Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Herzog is a novel by Saul Bellow that was published in 1964. It is the story of a middle-aged Jewish man in his early forties going through an existential crisis and neurosis. The novel incorporates several contrasting ideas such as nihilism and hope, despair and comic irony, and alienation and accommodation. The protagonist appears to be masochistic and passive, yet he tends also to be willful and sadistic. He believes in reason but is suffering from a protracted nervous crisis, following the collapse of his second marriage, that leads him to the brink of suicide. The major theme of the novel is to suggest that people must survive by maintaining a painful awareness of this mixed human condition, that life is an attempt to maintain equilibrium between nihilism and hope, and that life involves the necessity of accepting fragmentation, flux, failure, suffering, irrationality, sexuality, decay, and death.
The novel includes several letters that the protagonist writes. The letters are cranky, brilliant, poignant and, of course, they are never sent. He writes these letters to his friends, family members, and celebrities. In all these letters, he expresses disappointment either in the failings of others or their words, or apologizing for the way he has disappointed others.
Herzog won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction of 1964 and in 2005, Time magazine named it one of the 100 best novels in the English language since Time's founding in 1923.
The novel is written from the point of view of Moses Herzog, the protagonist
Characters of Herzog:
Moses Elkanah Herzog is the protagonist of the novel. He is a forty-three-year-old American Jewish man going through an emotional crisis. He is an erudite intellectual. He writes letters to express his ideas though he never posts those letters. Later, he feels that his intellect may have been a burden breaking him down and says, The intellectual has been a Separatist.
He has been cuckolded by his best friend, Valentine Gersbach; both of his marriages have failed; and he has failed to achieve his intellectual quest to resolve the philosophical problems of Romanticism. He is still determining who he is and what his goals are.
Madeline Herzog is his wife who recently divorced him for his close friend Valentine. She also maintained the custody of their daughter Julie. Madeline is the epitome of the selfish, neurotic yet attractive character, making her all the more dangerous female. By birth, she is a Jew but she is more interested in the traditional pieties of Christianity and America. She is beautiful, brilliant, cracked, and works for a doctorate in Russian church history. Her aim is to prove that she is no less intellectual than Herzog. She is flirtatious and dazzling in conversations. Unlike Herzog, she is expressive, a slut at home, and a bitch in bed, she expects a different kind of life. Initially, Herzog expresses all negative thoughts towards Madeline but as the novel proceeds and Herzog begins feeling better and getting rid of his neurosis, he begins letting her go, forgiving and forgetting her. Valentine is a handsome and interesting character. When Madeline gets pregnant, she wishes Herzog to spend more time with her but Herzog prefers his intellectual pursuit. Madeline turns towards Valentine during that period. Madeline is using Valentine to rise high in the intellectual circles. Romana is a beautiful girl in her thirties. She is the recent love interest of Herzog whom he met after his divorce. She is a beautiful, exotic female who devotes herself to sensual experiences. She wants to marry Herzog but doesn’t wish to dominate him like Madeline did. Sandor Himmelstein is Herzog’s lawyer in Chicago who handled his divorce. Harvey Simkin is Herzog’s lawyer in New York whom he requests to help in getting custody of Junie. Simkin tells Herzog to be more practical. Daisy is Herzog’s first wife and Marco is his son from Daisy. Phoebe is Valentine’s wife who doesn’t believe that her husband is having an affair with Madeline. William Herzog is Moses’s younger brother. He is a successful, rational person who helps Herzog and offers bail to him when Moses meets an accident and is charged with possession of a loaded weapon. Geraldine Portnoy is a former student of Herzog who is recently babysitting Junie at Madeline’s home.
