Word: bloomings
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...Saul Bellow choose to fictionalize the life of his dear friend, the late Allan Bloom? Perhaps it is because the facts of Bloom's life require a hermeneutic to frame a relatively coherent picture...
...Bellow writes many philosophical asides into the book. These very brief but highly content-full paragraphs remind us not only of Ravelstein's appetite for all the belles lettres, but also, by proxie, of Allan Bloom's own writing style. In the Closing of the American Mind, the screed on anti-intellectualism and academic nihilism that made him rich and famous,Bloom dispatches most Continental philosophy in a page, and postmodernism in a few short paragraphs. Here was a man who saw in grand narratives but could very easily produce piquant details at the first challenge...
Some critics admire the novel's ability to focus on both Bloom and Bellow. Chick, the narrator in Ravelstien, can be viewed as a lose sketch of Bellow...
Ravelstien, Bellow's first full-length novel in more than a decade, is loosely based on his friendship with Alan Bloom who was best known for his mid-1980's cultural commentary The Closing of American Minds in which he bemoaned the worthlessness of the modern liberal arts university education...
Many critics have expressed surprise at Bellow's candid account of his friendship with Bloom, who is now dead, that explores male friendship and Jewish culture. Bellow and Bloom became close friends while teaching together at the University of Chicago...