Negative Positive
Title: so-so
Review: There's one aspect of this book that I found delightful: Bellow apparently did zero research -- ZERO! -- before setting his novel in Africa. He didn't bother to find out the names of tribes, languages, features of the geography, etc., before sitting down to write. Not that this is a fantastic Africa; it's just that it's an Africa as Saul Bellow thought it could have been.I found this to be a wonderful and inspiring approach. I find it a bit sad that our age is so caught up with historical accuracy. The pressure to provide it can frequently stifle an artist's creativity.So Bellow here is unapologetically a novelist, not a cultural anthropologist, almost in a passive-agressive way.However, I didn't think there was much else of interest to the book.
Is the review positive or negative? 