Saul Bellow’s most recent publication, The Actual, brings his literary production—in a publishing career now spanning more than half a century—to some eighteen volumes of prose fiction, criticism, travel writing, and reminiscence. In his longevity, at least, he has rivaled William Dean Howells, and it may turn out that Bellow will have done best, for our time, what Howells did well for nineteenth-century America—that is, to have provided a reasonably realistic and representative portrait of the moral and social tendencies of his time. Hippolyte Taine called Howells “a precious painter and a sovereign witness,” and a like tribute may be voiced in respect to Bellow. In any case, both men in old age earned the “distinction” of being called “the Dean of American Letters.” In Bellow’s case, its literal relevance may lie in his having poured himself, so fully, into The Dean’s December (1982).

Bellow most likely will be remembered for his comic, freewheeling novels: Adventures of Augie March (1953)—which won the National Book Award; Henderson the Rain King (1959); Herzog (1964)—another NBA winner; Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970)—ditto; and Humboldt’s Gift, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975. Still, in certain moods, I confess to a partiality for Bellow in a minor key. He launched his literary career, more than fifty years ago, with that genre sanctified by Henry James as the “blest nouvelle.” Dangling Man (1944) dealt with the Kafkaesque situation of a young man awaiting induction into the army in World War II.