Judging by this fine novel published last year, late, late Bellow has lost little of the genius of his early, middle or late career. Published 56 years after the appearance of his debut, Dangling Man (1944), Ravelstein is the story of the larger than life eponymous hero, "a large Jewish man from Dayton, Ohio" and once-poor academic who finally hits the financial jackpot with a bestseller. The narrator is Chick, his friend, some 20 years older and already elderly, and the guy who told Ravelstein to write the book. Much has been made of the fact that Bellow based his novel on the life, sexuality and death of his friend Allan Bloom. Well that argument aside, it has to be said this is a tender, funny portrait of the central character, a famously messy eater, a generous, greedy man of learning and wit - while the narrative itself has the ease of a thoughtful memoir. Intellectual and streetwise, punchy and philosophical, it is classic Bellow. Above all, it's the story of a friendship filtered through meditations on death: a rich, beautiful and human performance from a wised-up literary master. This is a curiously personal, layered, at times hasty novel you won't forget.
