Augie March

[Mark Kohut]

I used to recite that opening ..often..too often (as eyes glazed over)....like I post too much.....

Bellow worked for the Great Books division of Encyclopedia Britannica in his youth...lots of allusions....Herzog the most.



----- Original Message ----
From: "Carvill, John" <john.carvill at sap.com>
To: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>; "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, May 12, 2010 4:04:22 AM
Subject: Augie March

> I'm currently (very slowly) reading Augie March (I like it, but the writing's dense)but have nothing specific lined up afterwards.

Ever since I first read the opening chapters of Augie March, I've felt it was a book which was ripe for an annotated edition, something like Penguin's annotated Lolita. I mean, there's a reference to Heraclitus in the first paragraph! Plus it's kinda sorta a bit like 'Against the Day' in its looseness etc. A-and, Saul Bellow is an intriguing character, to say the least.

Yeah, my vote goes to Augie March.


"I am an American, Chicago born — Chicago, that somber city — and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles."