#13.2 HERZOG (9/10)
by Saul Bellow, part 2
When I asked my boss for his favourite novel by Saul Bellow he waxed lyrical about two, HERZOG and HUMBOLDT’S GIFT. I enjoyed the sound of a mad old professor writing letters to dead people so I decided to go with HERZOG. This is my second post about it. In comparison to all my other posts, so far, this one’s kinda deep… or at least, long. I’m circling and re-circling around the (imaginably) sad lonely—sexy—life of the intellectual reading, writing and living (?)—which is what the character of Moses Herzog most evidently represents to me. I’m also interrogating the set of circumstances which inspire me to write this here blog…
The first thing to note plainly is that reading Saul Bellow’s HERZOG isn’t easy. Therefore it’s not a time to be precious about “meaning”. Instead, you’d be better off trying to cover distance rather than try to pick up on any “tangible”, at least at the start. This reminds me of my time at uni spent reading academic articles where I discovered it much better to persevere through incomprehension and focus on reaching the end at which point, usually, some thin veil of understanding would have magically descended—and then go back to the start. (This is a theme.)
So let’s say you’re reading HERZOG, on board his train of thought,—journeying through a literary landscape wildly different from your own, trying to keep pace before/during & after your day job (a solid 50 pages a day1); relinquishing the close reading as mentioned above, but resting assured that at some point the accumulation of vague impressions—out the window—will come together (somehow) to form something both concrete and profound… and usually it does.
I leave every (good) novel with a piece of twisted clay in my pocket.
Once I find somewhere more comfortable, I take it out, and start pulling it into something more memorable and pointed, like a very demanding going home present.2
This way, long after I’ve closed the novel, I’ll remember it for something.
The experience of reading (and struggling to read) HERZOG was so fucking dense and clay-giving that I could have moulded “what I learnt” into a few summarising symbols—; “learnt” of course being a weird word here because reading novels has much less to do with learning and much more to do with providing occasions for thought.
In this post I’ll be sculpting my piece of learning clay into a pair of reading glasses—broken ones—because I want to remember HERZOG for the way in which it made me think about the sex appeal, and the death drive, of the figure of the intellectual.
The titular character of this novel, Moses Herzog, mentions all the big boys in passing: Hegel, Kierkegaard, Spinoza, De Tocqueville… and whilst I could pick up on a few specific slants in their thinking from reading it, generally speaking, I just felt impressed:
Ah so this is what it’s like eh? To have read everyone you’re supposed to have read & then be able to sweep reality with grandiose statements drawing on X, mitigating with Y?
And it is,— *cumshot* —THIS IS IT, the giant dwarf of human history catapulting towards you with stalactitic eyes ready to bore down into your chest and insert into you ONCE AND FOR ALL all of that slippery knowledge—everything you’ve spent a lifetime trying to grasp —ALL OF IT. At last. In your brainy, palmy, hands…
There’s something sexy about the figure of the intellectual—and something seductive about the process of learning. I want to be Her and I want to be with Him, and vice versa—not gonna pen myself in here. It must have something to do with all their castles in the air, and their dishevelled appearances which signal to me their subconscious decision to give precedence to the land of the forms over all the realms of reality (so very deep, so very dirty...)
When I think about the figure of the intellectual I see him running his fingers through his hair whilst sitting next to a steady source of light; or I see her bringing her hand to her mouth then back down to her keyboard again; sitting with stillness, travelling aeons in her head… spending hours and I mean hours carving invisible palaces—with hardly any production costs, yes. I like how greeeeeen the intellectual is (oh, the lovely intellectual) simultaneously monastic, indulgent…
Other times though, the sex appeal of the intellectual disintegrates quite quickly. Especially if you concentrate on the image of their body at the desk, grimacing, itching, sniffing…
No the image is not typically very sporty… and yet, I know it can be, angling then re-angling their body towards the screen like a boxer in a blizzard… readying dipping delivering, their enemy the conceptual entropy (of their own lives, or the confusion of history?) working tirelessly like some spider filming a time-lapse of themselves building a gigantic web then standing back, plucking strings, identifying resonances… here? There! There! (God I keep coming back to this question, what the fuck am I doing here? Writing a blog and posting it on the internet I mean. Why tho? Seems to me that at some point I’ve been royally seduced by the figure of the intellectual… and I think a lot of other people have been too, because it’s a very sexy/aristocratic position to be in.) The starter pack also appeals:
Ascetic lifestyle. Coffee darker than my ink. Deserving cigarettes. Shaved head. Solitude. Libraries. Urgency. Delay. Espressos. Clarity. Genius. Rot. Loneliness. Cups of tea. Pyjamas under my tracksuit…
But what if, what if it isn’t that I’m seduced by the figure of the intellectual but that the figure of the intellectual legitimises my deliciously indulgent anti-social way of being? (Herzog was scared of other people too. For good reason.) Sometimes, when I read and write my things I feel as if I am an accomplished human doing important work, and in those moments I could swear that books shouldn’t endure, but that somehow they do, and this is a mistake, an amazing mistake for which I am grateful for every day…
But what if—as Moses Herzog suggests—it’s a trap?
