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Henderson the Rain King
A middle-age American millionaire goes to Africa in search of a more meaningful life and receives the adoration of an African tribe that believes he has a gift for rainmaking.
341 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
465 people are currently reading
13886 people want to read
About the author
Saul Bellow
249 books1,928 followersNovels of Saul Bellow, Canadian-American writer, include
Dangling Man
in 1944 and
Humboldt's Gift
in 1975 and often concern an alienated individual within an indifferent society; he won the Nobel Prize of 1976 for literature.
People widely regard one most important Saul Bellow of the 20th century. Known for his rich prose, intellectual depth, and incisive character studies, Bellow explored themes of identity and the complexities of modern life with a distinct voice that fused philosophical insight and streetwise humor. Herzog , The Adventures of Augie March , and Mister Sammler’s Planet , his major works, earned critical acclaim and a lasting legacy.
Born in Lachine, Quebec, to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Saul Bellow at a young age moved with his family to Chicago, a city that shaped much worldview and a frequent backdrop in his fiction. He studied anthropology at the University of Chicago and later Northwestern, and his intellectual interests deeply informed him. Bellow briefly pursued graduate studies in anthropology, quickly turned, and first published.
Breakthrough of Saul Bellow came with The Adventures of Augie March , a sprawling, exuberance that in 1953 marked the national book award and a new direction in fiction. With energetic language and episodic structure, it introduced readers to a new kind of unapologetically intellectual yet deeply grounded hero in the realities of urban life. Over the following decades, Bellow produced a series of acclaimed that further cemented his reputation. In Herzog , considered his masterpiece in 1964, a psychological portrait of inner turmoil of a troubled academic unfolds through a series of unsent letters, while a semi-autobiographical reflection on art and fame gained the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1976, people awarded human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture of Saul Bellow. He only thrice gained the national book award for fiction and also received the medal of arts and the lifetime achievement of the library of Congress.
Beyond fiction, Saul Bellow, a passionate essayist, taught. He held academic positions at institutions, such as the University of Minnesota, Princeton, and Boston University, and people knew his sharp intellect and lively classroom presence. Despite his stature, Bellow cared about ordinary people and infused his work with humor, moral reflection, and a deep appreciation of contradictions of life.
People can see influence of Saul Bellow in the work of countless followers. His uniquely and universally resonant voice ably combined the comic, the profound, the intellectual, and the visceral. He continued into his later years to publish his final Ravelstein in 2000.
People continue to read work of Saul Bellow and to celebrate its wisdom, vitality, and fearless examination of humanity in a chaotic world.
People widely regard one most important Saul Bellow of the 20th century. Known for his rich prose, intellectual depth, and incisive character studies, Bellow explored themes of identity and the complexities of modern life with a distinct voice that fused philosophical insight and streetwise humor. Herzog , The Adventures of Augie March , and Mister Sammler’s Planet , his major works, earned critical acclaim and a lasting legacy.
Born in Lachine, Quebec, to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Saul Bellow at a young age moved with his family to Chicago, a city that shaped much worldview and a frequent backdrop in his fiction. He studied anthropology at the University of Chicago and later Northwestern, and his intellectual interests deeply informed him. Bellow briefly pursued graduate studies in anthropology, quickly turned, and first published.
Breakthrough of Saul Bellow came with The Adventures of Augie March , a sprawling, exuberance that in 1953 marked the national book award and a new direction in fiction. With energetic language and episodic structure, it introduced readers to a new kind of unapologetically intellectual yet deeply grounded hero in the realities of urban life. Over the following decades, Bellow produced a series of acclaimed that further cemented his reputation. In Herzog , considered his masterpiece in 1964, a psychological portrait of inner turmoil of a troubled academic unfolds through a series of unsent letters, while a semi-autobiographical reflection on art and fame gained the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1976, people awarded human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture of Saul Bellow. He only thrice gained the national book award for fiction and also received the medal of arts and the lifetime achievement of the library of Congress.
Beyond fiction, Saul Bellow, a passionate essayist, taught. He held academic positions at institutions, such as the University of Minnesota, Princeton, and Boston University, and people knew his sharp intellect and lively classroom presence. Despite his stature, Bellow cared about ordinary people and infused his work with humor, moral reflection, and a deep appreciation of contradictions of life.
People can see influence of Saul Bellow in the work of countless followers. His uniquely and universally resonant voice ably combined the comic, the profound, the intellectual, and the visceral. He continued into his later years to publish his final Ravelstein in 2000.
People continue to read work of Saul Bellow and to celebrate its wisdom, vitality, and fearless examination of humanity in a chaotic world.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,044 reviews
July 25, 2024
Do the modern achievements of civilization bring good? Or do they bring evil? Isn’t it better to return to the primordial roots and become a part of nature?
Protagonist – a future rainmaker – is a picturesque persona…
Henderson is tired of civilization and, in search of pristine human origins, he runs away to Africa.
