Book Review 06-16-04
Henderson the Rain King

by Saul Bellow, published 1959

I don't exactly know how to review this book. I read it ignorant of its backstory or really of anything about Saul Bellow and his novels. So the review I initially wrote takes the book at face value, not as an extended literary in-joke. I still think that review says what I need it to say, even if it reveals my educational shortcomings when it comes to mid-20th century literature.

I admit, first of all, to falling into Bellow's trap by the first chapter, and taking a profound dislike to his protagonist. Eugene Henderson is a rich, stunted, profoundly confused and repulsive man. However, Bellow's genius lies in his ability to take this shallow excuse of a character and give him an epic, even heartbreaking, story.

It was not until I got further into Henderson the Rain King that I could be sure that Bellow himself was mocking Henderson; and it was not until I finished it that I understood why Bellow--and thus the reader--could still have compassion for such a person.

The plot synopsis is almost beside the point, but here goes; Henderson grows up rich, has all he wants, but feels a violent longing for "more" that he cannot suppress. After treating himself and everyone around him abominably, he flees to Africa in hopes of finding release and purpose. He ends up on a long, suffering trek through the wilderness and falls in with two African tribes, leaving both when his well-meaning efforts to help end in disaster. At the end, however, he seems to find some grace and courage to sustain him, and decides to return home, and perhaps become a doctor.

But this isn't really what grabbed me; instead, it was Bellow's way of making a man who is almost a walking cartoon into a living, despairing, pathetic human being. You hate him, and pity him too. I would recommend this and will definitely take the time to read Bellow again.