I'll let Augie do most of the talking on this one. "But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles." Some authors work glacially, building ideas and themes over the course of many pages. Some prick us with voice--momentary words, instant but lasting images, piquant prose. Some leave us with indelible characters. It is a genius among geniuses who accomplishes all three. Bellow is a titan, even if Augie March is all-too-human. No matter that the book's other characters are most frequently foils, creations whose functions are illustrative, who do not strike with the blows of real-life individuals. No matter that the last two hundred pages or so seem disjointed and unjustified by the preceding four hundred. No matter that Bellow's imaginative linguistic permutations and juxtapositions are not sustained as thoroughly as might be de...
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