What if I’m actually grandfather squirrel itching his nuts from the bottom of his saggy armchair?
What if by choosing to spend so much time in the land of the forms it becomes increasingly harder and harder to come back?
Is my life unbalanced? Am I reading too much to the detriment of living? Isn’t that what intellectuals are supposed to do? (I don’t have any of the answers yet. I’ll keep looking.)
This is what HERZOG seems to be warning me though, take care intellectual don’t get stuck in your own web like one of those novelists (mad) dangling in their own constructions, because if you do then I warn you you’ll be fated to live a slow quiet not even death just messy uneventful unreal life...
The anxiety surrounding the intellectual vocation is felt si keenly in HERZOG and best summarised by this dialogue between Mr. Herzog and his best friend Asphalter half way through the novel when they’re both at critical stages. Read it here:
‘Have you read the book by that Hungarian woman Tina Zokóly about what to do in these crises?'
‘No. What does she say?'
'She prescribes certain exercises.'
Moses was interested. ‘What are they?'
'The main one is facing your own death.'
'How do you do that?'
Asphalter tried to maintain an ordinary, conversational, descriptive tone. Obviously it was a very difficult thing for him to talk about. Irresistible, though.
'You pretend you have already died,’ Asphalter began.
'The worst has happened . . . Yes?’ Herzog turned his head as if to hear better, listen more intently. His hands were folded in his lap, his shoulders had dropped with fatigue, his feet were turned inward. The musty bookish room with a clamp-light affixed to one of the crates and the stirring of leaves in the summer street brought Herzog some peace. True things in grotesque form, he was thinking. He knew how that was. He felt for Asphalter.
'The blow has fallen. The agony is over,' said Asphalter. 'You're dead, and you have to lie as if dead. What's it like in the casket? Padded silk.'
"Ah? So you construct it all. Must be pretty hard. I see...’ Moses sighed.
'It takes practice. You have to feel and not feel, be and not be. You're present and absent both.
And one by one the people in your life come and look. Father. Mother. Whoever you loved, or hated."
‘And what then?’ Herzog, wholly absorbed, looked at him more obliquely than ever.
'And then you ask yourself, "What have you got to say to them now? What do you feel for them?” Now there’s nothing to say but what you really thought. And you don’t say it to them because you’re dead, but only to yourself. Reality, not illusions. Truth, not lies. It’s over.’
‘Face death. That’s Heidegger. What comes out of this?’
This is a very straightforward introduction to the whole exercise of writing letters to dead people, a practise the novel is based around.
Saying what you really think, to yourself, this at least, is one part of what being a writer really means.
Which is what some of Herzog’s letters really are, interior monologues directed at certain people in his head.
Ironically though, when Asphalter describes this exercise to Herzog Herzog launched into a tirade against this kind of “anti-social behaviour” until, Herzog makes the connection between what his friend is describing and his own way of living… and then he cracks. (—well, he reaches for the Cutty Sark.) But before that, Herzog actually does face up to himself and it becomes a moment of genuine introspection. Listen:
“What can thoughtful people and humanists do but struggle toward suitable words? Take me, for instance. I've been writing letters helter-skelter in all directions. More words. I go after reality with language. Perhaps I'd like to change it all into language, to force Madeleine and Gersbach to have a Conscience. There's a word for you. I must be trying to keep tight the tensions without which human beings can no longer be called human. If they don't suffer, they've gotten away from me. And I've filled the world with letters to prevent their escape. I want them in human form, and so I conjure up a whole environment and catch them in the middle. I put my whole heart into these constructions. But they are constructions.”
“Yes, but you deal with human beings. What have I got to show? Rocco?”
(Because as a zoologist having a mid-life crisis, Asphalter is feeling much worse.)
“But let's stick to what matters.” [continues Herzog] “I really believe that brotherhood is what makes a man human. If I owe God a human life, this is where I fall down. ‘Man liveth not by Self, alone but in his brother's face ... Each shall behold the Eternal Father and love and joy bound.’ When the preachers of dread tell you that others only distract you from metaphysical freedom then you must turn away from them. The real and essential question is one of our employment by other human beings and their employment by us. Without this true employment you never dread death, you cultivate it. And consciousness when it doesn't clearly understand what to live for, what to die for, can only abuse and ridicule itself. As you do with the help of Rocco and Tina Zokóly, as I do by writing impertinent letters… I feel dizzy.”
That’s it.
That’s Saul Bellow waving a big red beautiful red flag at the activities of intellectuals, and writers, isn’t it?
