Primary Works

Dangling man. NY: Vanguard P, 1944. PS3503.E4488 D3

The Victim. NY: Vanguard P, 1947. PS3503.E4488 .V5

The Adventures of Augie March, 1953.

Seize the Day, 1956.

Henderson, the rain king; a novel. NY: Viking P, 1959. PS3503.E4488 .H4

Herzog, 1964.

The last analysis. NY: Viking P, 1965. PS3503.E4488 L3

The Arts & the public. Essays by Saul Bellow and others. Edited by James E. Miller, Jr. and Paul D. Herring. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1967 PS688 .A7

Mosby's memoirs and other stories. NY: Viking P, 1968. PS3503.E4488 M6

Mr. Sammler's planet. NY: Viking P, 1970. PS3503.E4488 .M4

Technology and the frontiers of knowledge. Foreword: Daniel J. Boorstin. Contributors Saul Bellow and others. The Frank Nelson Doubleday lectures; 1972 73. T185 T38

Humboldt's gift. NY: Viking P, 1975. PS3503.E4488 H8

To Jerusalem and back: a personal account. NY: Viking P, 1976. DS107.4 B37

The dean's December: a novel. NY: Harper & Row, 1982. PS3503.E4488 D4

Him with his foot in his mouth and other stories. NY: Harper & Row, 1984. PS3503 .E4488 H56

More die of heartbreak. NY: Morrow, 1987. PS3503 .E4488 M5

A theft: a novella. NY: Penguin Books, 1989. PS 3503 .E4488 T4

The bellarosa connection. NY: Penguin, 1989. PS3503 .E4488 B45

Something to Remember Me By, 1991.

It all adds up: from the dim past to the uncertain future: a nonfiction collection. NY: Viking, 1994. PS3503 .E4488 O23

The actual. NY: Viking, 1997. PS3503 .E4488 A63

Letters. edited by Benjamin Taylor. Viking, 2010.

| Top | Selected Bibliography 2000-Present

Assadi, Jamal. Acting, Rhetoric, and Interpretation in Selected Novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Saul Bellow. NY: Peter Lang, 2006.

Atlas, James. Bellow: A Biography. NY: Random House, 2000.

Bellow, Greg. Saul Bellow's Heart: A Son's Memoir. NY: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Chodat, Robert. Worldly Acts and Sentient Things: The Persistence of Agency from Stein to DeLillo. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2008.

Clements, James. Mysticism and the Mid-Century Novel. NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Codde, Philippe. The Jewish American Novel. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue UP, 2007.

Halldorson, Stephanie S. The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction: The Works of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo. NY: Continuum, 2007.

Margolies, Edward. New York and the Literary Imagination: The City in Twentieth Century Fiction and Drama. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

Quayum, M. A. Saul Bellow and American Transcendentalism. NY: Peter Lang, 2004.

Wirth-Nesher, Hana. Call It English: The Languages of Jewish American Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2006.

Study Questions

"Looking for Mr. Green"

1. (a) What is the purpose in the story of Grebe's supervisor Raynor? What is Bellow's attitude toward Raynor's cynical "wisdom"? Is concern for the individual anachronistic? For philosophical studies?

(b) What is the purpose of the encounter with the Italian grocer who presents a hellish vision of the city with its chaotic masses of suffering humanity?

(c) The old man Field offers this view of money--"Nothing is black where it shines and the only place you see black is where it ain't shining." Discuss. What do you think of the scheme for creating black millionaires? Why does Bellow include this scheme in the story?

(d) What is the purpose of the Staika incident in the story? Raynor sees her as embodying "the destructive force" that will "submerge everybody in time," including "nations and governments." In contrast, Grebe sees her as "the life force." Who is closer to the truth?

(e) The word "sun" and sun imagery are repeated throughout the story. Discuss.

2. (a) Discuss the theme of appearance versus reality.

(b) Bellow ends the story with Grebe's encounter with the drunken, naked black woman, who may be another embodi- ment of the spirit of Staika. Why does Bellow conclude the story this way? Has Grebe failed or succeeded? Is he deceiving himself?

(c) David Demarest comments: "Grebe's stubborn idealism is nothing less than the basic human need to construct the world according to intelligent, moral principles." Discuss.

(d) Believing that "Looking for Mr. Green" needs to be seen "as one of the great short stories of our time," Eusebio Rodrigues argues that the Old Testament flavors it. This story is "a modern dramatization of Ecclesiastes." Discuss.

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 10: Saul Bellow." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL: http://www.paulreuben.website/pal/chap10/bellow.html (provide page date or date of your login).