Ravelstein is Saul Bellow's final novel. Published in 2000, when Bellow was eighty-five years old, it received widespread critical acclaim. It tells the tale of a friendship between a university professor and a writer, and the complications that animate their erotic and intellectual attachments in the face of impending death. The novel is a roman à clef written in the form of a memoir. The narrator is in Paris with Abe Ravelstein, a renowned professor, and Nikki, his lover. Ravelstein, who is dying, asks the narrator to write a memoir about him after he dies. After his death, the narrator and his wife go on holiday to the Caribbean. The narrator catches a tropical disease and flies back to the United States to convalesce. Eventually, on recuperation, he decides to write the memoir. The title character, Ravelstein, is based on the philosopher Allan Bloom, who taught alongside Bellow at the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. Remembering Bloom in an interview, Bellow said, "Allan inhaled books and ideas the way the rest of us breathe air. ... People only want the factual truth. Well, the truth is that Allan was a very superior person, great-souled. When critics proclaim the death of the novel, I sometimes think they are really saying that there are no significant people to write about", but "Allan was certainly one." Characters Abe Ravelstein, a tall, renowned professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, based on Allan Bloom. Ravelstein studied under Felix Davarr and Alexandre Kojève. Nikki, Abe's Singapore-born Malaysian lover, modeled on Bloom's real life lover, Michael Wu. The narrator, a long-time friend of Ravelstein's who is somewhat older than him. Ravelstein refers to him by the nickname "Chick", but he otherwise remains nameless. Vela, the narrator's previous wife, a beautiful Romanian chaos theorist. Vela is based on Alexandra Bellow. Rosamund, the narrator's current wife. Based on Bellow's wife Janis Freedman. Rakhmiel Kogon, another professor who is a colleague of Ravelstein. The character is based on Bellow's friend Edward Shils. Marla Glyph, the wife (dead before the main action of the novel begins) of the chair of Ravelstein's university department. Ruby Tyson, Ravelstein's cleaning lady. Felix Davarr, a now-deceased academic and teacher/mentor of Ravelstein, based on Leo Strauss. Dr. Schley, cardiologist to both the narrator and Ravelstein. Professor Radu Grielescu, a Jungian professor rumoured to have been a Nazi sympathizer during World War II,