Herzog
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Narrated by:
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Malcolm Hillgartner
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By:
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Saul Bellow
About this listen
Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.
Like the protagonists of most of Bellow's novels - Dangling Man, The Victim, Seize the Day, Henderson the Rain King, etc. - Herzog is a man seeking balance, trying to regain a foothold on his life. Thrown out of his ex-wife's house, he retreats to his abandoned home in Ludeyville, a remote village in the Berkshire mountains to which Herzog had previously moved his wife and friends. Here amid the dust and vermin of the disused house, Herzog begins scribbling letters to family, friends, lovers, colleagues, enemies, dead philosophers, ex- Presidents - anyone with whom he feels compelled to set the record straight. The letters, we learn, are never sent. They are a means to cure himself of the immense psychic strain of his failed second marriage, a method by which he can recognize truths that will free him to love others and to learn to abide with the knowledge of death. In order to do so he must confront the fact that he has been a bad husband, a loving but poor father, an ungrateful child, a distant brother, an egoist to friends, and an apathetic citizen.
Herzog is primarily a novel of redemption. For all of its innovative techniques and brilliant comedy, it tells one of the oldest of stories. Like The Divine Comedy or the dark night of the soul of St. John of the Cross, it progresses from darkness to light, from ignorance to enlightenment. Today it is still considered one of the greatest literary expressions of postwar America.
©1992 Saul Bellow (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"A masterpiece." (New York Times Book Review)
"Herzog has the range, depth, intensity, verbal brilliance, and imaginative fullness - the mind and heart - which we may expect only of a novel that is unmistakably destined to last." (Newsweek)
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The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing who is intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. As Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London--and, indeed, the whole world--seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.
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Big chewy novel, excellent narration
- By Sand on 08-21-14
By: Martin Amis
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Peyton Place
- By: Grace Metalious
- Narrated by: Tim O'Connor
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1956, when this novel was first published, communities all over New England snapped up copies to see if they were the town portrayed in the book. Peyton Place is the story of a repressive New England town known for its high standards of public morality, and the steamy sexual activities that take place behind its bedroom doors.
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Best book I've read to date!
- By Crusader on 11-07-11
By: Grace Metalious
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The Vine of Desire
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Anju and Sudha formed an astounding, almost psychic connection during their childhood in India. When Anju invites Sudha, a single mother in Calcutta, to come live with her and her husband, Sunil, in California, Sudha foolishly accepts, knowing full well that Sunil has long desired her. As Sunil's attraction rises to the surface, the trio must struggle to make sense of the freedoms of America - and of the ties that bind them to India and to one another.
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Vine of desire
- By Mz Shantay on 03-27-21
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An American Dream
- By: Norman Mailer
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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As Stephen Rojack, a decorated war hero and former congressman who murders his wife in a fashionable New York City high-rise, runs amok through the city in which he was once a privileged citizen, author Norman Mailer peels away the layers of our social norms to reveal a world of pure appetite and relentless cruelty. One part Nietzsche, one part de Sade, and one part Charlie Parker, An American Dream grabs the listener by the throat and refuses to let go.
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Mailers Immodest masterpiece
- By W C Woods on 07-02-20
By: Norman Mailer
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Miss Lonelyhearts
- By: Nathanael West
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser, Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 2 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Miss Lonelyhearts is an unnamed male newspaper columnist writing an advice column, which is viewed by the newspaper as a joke. As "Miss Lonelyhearts" reads letters from desperate New Yorkers, he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional barfights. The novel is essentially a black comedy and is characterized by an extremely dark but clever sense of humor and irony.
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Charged with Meaning, and Far Leftist Leaning
- By W Perry Hall on 01-27-16
By: Nathanael West
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Lolita
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.
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An Absolutely Gorgeous Audible Experience
- By Jim on 10-26-05
By: Vladimir Nabokov
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Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
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MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
By: Toni Morrison
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Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
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A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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The Yiddish Policemen's Union
- A Novel
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: Peter Riegert
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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For 60 years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the federal district of Sitka, a temporary safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the district is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.
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Didn't finish...
- By Ann E O'Connor on 10-16-17
By: Michael Chabon
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The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
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Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
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If Voltaire did a bio of Plato
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Didn't love this collection
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THAT part of the Universe visible from Chicago!
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Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm has reached his day of reckoning and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos: he is separated from his wife and children; at odds with his vain, successful father; failed in his acting career (a Hollywood agent once placed him as “the type that loses the girl”); and in a financial mess.
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Didn't love this collection
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Sentimental
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Remarkable in its relevance 40 years later
- By The Mindfulness Guru on 09-07-20
By: Saul Bellow
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Kenneth Trachtenberg, an eccentric and witty native of Paris, travels to the Midwest to spend time with his famous American uncle, a world-renowned botanist and self-described "plant visionary". After numerous affairs and failed relationships, the restless Uncle Benn seeks a settled existence in the form of marriage - but tying the knot again opens the door to a host of new torments.
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A great book
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Missing half the content.
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A seminal classic
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When Cakes and Ale was first published in 1930 it roused a storm of controversy, since many people imagined they recognised portraits of literary figures now no more. It is the novel for which Maugham wished to be remembered.
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Delightful
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A convict named Farragut struggles to remain a man while inside a nightmarish prison. Cheever crafted his most powerful work of fiction out of Farragut's suffering and astonishing salvation.
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Worthy of the Pulitzer
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This Audible Exclusive recording of Angela Carter's iconic novel, Nights at the Circus, is brought to you by celebrated actress and voice artist, Adjoa Andoh. It is described by Carter herself as a 'psychedelic Dickens.' A compelling and thought provoking novel which heralds a new age, we're introduced to the unique and mesmerizing character of Sophi Fevvers and her illustrious wings....
