Humboldt's Gift

Author: Saul Bellow
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: The Gift of Homburg is one of Bellow's most important representative works. Through the depiction of the fates of two generations of writers, it exposes the oppression and devastation of spiritual civilization by the material world, as well as the spiritual crisis of contemporary society. Charlie Siegel, a middle-aged writer who has won the Pulitzer Prize twice and been knighted by France, is on a downward slope. His ex-wife wants to drain his assets, thugs smash his Mercedes, and his current mistress is a gold-digger. Most importantly, he cannot create anything creative. He feels guilty toward his down-and-out predecessor, poet, mentor, and close friend, Homburg, who taught him the power of art and urged him to remain loyal to his creative spirit, yet he did not extend a hand when Homburg was impoverished and ill. Later, facing both material and spiritual bankruptcy, Siegel finally overcomes his material crisis with a script outline left by Homburg, while deeply experiencing Homburg's spiritual suffering at the time. Saul Bellow (1915—2005) was a master-level novelist of the 20th century in the United States, winning the National Book Award three times and the Pulitzer Prize once. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 for his "understanding and exquisite analysis of contemporary culture." This book is Bellow's sixth novel, published in 1975. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1976, and Bellow himself became a Nobel laureate in the same year. Through the different experiences of two generations of American writers, it profoundly reveals the devastation of spiritual civilization by the material world.