title given to a person of bad character. General damages will not lie for calling a man a scoundrel, but special damages may be recovered when there has been an actual loss. 2 Bouv: Inst. n. 2250; 1 Chit. Pr. 44. nor anhonest man, neither a hero nor an insect" but un homme moyensensuel in his middle age (1981, 3)--is also reminiscent of Montaigne. (5) Montaigne's indolence is legendary. More complex is thecase of Sartre, but although Existential ennui may be worrying, Sartreexplicitly describes this feeling as a metaphysical not a moralphenomenon (1947, 33). (6) On the connection between Eliot's The Wasteland and thesin of sloth or "acedia," see Winters, who takes Eliot to taskfor confusing "principles which fall ... into two contradictorygroups, the romantic ... and ... the classical and Christian" andso "mak[ing] a virtue of what appears to be private spirituallaziness" (1943, 116). (7) For a similar list of the symptoms of acedia, see Forster(1971), who cites the fifth-century writer John Cassian. These symptomsinclude, for example, "dislike of the place, disgust with the cell,and ... disdain and contempt of the brethren who dwell with him.... Italso makes the man ... lazy and sluggish about all manner of work whichhas to be done.... It does not suffer him to stay in his cell, or totake any pains about reading, and he often groans because ... he can dono good while he stays there, and complains and sighs because ... he canbear no spiritual fruit so long as he is joined to that society..." (Cassian qtd. Forster 1971, 56). (8) Chiefly Weisburg (1984, 28-41), Frank (1986, 342-47), andTodorov (1990, 89-92). (9) Indeed, just as Soloviev's phrase covers all the stops inDostoevsky criticism, so, too, "an intensive sort of personalpublic-relations project" (Bellow 1996, 65) summarizesBellow's undertaking for most of his critics. (10) On the negative way of the "coincidentiaoppositorum" found in the Eastern Church and on Dostoevsky'ssubstituting of that synthetic logic for the Western principle ofnon-contradiction, see Lossky (1944, 116-17) and Berdyaev (1934, 15)respectively. (11) Concurrently, the Bellovian hero's confrontation with thehellish element is typically far from harrowing in comparison with theexperience of Dostoevsky's protagonists. Though seemingly anexception, Dean Corde's stay in an Eastern underground alternatingbetween the decidedly uncomfortable and uncomforting "extremes ofheat and cold," "frost and flames," only emphasizes therule, for obvious reasons, especially as it is juxtaposed with a Westernunderground of more moderate "heat and chill" in which kidneypatients are "cleansed" of their spleen and treated with an"amorphous pity, a powerful but somehow indiscriminate love"(Bellow 1998, 214, 213, 166, 167). (12) Defending Bellow, and in particular his conclusions, againsthis many "detractors" on the grounds that his is "anotherway of transcending," Braham concurs: "Bellow'sprotagonists fear the cessation of striving, initially at least, becausethey confuse it with somnabulence. Peace, serenity, harmony seemdangerous opiates to Joseph, Asa Leventhal [in The Victim], TommyWilhelm [in Seize the Day] who, with Henderson [in Henderson the RainKing Henderson the Rain Kingcharacter’s frustration shown by his continually saying, “I want, I want.” [Am. Lit.: Henderson the Rain King]See : Frustration ], cry out to 'burst the spirit's sleep.' The sign oftheir spiritual health is striving" (Braham 1982, 14, 16).Concurrently, in Dangling Man the Dostoevskian view of transcendence isrepresented by a "sickly" pauper peddling Christian Scienceliterature. To the already fever-prone Joseph--a mere ordinary"poor, human devil" after all, who plays at"fir[ing]" guns but is himself harmless--"she suggest[s]the figure of a minor political leader in exile, unwelcome, shabby,burning with a double fever" (Bellow 1996, 77, 107, 162). Indeed,though he says that "[w]e are all drawn toward