But an incorrigible intellectual among the primordial people is like a sailor marooned on a desert island among mice.
He who is an idealist in his homeland is an idealist anywhere.
Render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.
Protagonist – a future rainmaker – is a picturesque persona…
Here comes Henderson of the U.S.A. – Captain Henderson, Purple Heart, veteran of North Africa, Sicily, Monte Cassino, etc., a giant shadow, a man of flesh and blood, a restless seeker, pitiful and rude, a stubborn old lush with broken bridgework, threatening death and suicide.
Henderson is tired of civilization and, in search of pristine human origins, he runs away to Africa.
All human accomplishment has this same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination! It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!
But an incorrigible intellectual among the primordial people is like a sailor marooned on a desert island among mice.
He who is an idealist in his homeland is an idealist anywhere.
Render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.
August 15, 2015
Although I enjoyed the book, I have trouble improving on this brief summary from onestarbookreviews:
A rich old man goes to Africa to find himself, only to get tangled up in one huge, extended metaphor with a lion.
July 18, 2015
Holden Caulfield goes to Africa.
May 22, 2013
If you can endure the narcissistic, misogynistic narrator-protagonist, if you can pretend to believe that every woman he meets wants to jump his bones, every guy wants to become his pal and no one anywhere wants to slap him silly, if you can abide the phony African setting, if you can shrug off the plot contrivances and force yourself to care about yet another privileged male’s midlife crisis, if you can avoid rolling your eyes out of socket at the “humorous” mishaps caused by the Rabelaisian hero against the noble savages he pursues, then occasionally you will find some perceptive observations in this novel. Eventually the narrator will reveal a spark of humanity. Once or twice he will treat women as though they’re almost human. And some of the author’s descriptive flourishes will evoke genuine pleasure.
But Bellow here wants it both ways: he wants to parody the Hemingway-esque hero type and he also wants page after page philosophical babble to be taken seriously. I couldn’t do it. Over and over again I set this book aside never wanting to look at it again; I read review after review trying to appreciate what others saw; I forced myself to continue in an effort to understand its critical acclaim; but I'm still baffled.
But Bellow here wants it both ways: he wants to parody the Hemingway-esque hero type and he also wants page after page philosophical babble to be taken seriously. I couldn’t do it. Over and over again I set this book aside never wanting to look at it again; I read review after review trying to appreciate what others saw; I forced myself to continue in an effort to understand its critical acclaim; but I'm still baffled.
June 9, 2022
از عالم و آدم دور شده بودم و رسیده بودیم به زمین صافی که کوهها گردش را احاطه کرده بودند. منطقه خشک و داغ و بایری بود و چند روز بود که ردپایی نمیدیدیم. گیاهی هم وجود نداشت. اصلاً هیچی نبود. فقط زمین صاف و ساده، و من خیال میکردم وارد تاریخ شدهام. تاریخ هستی، نه این تاریخ مسخره ما انسانها. تاریخ ایامی که هنوز خبری از بشر نبود.
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کتاب در مورد فردی به نام هندرسون است. چرا حالا شاه باران؟ چون وارد یک قبیلهی افریقایی شده و با ورودش باران اومده... حالا باید دید هندرسون خودش ناجیه یا منجی ...
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من صوتی این کتاب با صدای آقای عمرانی گوش دادم، طنز داستان عالی بود و خلاصه خيلی گوش دادن به این کتاب خوب و جالب بود.
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کتاب در مورد فردی به نام هندرسون است. چرا حالا شاه باران؟ چون وارد یک قبیلهی افریقایی شده و با ورودش باران اومده... حالا باید دید هندرسون خودش ناجیه یا منجی ...
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من صوتی این کتاب با صدای آقای عمرانی گوش دادم، طنز داستان عالی بود و خلاصه خيلی گوش دادن به این کتاب خوب و جالب بود.
October 28, 2023
Astonishing. Subtly madcap. An endearing, charming book. My 2nd or 3rd reading.
His name is Eugene Henderson. He's a mountain of a man, and all existential angst. He is from a storied family, owns an extensive estate in New Jersey, where he has raised pigs, and has been left $3 million (1958 US) by his neurasthenic, violin playing father. He's an Episcopalian or something, a blowhard and a bully. He's quite a talker, a sojourner in life, possessed of the remarkable gift of being able to externalize his feelings — and he is unhappy.
He is "rash and unlucky and acts without sufficient reflection" (p. 88) He seeks purpose. At 63 he's too old to become a doctor, but he gives it considerable thought. When he tells his first wife what's on his mind, she laughs in his face and he divorces her. Ultimately he goes to Africa with a friend, this travel another kind of externalization, of his lostness.
His speech to Queen Willatale of the Arnewi — he's deep in the interior of Africa now — sums up his mindset.
