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The Dean's December

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dean's December
First edition cover
AuthorSaul Bellow
LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarper & Row
Publication date
1982
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages346
Preceded byHumboldt's Gift 
Followed byMore Die of Heartbreak 

The Dean's December is a 1982 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. It is his ninth novel, and the first novel Bellow published after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.

Brief synopsis

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Set in Chicago and Bucharest, the book's main character, Albert Corde, a meditative academic who faces a crisis, accompanies his Romanian-born astrophysicist wife to her Communist-ruled native country, where they deal with the death of his mother-in-law. This sojourn allows Corde to observe the workings of a totalitarian regime in particular and the Eastern Bloc in general, a perspective which provides him with insight into the human condition.

Reception

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In The New York Times Book Review, critic Robert Towers concluded, "The Dean's December confirms me in the opinion I have held since, nearly 30 years ago, I read The Adventures of Augie March (having, as an impecunious instructor, paid out hard cash for my hardcover copy just off the press): Sentence by sentence, page by page, Saul Bellow is simply the best writer that we have."[1]

Writing in The Boston Phoenix, Mark Shechner felt just the opposite. "Let me say plainly that The Dean's December is a bad piece of work: a dull book and a false one. ... The book is entirely lacking in steam. ... [It] sinks beneath the weight of its own factitiousness."[2]

References

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  1. ^ Robert Tower, " A Novel of Politics, Wit and Sorrow," The New York Times Book Review, January 10, 1982.
  2. ^ Shechner, Mark (February 2, 1982). "The dean's despair". The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
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