who is modeled directly on Bellow's friend and colleague, the Romanian historian Mircea Eliade. Morris Herbst, a professor friend of Ravelstein's, based on Bloom's friend, Werner Dannhauser. Battle, a British professor who moves to Wisconsin with his wife to retire; based on the British geographer Paul Wheatley. Sam Partiger, a friend of the narrator's who is introduced to Ravelstein. Roxie Durkin, a friend of Rosamund's. Dr. Bakst, the narrator's neurologist. Phil Gorman, Ravelstein's former student and now "one of the Secretary [of State]'s closest advisers", modeled on Paul Wolfowitz. Literary significance and criticism Literary reception Describing the novel in his memoir Experience, Martin Amis wrote: "Ravelstein is a full-length novel. It is also, in my view, a masterpiece with no analogues. The world has never heard this prose before: prose of such tremulous and crystallized beauty. ... [Ravelstein is] numinous. It constitutes an act of resuscitation, and in its pages Bloom lives." The literary theorist John Sutherland wrote: "The novel explores, in its attractively rambling way, two dauntingly large and touchy themes: death and American Jewishness. ... Not quite American (as the Canadian-born Jew Bellow is not quite American), Abe Ravelstein is the American mind and Bellow its finest living (thank God) voice. We should all have such friends." The literary critic Sir Malcolm Bradbury stated: "Just when we didn't expect it, there now wonderfully comes a large new novel from the master. ... Our world is a world of ideas, pervaded by minds, thoughts, notions, beyond which lies what we seek with such difficulty: wholeness, silence and love. Via print, Ravelstein survives; and Bellow survives. So does fiction itself." William Leith, writing in The Independent, argued: "As you would expect, Ravelstein, as a character, is beautifully drawn. He is 'impatient with hygiene'. He smokes constantly. 'When he coughed you heard the sump at the bottom of a mine shaft echoing.' His 'biological patchiness was a given'. Those who invite him to dinner must reckon with 'the spilling, splashing, crumbling, the nastiness of his napkin after he had used it, the pieces of cooked meat scattered under the table'. Like many Bellow characters, he has developed a mean streak. 'Nothing,' he declares, 'is more bourgeois than the fear of death.' ... This is the late late message from Bellow: death is humiliating. But there might be consolations. I almost forgot to say that Ravelstein is a brilliant novel" For Ron