"Oh, it's miserable to be human. . . Just another vehicle for temper and vanity and rashness and all the rest. Who wants it? Who needs it? These things occupy the place where a man's soul should be. But as long as she [the queen] has started I want her to read me the whole indictment. I can fill her in on a lot of counts, though I don't think I would have to. She seems to know. Lust, rage, and all the rest of it. A regular bargain basement of deformities ..." (p. 78)
A few keywords. One is rash and the other is blow. Henderson is hasty and rash in his actions. Life and suffering are like blows which constantly assail him. Shuddering under the blows, however, he can be very funny and not infrequently annoying.
After he destroys the frogs in the Arnewi cistern he hightails it on foot to the far less hospitable Wariri, who put him up for the night in a room with a corpse, which he deeply resents. He decides to move the corpse. Lest, he be blamed for killing it.
"I rose and tied a blanket under my chin, a precaution against stains. I had decided to carry the man on my back in case we had to run for it. . . First I pulled the body away from the wall. Then I took it by the wrists and with a quick turn, bending, hauled it on my back. I was afraid lest the arms begin to exert a grip on my neck from behind. Tears of anger and repugnance began to hang from my eyes. I fought to stifle these feelings back into my chest. And I thought, what if this man should turn out to be a Lazarus? But this dead man on my back was no Lazarus. He was cold and the skin in my hands was dead. His chin had settled on my shoulder. Determined as only a man can be who is saving his life, I made huge muscles in my jaw and shut my teeth to hold my entrails back, as they seemed to be rising on me. I suspected that if the dead man had been planted on me and the tribe was awake and watching, when I was halfway to the ravine they might burst out and yell, 'Dead stealer! Ghoul! Give back our dead man!' and they would hit me on the head and lay me out for my sacrilege. Thus I would end—I, Henderson, with all my striving and earnestness." (p. 134)
Then he meets the Western educated Wariri king with whom he becomes fast friends. Henderson takes part in a tribal ritual, demonstrates his extraordinary strength, and becomes the Rain King. He admits to the king his longing for personal meaning in his life. But all is not well in Wariri-ville. There is politics here, too. Henderson learns of a cabal that is set against the king, who, the cabal believes, has become too westernized, too cut off from the traditional beliefs. Toward the end, the enlightened King helps Henderson to work through his emotional issues by introducing him to Atti, an immense tigress. I'll say no more. Read it, please.
His name is Eugene Henderson. He's a mountain of a man, and all existential angst. He is from a storied family, owns an extensive estate in New Jersey, where he has raised pigs, and has been left $3 million (1958 US) by his neurasthenic, violin playing father. He's an Episcopalian or something, a blowhard and a bully. He's quite a talker, a sojourner in life, possessed of the remarkable gift of being able to externalize his feelings — and he is unhappy.
He is "rash and unlucky and acts without sufficient reflection" (p. 88) He seeks purpose. At 63 he's too old to become a doctor, but he gives it considerable thought. When he tells his first wife what's on his mind, she laughs in his face and he divorces her. Ultimately he goes to Africa with a friend, this travel another kind of externalization, of his lostness.
His speech to Queen Willatale of the Arnewi — he's deep in the interior of Africa now — sums up his mindset.
"Oh, it's miserable to be human. . . Just another vehicle for temper and vanity and rashness and all the rest. Who wants it? Who needs it? These things occupy the place where a man's soul should be. But as long as she [the queen] has started I want her to read me the whole indictment. I can fill her in on a lot of counts, though I don't think I would have to. She seems to know. Lust, rage, and all the rest of it. A regular bargain basement of deformities ..." (p. 78)
A few keywords. One is rash and the other is blow. Henderson is hasty and rash in his actions. Life and suffering are like blows which constantly assail him. Shuddering under the blows, however, he can be very funny and not infrequently annoying.
After he destroys the frogs in the Arnewi cistern he hightails it on foot to the far less hospitable Wariri, who put him up for the night in a room with a corpse, which he deeply resents. He decides to move the corpse. Lest, he be blamed for killing it.
"I rose and tied a blanket under my chin, a precaution against stains. I had decided to carry the man on my back in case we had to run for it. . . First I pulled the body away from the wall. Then I took it by the wrists and with a quick turn, bending, hauled it on my back. I was afraid lest the arms begin to exert a grip on my neck from behind. Tears of anger and repugnance began to hang from my eyes. I fought to stifle these feelings back into my chest. And I thought, what if this man should turn out to be a Lazarus? But this dead man on my back was no Lazarus. He was cold and the skin in my hands was dead. His chin had settled on my shoulder. Determined as only a man can be who is saving his life, I made huge muscles in my jaw and shut my teeth to hold my entrails back, as they seemed to be rising on me. I suspected that if the dead man had been planted on me and the tribe was awake and watching, when I was halfway to the ravine they might burst out and yell, 'Dead stealer! Ghoul! Give back our dead man!' and they would hit me on the head and lay me out for my sacrilege. Thus I would end—I, Henderson, with all my striving and earnestness." (p. 134)
Then he meets the Western educated Wariri king with whom he becomes fast friends. Henderson takes part in a tribal ritual, demonstrates his extraordinary strength, and becomes the Rain King. He admits to the king his longing for personal meaning in his life. But all is not well in Wariri-ville. There is politics here, too. Henderson learns of a cabal that is set against the king, who, the cabal believes, has become too westernized, too cut off from the traditional beliefs. Toward the end, the enlightened King helps Henderson to work through his emotional issues by introducing him to Atti, an immense tigress. I'll say no more. Read it, please.