It’s a very painful confession for Moses, the man of letters.
He’s having a profound moment of doubt regarding the social usefulness of his craft (something every writer faces).
The question is, can brotherhood or “employment by other human beings” truly happen on the page?
Sometimes I believe in the possibility of meaningful co-existence on the page though I know it’ll never be as good as my best instances of dancing, eating, cuddling…
Still. Herzog the English professor has devoted his whole life to reading and writing so let’s sit him down on the bottom step awhile and say this:
Herzog,
I know why you draft these “letters” to people in your head…
Because guess what?
I do it too.
It would be great if we could make speeches or have conversations instead… but hey, that’s not our medium. Sometimes we can’t say the things we wanna say… for many reasons. So we write them down instead.
Sometimes it has something to do with the anticipated failure of our own delivery… sometimes it’s a form of acceptance (in the wake of the repeated failure of our own reception) sometimes (and you’re a soft guy like me Mr. Herzog) sometimes it’s the pressure of social expectation which cripples us to the core…
But even if we did—one day—find ourselves in the perfect conditions for communication (the perfect delivery + the perfect audience)—even then, saying what you really think isn’t always the right thing to do.
And yet, we gotta express ourselves somehow, don’t we?
So how do we do it?
Why we grab the pen Mr. Herzog
Because we’re writers.
And we write a letter.
That is literally what we do.
Or, as is the case for you it seems like, you can get away with just spelling one silently in your head—lucky bastard—and this, this saves you.
Writing literally saves you.
It gives you chance to blow steam off your dark side, casually
And then what?
Then maybe you think hey, why not make a life of this? Since this is me in my natural element, isn’t it? Writing is what allows me to become, momentarily, the sophisticated and, socially acceptable, flasher in the park who profits from their weakness in a strong way by wilfully exposing their vulnerabilities in this activity which is both thrill and fantasy (the fantasy of perfection, the perfect delivery—and the thrill of connection, the perfect landing)—the goal of writing being to make someone feel like they understand you and then that’s it. You’re connected. Forever.
In other words, you make a friend in that weird subterranean intellectual realm described by some as the history of ideas (maybe?) The strength of this relationship is mitigated by the fact that it’s only really happened to one of you, at least in real time… but who cares?
You’ve got a fan.
I do wonder though how one of these connections that are created on the page register in the brain of a human reader?
Is it adding to the unreal web… or does it register as real connection?
(Someone hand me a brain scan.)
Is the history of ideas a shadowland of missed connections?
Ah anyway, I was supposed to be making Mr. Herzog feel better…
—listen, Saul, I’m talking to you again. Are intellectuals (does that include writers?) doomed to die early deaths on account of their failed personal lives? Does this artful craft require it? Is it an inevitable consequence or precursor to it? Is this really an outdated idea? Are we leaving it behind in the twentieth century? Is that wishful thinking? I just don’t understand how those writers were ever lonely if they were reading each other all the time?
The Harvard Study of Adult Development is quite interesting on this. They tracked the lives of 724 men over 75 years by executing and analysing regular questionnaires, interviews, brain scans, and medical records.
Though this might sound like standard procedure actually, for a study like this to continue every month every year year after year for 75 years, was very unusual because it required consistent participation from many people and new people having to replace the old people inevitably when they died off.
The most surprising thing this study discovered was that the most reliable way to determine a person’s life span is to look at the number and quality of their relationships.
So in essence, good relationships will keep you happy and healthy.
And on the flip-side, loneliness is toxic. It will literally kill you.
So what I would like to know now is why all of the shy sensitive intellectual/writer types can’t just connect with each other across space and time through books?
Is this the case? Is it not?
I ask because, after reading HERZOG, Saul Bellow didn’t seem to think it was.
But is that just because Moses Herzog was an academic and so much academic writing is so dry and anonymous? (haha—) maybe.
Could this be one good reason then why you as a writer should try to say where you are coming from and who you are whilst saying it because then, if you do manage to connect with someone from the present—or the future,—you may actually be increasing their lifespan out there?
According to this Harvard Study of Adult Development it isn’t just the number of relationships you have, but the quality of them too.
Which means as a reader you should definitely have a favourite author and get to know them. Read their entire creative output. Discover their fetishes.3
Well then, I think this turned out to be a piece of literary life advice. I hope you liked it.
Although I don’t yet have the courage to make you feel fully connected to me, I’m working on it…
Tilly
This is the anti-perfectionist runner training for a marathon approach to reading literature. 50 pages a day. Just keep moving. Keep track. Make it to the end then, go back.
You probably only have one or two months before your metaphorical piece of learning clay starts to dry out (unless you take really good notes which will indefinitely extend the wet-span of your clay.) But ultimately, there’s a golden era of reflection for everything. Don’t miss it.
Radishes? I know Kawabata Yasunari’s.