the same craters ofthe spirit--to know what we are and what we are for, to know ourpurpose, to seek grace," Joseph makes it clear that he will not owethis "grace" to "any divinity": "Out of my ownstrength it was necessary for me to return the verdict for reason, inits partial inadequacy, and against the advantages of itssurrender" (154, 68). (13) Viewed "aesthetically," Kierkegaardian despairbecomes, according to Sanford Pinsker, "the peculiar Muse who makes... [Citrine/Bellow's] Art possible" (1980, 125). For hispart, Andre Gide allies Montaigne's philosophy with Goethe's"sagesse paienne" or Pagan wisdom in order to divorceMontaigne more forcefully from Christianity (1962, 20). (14) Like Ivan, who succumbs to madness when skeptical reason failshim, the Underground Man is supposedly self-defeated, but his inertiaremains a vexing problem. On this score, even Dostoevsky apologist ApologistAny of the Christian writers, primarily in the 2nd century, who attempted to provide a defense of Christianity against Greco-Roman culture. Many of their writings were addressed to Roman emperors and were submitted to government secretaries in order to defend Joseph Frank concedes the Notes' "total lack of effectivenessas a polemic" (1986, 347). (15) See for example Girard (1963) and Berdyaev (1923/1934). Works Cited Aharoni, Ada. 1983. "Bellow and Existentialism." SaulBellow Journal 2.2 (Spring): 42-54. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics.Trans. Caryl Emerson. 1929. Reprint. Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press The University of Minnesota Press is a university press that is part of the University of Minnesota. External linkUniversity of Minnesota Press . Bellow, Saul. 1955. "The French as Dostoyevsky Saw Them."Foreword. Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. NewYork: Criterion. ______. 1994. It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the UncertainFuture: A Nonfiction Collection. New York: Viking. ______. 1996a. Dangling Man. 1944. Reprint. New York: Penguin. ______. 1996b. Humboldt's Gift. 1975. Reprint. New York:Penguin. ______. 1998. The Dean's December. 1982. Reprint. New York:Penguin. ______. 2003. Herzog. 1964. Reprint. New York: Penguin. ______. 2004. Mr. Sammler's Planet. 1970. Reprint. New York:Penguin. Berdyaev, Nikolai. 1934. Dostoievsky. Trans. Donald Attwater. 1923.Reprint. London: Sheed and Ward. Braham, E. Jeanne. 1982. "The Struggle at the Center:Dostoevsky and Bellow." Saul Bellow Journal 2.1 (Fall): 13-18. Clayton, John Jacob. 1971. Saul Bellow in Defense of Man. 1979.Reprint Bloomington: Indiana University Press Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is a publishing house at Indiana University that engages in academic publishing, specializing in the humanities and social sciences. It was founded in 1950. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. . Dostoevsky, Fyodor. 1981. Notes from Underground. Trans. MirraGinsburg. 1864. Reprint. New York: Bantam. ______. 1988. Winter Notes on Summer Impressions. Trans. DavidPatterson. 1863. Reprint. Evanston, II.: Northwestern University Press Northwestern University Press is the university press of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA.It was founded in 1893, at first specializing in law. It is especially notable for its literature in translation publishing, especially by European writers. . Fanger, Donald. 1981. Introduction. Dostoevsky. Notes fromUnderground. Trans. Mirra Ginsburg. 1864. Reprint. New York: Bantam. Forster, Leonard. 1971. "Faust and the Sin of Sloth;Mephistopheles and the Sin of Pride." In The DiscontinuousTradition: Studies in German Literature in Honour of Ernest LudwigStahl. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frank, Joseph. 1986. Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865.Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fuchs, Daniel. 