June 21, 2012
There is a thriving trade in self-help books which have always baffled me. I could never relate to another person telling me Look, these are the steps you need to take to better your life & if you don't take them you are done for ! Well, no book will be so absolute in saying so but underlying all the sugarcoating there is this message loud & clear in most books of this genre. Then however comes the matter of literature where a clever author without even giving you the faintest clue ties a blindfold around your eyes and walks you along telling you the story of a character & a quest. At some point (s)he pulls the blindfold off you & cries There, you see where our character is right now ? Then and only then do you realize the importance of the word self-discovery. Precisely what Saul Bellow does in this book !
There is no patronizing in the words, no hollow advise on quick fixes you need to follow to discover the meaning of life. There is however a series of nerve wracking ordeals through which the guinea pig of a character named Eugene Henderson has to go through. Eugene is the oddball scion of an illustrious American family which counts State Secretaries, Scientists, Scholars & Lunatics among wealth and a solid ancestry. Eugene however is a totally different beast altogether, he is from rind to core a mass of confusion.When confronted with situations or emotions that threaten to get the better of him, he reacts in the only way best known to him : violence. He tries to find an inner meaning & solace in a lot of totally unconnected areas : Music, Sex, Soldiering, Alcohol, Farming but each tend to be a bigger disaster than the one preceding it. Eugene to me was very much akin to what a gorilla would have been in a glass factory. Leaving behind such a trail of shattered things, he escapes to Africa. It is among two of the most isolated of tribes : The Arnewi & The Wariri that the rest of his life story is penned.
One amusing character I found in the tale was of King Dahfu of the Wariri. Eugene's interactions with the King give way to some of the most mind boggling & quote worthy prose in the book. The eccentric intelligence of the King rubs off on Eugene and the first tentative roots of transformation take hold in his character. Of significant presence for the principal protagonist is also the prophecy of Daniel on Nebuchadnezzar for at all phases in life, Eugene is closely linked to the lives of animals around him.
The prose is extremly powerful and moving. While retaining the touch of a master wordsmith, Bellow creates extremely witty monologues especially in the earlier half of the book. This is easily a favorite for me !
There is no patronizing in the words, no hollow advise on quick fixes you need to follow to discover the meaning of life. There is however a series of nerve wracking ordeals through which the guinea pig of a character named Eugene Henderson has to go through. Eugene is the oddball scion of an illustrious American family which counts State Secretaries, Scientists, Scholars & Lunatics among wealth and a solid ancestry. Eugene however is a totally different beast altogether, he is from rind to core a mass of confusion.When confronted with situations or emotions that threaten to get the better of him, he reacts in the only way best known to him : violence. He tries to find an inner meaning & solace in a lot of totally unconnected areas : Music, Sex, Soldiering, Alcohol, Farming but each tend to be a bigger disaster than the one preceding it. Eugene to me was very much akin to what a gorilla would have been in a glass factory. Leaving behind such a trail of shattered things, he escapes to Africa. It is among two of the most isolated of tribes : The Arnewi & The Wariri that the rest of his life story is penned.
One amusing character I found in the tale was of King Dahfu of the Wariri. Eugene's interactions with the King give way to some of the most mind boggling & quote worthy prose in the book. The eccentric intelligence of the King rubs off on Eugene and the first tentative roots of transformation take hold in his character. Of significant presence for the principal protagonist is also the prophecy of Daniel on Nebuchadnezzar for at all phases in life, Eugene is closely linked to the lives of animals around him.
The prose is extremly powerful and moving. While retaining the touch of a master wordsmith, Bellow creates extremely witty monologues especially in the earlier half of the book. This is easily a favorite for me !
October 3, 2019
Henderson the Rain King or, as I like to think of it, Hunter S. Thompson's African Adventure is one of those rare books that I didn't want to end. I found it powerful, beautiful, and funny. Looking through some of the negative reviews, however, I find myself confused about people's approaches toward literature. for example:
Complaint 1: Main character is a rich white guy: Can only disadvantaged minorities be interesting or have noteworthy events in their lives? Also, if every character in every book is a poor, Chinese, paraplegic lesbian then books would be just as boring as having every character be a white dude. We live in a wonderful time where minorities are represented in popular fiction more than ever. Go find those books and knock yourself out.
Complaint 2: Everyone likes Henderson right away: Henderson is an unreliable narrator.
Complaint 3: Henderson is a misogynist: Do you only read books where you agree with every single one of the main character's opinions and personality traits? Your reading life must be very dull. Also, being offended by a pretend person's views is kind of weird, isn't it?
