Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow Dies at 89

[Bossy Monkey]

Apr 5, 6:56 PM EDT

Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow Dies at 89

By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Nobel laureate Saul Bellow, a master of comic melancholy who in "Herzog," "Humboldt's Gift" and other novels both championed and mourned the soul's fate in the modern world, died Tuesday. He was 89.

Bellow's close friend and attorney, Walter Pozen, said the writer had been in declining health, but was "wonderfully sharp to the end." Pozen said that Bellow's wife and daughter were at his side when he died at his home in Brookline, Mass.

Bellow was the most acclaimed of a generation of Jewish writers who emerged after World War II, among them Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth and Cynthia Ozick. To American letters, he brought the immigrant's hustle, the bookworm's brains and the high-minded notions of the born romantic.

"The backbone of 20th-century American literature has been provided by two novelists - William Faulkner and Saul Bellow," Philip Roth said Tuesday. "Together they are the Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain of the 20th century."
(more)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBIT_BELLOW?SITE=SCCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Note to mods: I'm also posting an identical thread in the Lounge, so if this is felt to be inappropriate for LBN, just yank it.

[Book Lover]

1. Unhappy news

Not unexpected of course, but unhappy nonetheless. Excuse my melancholy, but what soil do we have now where such writers can bear fruit? Where is the new, strong American literature of this century at, and where is it coming from?

[Demeter]

2. GOP AD Campaigns, Of Course!

Best fiction money can buy!