1984. "Saul Bellow and the Example ofDostoevsky." In Saul Bellow: Vision and Revision. Chapter 2.Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press. Gide, Andre. 1962. Preface. Essais de Michel de Montaigne Montaigne (also known as Michel Eyquem de Montaigne) (IPA pronunciation: [miʃɛl ekɛm də mɔ̃tɛɲ. Vol. 1.Paris: Gallimard. Girard, Rene. 1963. Dostoievski, du double a l'unite. Paris:Plon. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. 1900. Truth and Fiction. Trans. JohnOxenford. 1810-1833. Reprint. Boston: Dana Estes. Hesse, Hermann. 1922. "The Brothers Karamasov or The Downfallof Europe." Trans. Stephen Hudson (Sydney Schiff). The Dial 72.6(June): 607-18. ______. 1951. Siddhartha. Trans. Hilda Rosner. 1922. Reprint. NewYork: New Directions. Kaufmann, Walter Arnold, ed. 1956. Existentialism from Dostoevskyto Sartre. New York: World Publishing. Kemnitz, Charles. 1982. "Narration and Consciousness inHerzog." Saul Bellow Journal 1.2: 1-6. Kierkegaard, Soren. 1959. Either/Or. Trans. David F. Swenson,Lillian Marvin Swenson, and Walter Lowrie. In A Kierkegaard Anthology,ed. Robert Bretall. New York: The Modern Library. Knapp, Liza. 1998. "Myshkin Through a Murky Glass,Guessingly." In Dostoevsky's The Idiot: A Critical Companion,ed. Liza Knapp. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. Kuzma, Faye. 1990. "Mental Travel in Henderson the RainKing." Saul Bellow Journal 9.2: 54-67. Kuzma, Faye. 1993. "'We Flew On': Flights ofImagination in Humboldt's Gift." Michigan Academician 25.2:159-77. Kwaterko, Jozef. 1994. "Ducharme essayiste ou 'Sartremaghane.'" In Paysages de Rejean Ducharme, ed. Pierre-LouisVaillancourt. Quebec: Fides. La Bossiere, Camille. 2003. "Of Montaigne, Dostoevsky andGide: A Sotie." Back to Sources: Essais Metis from the Outaouais.Ottawa: Tecumseh Press. 174-89. Leroux, Jean-Francois. 2000. "Henri-Frederic Amiel." InNineteenth-Century French Poets. The Dictionary of Literary Biography The Dictionary of Literary Biography (abbreviated DLB) is a monumental 338-volume encyclopedia published by Thomson-Gale. It is available both in print and online. The biographical material covered extends beyond novelists to include screenwriters, poets, and playwrights. ,Vol. 217, ed. Robert Beum. Detroit: Gale. Lossky, Vladimir. 1944. Theologie mystique de l'Eglised'Orient. Paris: Editions Montaigne. Magarshak, David. 1963. Dostoevsky. 1975. Reprint. Westsport:Greenwood. Montaigne, Michel de. 1962. Essais. Ed. Pierre Michel. 3 vols.Paris: Gallimard. Nevius, Blake. 1972. "Saul Bellow and the Theater of theSoul." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 73: 248-60. Pinsker, Sanford. 1980. "Saul Bellow, Soren Kierkegaard andthe Question of Boredom." Centennial Review 24: 118-25. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1947. Baudelaire. 1938. Reprint. Paris:Gallimard. ______. 1979. Nausee. 1938. Reprint. Paris: Editions du Club del'honnete homme. Soloviev, Evgeny. 1916. Dostoievsky: His Life and LiteraryActivity. Trans. C.J. Hogarth. London: George Allen and Unwin. Todorov, Tzvetan. 1990. Genres in Discourse. Transl. CatherinePorter. 1978. Reprint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). . Weisburg, Richard H. 1984. The Failure of the Word. New Haven: YaleUniversity Press. Wilson, Raymond J., III. 1996. "Saul Bellow's Herzog andDostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov." Saul Bellow Journal 14.1(Winter): 27-39. Winters, Yvor. 1943. The Anatomy of Nonsense. Norfolk: NewDirections. Jean-Francois Leroux teaches at the University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa or Universit�� d'Ottawa in French (also known as uOttawa or nicknamed U of O or Ottawa U) is a bilingual [1], research-intensive, non-denominational, international university in Ottawa, Ontario. and is theeditor of Modern French Poets (2002) and the author of The Renaissanceof Impasse: From the Age of Carlyle, Emerson and Melville to the QuietRevolution in Quebec (2004).