So, if you have the complaints that I listed, then I am sure there are enough books with main characters who are poor minorities who are super nice and accepting of everyone and yet who everyone inexplicably hates for some reason out there. For everyone else who wants to be challenged by what they read, Henderson the Rain King is a modern masterpiece (or, at the very least, an entertaining and thought-provoking read).
Complaint 1: Main character is a rich white guy: Can only disadvantaged minorities be interesting or have noteworthy events in their lives? Also, if every character in every book is a poor, Chinese, paraplegic lesbian then books would be just as boring as having every character be a white dude. We live in a wonderful time where minorities are represented in popular fiction more than ever. Go find those books and knock yourself out.
Complaint 2: Everyone likes Henderson right away: Henderson is an unreliable narrator.
Complaint 3: Henderson is a misogynist: Do you only read books where you agree with every single one of the main character's opinions and personality traits? Your reading life must be very dull. Also, being offended by a pretend person's views is kind of weird, isn't it?
So, if you have the complaints that I listed, then I am sure there are enough books with main characters who are poor minorities who are super nice and accepting of everyone and yet who everyone inexplicably hates for some reason out there. For everyone else who wants to be challenged by what they read, Henderson the Rain King is a modern masterpiece (or, at the very least, an entertaining and thought-provoking read).
December 24, 2016
This is my first Saul Bellow book and while I didn't hate it, I didn't love it either. I get that Henderson was on a spiritual journey to find the answers to his life's questions, and that the reader can pluck a few jewels of inspiration from Bellow's examples throughout the novel, but I've experienced that in many other novels that I enjoyed much more than this one. I think the problem I had was with Henderson's personality. He reminded me of a few people that I have known, one in particular, who always rubbed ne the wrong way.
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April 7, 2021A book of a brilliant comic, after all, and completely innovative, to which I cannot stick a clear label,
a book that is both serious and frivolous, that encourages an academic reading, but at the same time, ironizes it.
A quite crazy book, I could say, but not without a crazy authority.
Bellow's Africa has for Henderson - the central character - the same role as the village owned by the kafkaesque castle for K. , giving the protagonist from the outside a completely unknown test area, in which to turn his deepest desires into reality, to find - if he can - the peace of his soul, explosively, through the zeal of useful toil.
But unlike the kafkaesque man, who is constantly prevented from fulfilling his desire, Henderson constitutes the directionless human force, which a savage insistence makes her triumph.
Henderson's biography is as heavy as a millstone : a drunkard, a middle-aged billionaire, in a state of a permanent emotional revolt. He is suffocated by the chaos of " my parents, my wives, my children, my farm, my animals, my music lessons, my drunkenness, my prejudices, my soul "...
Due to all his deformities, he is, according to his own judgment, equally a Disease, not just a human being.
He leaves his home, and goes to Africa, among wild tribes, to defeat this disease, to defeat himself , through this.
Africa as a medicine.
I liked this idea, and this foray as a whole, and , as a bonus, the writing is a natural, restful one.
a book that is both serious and frivolous, that encourages an academic reading, but at the same time, ironizes it.
A quite crazy book, I could say, but not without a crazy authority.
Bellow's Africa has for Henderson - the central character - the same role as the village owned by the kafkaesque castle for K. , giving the protagonist from the outside a completely unknown test area, in which to turn his deepest desires into reality, to find - if he can - the peace of his soul, explosively, through the zeal of useful toil.
But unlike the kafkaesque man, who is constantly prevented from fulfilling his desire, Henderson constitutes the directionless human force, which a savage insistence makes her triumph.
Henderson's biography is as heavy as a millstone : a drunkard, a middle-aged billionaire, in a state of a permanent emotional revolt. He is suffocated by the chaos of " my parents, my wives, my children, my farm, my animals, my music lessons, my drunkenness, my prejudices, my soul "...
Due to all his deformities, he is, according to his own judgment, equally a Disease, not just a human being.
He leaves his home, and goes to Africa, among wild tribes, to defeat this disease, to defeat himself , through this.
Africa as a medicine.
I liked this idea, and this foray as a whole, and , as a bonus, the writing is a natural, restful one.