Summary of Herzog:
Moses Herzog is wondering about his many failures. His personal life has collapsed and the world itself seems chaotic and mad. He wonders if life has any meaning. He is living alone in his apartment in Berkshire. He recently got divorced from his second wife Madeline. He has two children. His first child Marco lives with his mother and Herzog’s first wife Daisy. His second child, Junie is in the custody of Madeline, her mother and Herzog’s second wife who recently divorced him and chose to live with Valentine Gersbach, one of Herzog’s childhood friends and colleagues. After this debacle, Herzog pushed himself into a complex process of self-examination. He wonders who is he, what is real, and what is unreal, and he has no answers to it. He feels he is suffering from neurosis. If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog. To clarify things, he begins writing letters that he never posts to anybody. Sometimes on paper and other times only in his mind. He writes letters to people he knows, those he has never met, and individuals who died a long time before he was born. He writes letters to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Friedrich Nietzsche, his deceased mother, his intellectual opponents, and even God. In the letters, Moses argues about intellectual ideas held by the individuals or about the things he has said or failed to say.
Moses meets his recent girlfriend Romana who insists that he needs rest and care and requests him to spend the night at her place but he says that he needs to go to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts to visit a friend. During his travels, he continues to write letters. Just a few months ago, his wife Madeline was pregnant with his child. She insisted on moving to Chicago and being a good husband, he couldn’t say no. He spent his $20,000 inheritance on moving from the Berkshires to Chicago and then she had left him for his friend, his ex-friend Valentine. When he reaches Martha’s Vineyard, he retreats to the room prepared for him by his hosts. He finds no peace there. He leaves a note saying bye and returns to New York by plane, and back in his apartment, he begins writing letters once more.
He continued writing letters the other day. In the afternoon, he gets a letter from Geraldine Portnoy, one of his former students living in Chicago. She informs Moses that when she was walking past Madeline’s house, she noticed Valentine had left Junie locked in the car. This further disturbs Moses. He opts to go to Romana’s place to have dinner with her and spends the night there. The next day, he consults his lawyer Harvey Simkin to discuss whether he can gain custody of his daughter, June, from Madeline. Harvey has prior meetings but he agrees to offer time in the courthouse. Herzog goes to the courthouse and waits for Harvey. During this period, he witnesses several cases being discussed. He hears of a case of an unmarried couple accused of beating the woman’s son to death.
Herzog gets too disturbed and decides to go back to Chicago. He goes to his father’s old house, which is now inhabited by his stepmother, and retrieves a pistol owned by his father. The gun has two bullets in it. He takes the pistol with the idea of killing Madeline and Valentine and running away with Junie. He visits Madeline’s house and observes quietly. From the kitchen window, he sees that Madeline is washing dishes. He goes around to check the bathroom and through the window, he sees Valentine bathing Junie with so much patience and love. Herzog feels that his daughter is in no danger. He drops the idea of getting violent and decides to return. He realizes that he cannot murder anyone. Moses visits Valentine’s home and meets his wife Phoebe who declines to believe that her husband is having an affair with Madeline and refuses to help Moses in gaining custody of Junie. Herzog goes to meet his friend Lucas Asphalter who arranges for Moses to visit June the following day.
The next day, Moses takes Junie to an aquarium. While returning, his car collides with a truck. While Junie is safe, Moses gets unconscious. The police investigate and find the loaded pistol in possession of Moses. They arrest him. Madeline visits the police station to get Junie and she further insults Moses. Moses’s brother, William, pays his bail. Moses asks William to visit his home in Ludeyville, Massachusetts that he bought for Madeline. William agrees to go with him. After their marriage, Madeline wished to live in the countryside. Moses spent a major part of his inheritance to buy the house and he loved living there. But Madeline got tired of living in the country and insisted that they should move to Chicago, and then she left him alone. The house has long been deserted.
William compliments the house and says that if Moses wishes to sell it, he will get a good price.
Moses learns that Romana is trying to call him and he asks William to drop him to New York at Romana’s place. Moses asks Romana to have dinner that evening with him at his home in Ludeyville. Romana agrees and William drives both of them back to Ludyville. Moses calls a home helper who begins cleaning the kitchen while Moses prepares for dinner. He realizes that he feels no need to write any more letters. He begins feeling peace at his home and decides to stay at Ludyville for some time. He also calls his first wife and asks her to send Marco to Ludeyville for a visit after his summer camp ends. He begins forgiving and forgetting Madeline.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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