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acid trip
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A winner of the National Book Award, The Moviegoer established Walker Percy as an insightful and grimly humorous storyteller. It is the tale of Binx Bolling, a small-time stockbroker who lives quietly in suburban New Orleans, pursuing an interest in the movies, affairs with his secretaries, and living out his days. But soon he finds himself on a "search" for something more important, some spiritual truth to anchor him.
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What listeners say about Herzog
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- IVAL
- 02-23-13
Jewish angst at its finest!
Poor Herzog! Brilliant, obsessed, twice divorced, broke, bruised by everything from real estate to child custody. How could I like him so much and hope for a happy ending to a book so full of the complexity of life? But I did. Perhaps it was the overwhelming passion he feels toward everything, both good and bad, past and present, that kept me with Moses Herzog throughout the book. Very little overwhelming passion exists in the world....
Malcolm hillgartner's narration catches the manic intensity of Herzog's rants (sections a visual reader might choose to skip) without being annoying. The narration also amplified the touching aspects of the story and its protagonist.
I feel I have explored the personality of Herzog more deeply than I have most actual people I know. And this exploration has shown me much to like, admire and sympathize with. An intense book that I am glad I read.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Jerry Hilts
- 03-04-13
Just Can't Connect with Bellow
Given his reputation, and the high esteem in which he his held by writers whom I hold in high esteem, I always feel like I should like Bellow more than I do. Herzog is a good book, but (for me) not a great one.
I'm tempted to blame my ho-hum reaction on the fact his characters often seem less like real people and more like puppets for the author, through which he can espouse some point or another. But if I'm honest that same argument could be made with even more accuracy at authors I love like Pynchon and DeLillo. Maybe it's just that what he has to say isn't all that interesting.
It could be that I find language is unmoving. There are occasional phrases that seem clever, but there's no musicality.
Whatever it is, Bellow just leaves me a bit bored.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Kevin
- 11-02-17
Amazing Novel
You cannot go wrong with Saul Bellow’s chef d'oeuvre. I have no more to say. Nothing. Not a single word.
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- Damon LaBarbera, PhD
- 03-07-21
Wonderful
At the start we see Herzog padding around his otherwise deserted house in the Berkshires, living with mice and brambles, and writing letters feverishly to friends, celebrities, family dead and alive, and thinkers from the past. He has dialogues with dead philosophers telling them the points on which he disagrees.He has spent his modest inheritance on what was meant to be his and his wife's home. Alone and divorced now, he lives almost ferally, sleeping in a hammock and eating berries from the yard. Meanwhile, Madeline, his former life, has left for graduate school, has their child, and is involved with his best friend, Valerie Gersbach, in Chicago. From this initial scene, the story meanders forward and backward, voiced in Herzog's thoughts as his inner life, his observations, and the content of his expansive letters, ,a mix of brilliance, egotism, humor, and self-justification becomes the surface of the novel. We live his inner experience as he deals with the multiple betrayals, and harsh characters, comic but brutal, in his life. His inwardness is made external via his hypergraphia, conversations, and musings. The type of person who lands on his feet and whose luck never entirely runs out, he has had romances with impressive and accomplished women. The novel was reviewed widely when released and considered semi-autobiographical. This certainly is an idea fest--and depiction of a subtle, brilliant, evasive, and comic personality. It is worth reading just for the language and writing, the unusual and distinct characters, and the depiction of Herzog's entertainingly articulate inner monologue.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Gilford Fred
- 02-17-23
Foreign languages are hard, but…
If you don’t speak a foreign language, find a coach who does. Lots of “winging it” in this book, which is a pity because these languages are such an important part of the character’s world.
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- Louise Wilson
- 08-03-22
Herzog, the man.
Excellent look inside a culture I am not a part of. Very insightful. Enjoyed it.
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- sherri
- 12-14-12
Wrong reader
When listening to the sample, I thought this reader would be OK; but after a few chapters, I couldn't stand to listen any more. I had to stop before this reader entirely destroyed the book for me. I loved this novel when I first read it many years ago--Herzog's urgent letters to everyone, the humor. There's nothing wrong with the quality of Hillgartner's performance but I found his interpretation wrong. He pounds out the words, ignoring any poetry in Bellow's writing. The constant low-level irony allows no room for the places where irony really belongs and it provokes irritation at Herzog, even dislike of this character. In Bellow's hands, not Hillgartner's, Herzog is more likely to provoke empathy for his vanities, foibles, and many errors--his humanity.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Barry
- 03-21-12
An excellent performance
What did you love best about Herzog?
The novel demonstrates how consciousness and our reality is formed and altered by theories or narratives and how a person can benefit by becoming more engaged.
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Story
- registrato
- 09-05-11
only the reader (listener) is dull
Would you listen to Herzog again? Why?
Yes. In fact, I already have.
Any additional comments?
I just read a review of this book that said it is "dull, dull, dull." While everybody's entitled to his/her opinion, if this book is "dull," it's dull in the same way that all classic literature is dull. I suppose you could say the same for "1984," "The Grapes of Wrath," "Huckleberry Finn," and "The Sound And The Fury." Mr. Bellow, winning a Nobel prize and all, probably doesn't need defending, but when I see reviews calling the very best books dull, I see red.
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20 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- The idiot
- 07-13-15
A good read
If a fan of Bellow's work then Herzog is a good book worth the time to listen.
It in its own way a coming of middle age story about a man on the verge of a nervous brake down slowly finding his way through the device of letter writing. Writing to the living, to the dead, to those Famous and those that are or were a part of his life.
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