May 23, 2021
Siamo andati alla caccia del leon… BANG BANG …
Curiosissimo e divertente romanzo di un premio Nobel che dovette pure giustificarsi per la vena comica che aveva impresso a ciò che aveva pensato come una sorta di favola morale. Si tratta della storia di Henderson, comunissimo e noiosissimo miliardario americano a cui sono piovute tutte le fortune del mondo e che a cinquantacinque anni è oppresso da un senso di noia e di insoddisfazione tale da decidere di mollare tutto e partire per l’Africa aggregandosi a una coppia di amici in viaggio di nozze. Reduce di guerra, alle spalle due matrimoni, stravagante allevatore di porci, temperamento sanguigno, in realtà ben presto si rivela come un personaggio a tutto tondo, per niente appiattito dal ruolo sociale che la sua biografia gli impone. Incontentabile e roso da una vocina interna che gli sussurra: “Voglio”, non riesce a darsi una collocazione nel mondo. Giunto in Africa si separa dalla coppia e prosegue in solitaria il suo viaggio affidandosi a una fedele guida locale. E qui inizia il bello. L’Africa si trasforma in una dimensione mitica, fatta di paesaggi da agenzia di viaggio e popolata di tutta la trasfigurazione occidentalizzante di cui siamo capaci solo noi. Iniziano le peripezie e con essa la comparsa di strampalati personaggi quasi fossimo alla corte del re dei viaggi, Swift, con il suo Gulliver. E proprio la corte è uno dei luoghi centrali in cui si sviluppano le due vicende principali. Il nostro eroe della modernità irrompe in un mondo, sì trasfigurato dai suoi stessi schemi mentali, ma anche vivo e vero e che lo sottopone a una serie di prove da superare, spesso con esito fallimentare e pericoloso per la sua stessa sopravvivenza. Non vado oltre a incuriosire il prossimo lettore di Bellow, di questo Bellow. Urge solo dire che è una godibilissima lettura gestita da uno stile plasmato, oserei dire quasi cesellato, capace di alternare il registro comico con quello lirico in una sintesi magistrale atta a suscitare anche nel più distratto avventore almeno un perché.
Curiosissimo e divertente romanzo di un premio Nobel che dovette pure giustificarsi per la vena comica che aveva impresso a ciò che aveva pensato come una sorta di favola morale. Si tratta della storia di Henderson, comunissimo e noiosissimo miliardario americano a cui sono piovute tutte le fortune del mondo e che a cinquantacinque anni è oppresso da un senso di noia e di insoddisfazione tale da decidere di mollare tutto e partire per l’Africa aggregandosi a una coppia di amici in viaggio di nozze. Reduce di guerra, alle spalle due matrimoni, stravagante allevatore di porci, temperamento sanguigno, in realtà ben presto si rivela come un personaggio a tutto tondo, per niente appiattito dal ruolo sociale che la sua biografia gli impone. Incontentabile e roso da una vocina interna che gli sussurra: “Voglio”, non riesce a darsi una collocazione nel mondo. Giunto in Africa si separa dalla coppia e prosegue in solitaria il suo viaggio affidandosi a una fedele guida locale. E qui inizia il bello. L’Africa si trasforma in una dimensione mitica, fatta di paesaggi da agenzia di viaggio e popolata di tutta la trasfigurazione occidentalizzante di cui siamo capaci solo noi. Iniziano le peripezie e con essa la comparsa di strampalati personaggi quasi fossimo alla corte del re dei viaggi, Swift, con il suo Gulliver. E proprio la corte è uno dei luoghi centrali in cui si sviluppano le due vicende principali. Il nostro eroe della modernità irrompe in un mondo, sì trasfigurato dai suoi stessi schemi mentali, ma anche vivo e vero e che lo sottopone a una serie di prove da superare, spesso con esito fallimentare e pericoloso per la sua stessa sopravvivenza. Non vado oltre a incuriosire il prossimo lettore di Bellow, di questo Bellow. Urge solo dire che è una godibilissima lettura gestita da uno stile plasmato, oserei dire quasi cesellato, capace di alternare il registro comico con quello lirico in una sintesi magistrale atta a suscitare anche nel più distratto avventore almeno un perché.
February 23, 2020
I just finished another bout with Eugene Henderson, this time via audiobook. And I'm so sad. This novel is like a beloved eccentric uncle to me, the one who used to be my favorite when I was younger, but as the years passed I changed and he didn't, and now I've discovered that he's slid irrevocably into maudlin self-pity, egoism, and blinding privilege. I've tried so hard to keep on loving him, but just now I can't forgive him.
I can still remember why this novel used to be my favorite, though. See below. And in spite of all this I can't not give it 5 stars because there is no prose like this any longer.
prior review--
I've read this novel many times now and each time I'm overwhelmed by the narrative force, the joy of it. I do wish someone other than the guy famous for asking "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans?" had written it...or alternatively I wish that Henderson had gotten in a space ship and gone to Mars to have his mythological encounter rather than to a mythological Africa. Be that as it may my favorite writing of all time is the late-in-the-book chapter about a young Henderson riding a Ferris Wheel with Smolak the Bear, a scene that stands on its own as a masterpiece of narrative imagination.
I can still remember why this novel used to be my favorite, though. See below. And in spite of all this I can't not give it 5 stars because there is no prose like this any longer.
prior review--
I've read this novel many times now and each time I'm overwhelmed by the narrative force, the joy of it. I do wish someone other than the guy famous for asking "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans?" had written it...or alternatively I wish that Henderson had gotten in a space ship and gone to Mars to have his mythological encounter rather than to a mythological Africa. Be that as it may my favorite writing of all time is the late-in-the-book chapter about a young Henderson riding a Ferris Wheel with Smolak the Bear, a scene that stands on its own as a masterpiece of narrative imagination.
