The Dean's December
 First edition cover | |
| Author | Saul Bellow |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Harper & Row |
Publication date | 1982 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 346 |
| Preceded by | Humboldt's Gift |
| Followed by | More Die of Heartbreak |
The Dean's December is a 1982 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. It is his ninth novel, and the first novel Bellow published after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.
Brief synopsis
[edit]Set in Chicago and Bucharest, the book's main character, Albert Corde, a meditative academic who faces a crisis, accompanies his Romanian-born astrophysicist wife to her Communist-ruled native country, where they deal with the death of his mother-in-law. This sojourn allows Corde to observe the workings of a totalitarian regime in particular and the Eastern Bloc in general, a perspective which provides him with insight into the human condition.
Reception
[edit]In The New York Times Book Review, critic Robert Towers concluded, "The Dean's December confirms me in the opinion I have held since, nearly 30 years ago, I read The Adventures of Augie March (having, as an impecunious instructor, paid out hard cash for my hardcover copy just off the press): Sentence by sentence, page by page, Saul Bellow is simply the best writer that we have."[1]
Writing in The Boston Phoenix, Mark Shechner felt just the opposite. "Let me say plainly that The Dean's December is a bad piece of work: a dull book and a false one. ... The book is entirely lacking in steam. ... [It] sinks beneath the weight of its own factitiousness."[2]
References
[edit]- ^ Robert Tower, " A Novel of Politics, Wit and Sorrow," The New York Times Book Review, January 10, 1982.
- ^ Shechner, Mark (February 2, 1982). "The dean's despair". The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
External links
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