May 13, 2022
"ای خدا، آدمی مثل من که حقیقت برایش جای ثابتی ندارد، چطور ممکن است رام شود؟ چطور ممکن است"
گاهی وقت ها نیازه همه چیز و رهاکنی و بری یه جای دور یا یه سفر دور و دراز، اونم زمانی هست که شما در زندگی روزمره به خودت فرصت توقف، آرامش و تامل کردن نمیدی، اونجاست که یواش یواش زندگی برات غیره قابل تحمل میشه.
( در دنیایی که بیکاری، استراحت، و آرام کارکردن بی ارزشی است).
(داستان هندرسون هم همینطوری هست (بعد از اینکه کتاب خوندم با قاطعیت می تونم بگم ، هندرسون پیش فعالی بزرگسالی داشت
وقتی زندگی براش غیره قابل تحمل شده بود تصمیم گرفت همه چیز و رها کنه بره آفریقا شاید گمشدهاشو پیدا کنه، گمشده اش کسی نبود جز خودش، سالها بود به خودش اجازه تامل درباره خودش نداده بود، در سفر بود که فرصت کرد خودشو بهتر بشناسه.
" احمق جان، آن چیزی که قاتل جانت شده، روح خود توست.
تویی که داری دنیا را این طوری میسازی.
واقعیت خود تو هستی، خود تو."
شیری که در داستان با اون مواجه شده بود روح طغیان کردهی خودش بود که همیشه میترسید با اون مواجه بشه و حالا تونسته بود با تمام ترسهایش مواجه بشه و ترس حقیقی و احساس کنه.
در سفر هست که شما اجازه مواجهشدن با خودِواقعیتو پیدا می کنی و درون خودت کندوکاو می کنی، اونجاست که با شناخت خودِواقعیت، تمام خوبیها و بدیهای خودتو می پذیری، بدون نیاز به اینکه وانمود کنی باید چطور باشی. سفر نقاب از چهره بر میداره.
هندرسون تصور می کرد نترسترین آدم دنیاست جنگ دیده و ماجراجو، ولی فراموش کرد، ترس واقعی در مواجه با خود واقعیست، اگر با آن مواجه شدی و پذیرای آن شدی به آرامش حقیقی میرسی.و هندرسون با شناخت خود در نهایت به آرامش رسید و به زندگی بازگشت.
گاهی وقت ها نیازه همه چیز و رهاکنی و بری یه جای دور یا یه سفر دور و دراز، اونم زمانی هست که شما در زندگی روزمره به خودت فرصت توقف، آرامش و تامل کردن نمیدی، اونجاست که یواش یواش زندگی برات غیره قابل تحمل میشه.
( در دنیایی که بیکاری، استراحت، و آرام کارکردن بی ارزشی است).
(داستان هندرسون هم همینطوری هست (بعد از اینکه کتاب خوندم با قاطعیت می تونم بگم ، هندرسون پیش فعالی بزرگسالی داشت
وقتی زندگی براش غیره قابل تحمل شده بود تصمیم گرفت همه چیز و رها کنه بره آفریقا شاید گمشدهاشو پیدا کنه، گمشده اش کسی نبود جز خودش، سالها بود به خودش اجازه تامل درباره خودش نداده بود، در سفر بود که فرصت کرد خودشو بهتر بشناسه.
" احمق جان، آن چیزی که قاتل جانت شده، روح خود توست.
تویی که داری دنیا را این طوری میسازی.
واقعیت خود تو هستی، خود تو."
شیری که در داستان با اون مواجه شده بود روح طغیان کردهی خودش بود که همیشه میترسید با اون مواجه بشه و حالا تونسته بود با تمام ترسهایش مواجه بشه و ترس حقیقی و احساس کنه.
در سفر هست که شما اجازه مواجهشدن با خودِواقعیتو پیدا می کنی و درون خودت کندوکاو می کنی، اونجاست که با شناخت خودِواقعیت، تمام خوبیها و بدیهای خودتو می پذیری، بدون نیاز به اینکه وانمود کنی باید چطور باشی. سفر نقاب از چهره بر میداره.
هندرسون تصور می کرد نترسترین آدم دنیاست جنگ دیده و ماجراجو، ولی فراموش کرد، ترس واقعی در مواجه با خود واقعیست، اگر با آن مواجه شدی و پذیرای آن شدی به آرامش حقیقی میرسی.و هندرسون با شناخت خود در نهایت به آرامش رسید و به زندگی بازگشت.
February 17, 2020
Now I am grumpy. I have been struggling to understand what Bellow was saying with this book. Giving up in the middle was to acknowledge defeat. Now, on completion, I have come to the conclusion it was a total waste of time.
The book is said to be a comic adventure story. In fact, that is all it is. As you read, assorted philosophical themes are hinted at. I mistakenly thought that the book might have something of value to say. Why? Well because we are often in the central character’s head. He is a thinking sort of guy, and he travels to Africa. He ought to have something of consequence to tell us!
So, who is the central character? He is twice married and in his middle fifties. He has four kids. He goes by the name of Eugene Henderson. Yep, that is him in the title. He is your typical Bellowian schmuck, but in this novel, also exceedingly wealthy, strong and handsome. A thinker too, which misleads readers!
Henderson ponders suffering, death and the whole purpose of life. He goes off to Africa to find himself. He has so much money he doesn’t need to work, as most everyone else must do.
What is drawn is absurd, totally beyond believability. It borders on fantasy. Forget trying to understand the book in terms of the ordinary criteria of reality. Perhaps Bellow is saying something about reality. Maybe that what each person sees as reality is defined by their own life circumstances. As a result, we each define realty differently. Take this a step further--that which may seem absurd and fantastical to one could be reality to another. My thoughts follow this path because the villagers' lives in Africa are difficult to view as possible. Or maybe, I am just desperately searching to give the book a meaning it doesn't have.
The humor is a mix of both the crude and the intellectual. One I like, the other I don’t. It is not without humor, but most of what happens is simply so absurd it is hard to get your head around events, let alone laugh.
The story is too long and drawn out; it needs tighter editing.
On reaching the end, by observing how events are tied up, the book’s message is revealed. What is said is corny and pedestrian. The ending is shockingly bad, Henderson returns ! Tell me, is that even the teeniest bit realistic?!
Besides Henderson’s schmaltzy decision , absurd and fantastical events unroll at the story’s close. They are bizarre and totally unnecessary extensions of the tale--a dancing bear and a young Persian-speaking orphan boy who snuggles up asleep on Henderson’s lap . Add on that the two are accompanied by a lion cub and aided by a sweet, understanding and of course pretty air hostess! The ending, in my view, just couldn’t have been worse!
I was wrong to assume Bellow was actually saying something of importance with this novel! I believe readers are simply to laugh, but the story is just too weird for me to laugh at. Its humor is not my kind of humor. At Wikipedia I found this:
“A week before the novel appeared in book stores, Saul Bellow published an article in the New York Times entitled ‘The Search for Symbols, a Writer Warns, Misses All the Fun and Fact of the Story’. Here, Bellow warns readers against looking too deeply for symbols in literature. This has led to much discussion among critics as to why Bellow warned his readers against searching for symbolism just before the symbol-packed Rain King hit the shelves.”
Reading this has been a chore. I have searched to find a reason to like it. I have failed.
Joe Barrett narrates the audiobook. I dislike his dramatization, particularly of the native Africans. French words are not translated, and Barrett’s French is deplorable. Maybe we are meant to laugh at this too. Since, it is not hard to follow the limes of the text, I am willing to give the narration two stars.
********************
*Herzog 4 stars
*The Victim 4 stars
*Seize the Day 3 stars
*Dangling Man 3 stars
*More Die of Heartbreak 2 stars
*The Adventures of Augie March 2 stars
*The Actual 2 stars
*Henderson the Rain King 1 star
*Humboldt's Gift maybe
*Ravelstein maybe
The book is said to be a comic adventure story. In fact, that is all it is. As you read, assorted philosophical themes are hinted at. I mistakenly thought that the book might have something of value to say. Why? Well because we are often in the central character’s head. He is a thinking sort of guy, and he travels to Africa. He ought to have something of consequence to tell us!
So, who is the central character? He is twice married and in his middle fifties. He has four kids. He goes by the name of Eugene Henderson. Yep, that is him in the title. He is your typical Bellowian schmuck, but in this novel, also exceedingly wealthy, strong and handsome. A thinker too, which misleads readers!
Henderson ponders suffering, death and the whole purpose of life. He goes off to Africa to find himself. He has so much money he doesn’t need to work, as most everyone else must do.
What is drawn is absurd, totally beyond believability. It borders on fantasy. Forget trying to understand the book in terms of the ordinary criteria of reality. Perhaps Bellow is saying something about reality. Maybe that what each person sees as reality is defined by their own life circumstances. As a result, we each define realty differently. Take this a step further--that which may seem absurd and fantastical to one could be reality to another. My thoughts follow this path because the villagers' lives in Africa are difficult to view as possible. Or maybe, I am just desperately searching to give the book a meaning it doesn't have.
The humor is a mix of both the crude and the intellectual. One I like, the other I don’t. It is not without humor, but most of what happens is simply so absurd it is hard to get your head around events, let alone laugh.
The story is too long and drawn out; it needs tighter editing.
On reaching the end, by observing how events are tied up, the book’s message is revealed. What is said is corny and pedestrian. The ending is shockingly bad, Henderson returns ! Tell me, is that even the teeniest bit realistic?!
Besides Henderson’s schmaltzy decision , absurd and fantastical events unroll at the story’s close. They are bizarre and totally unnecessary extensions of the tale--a dancing bear and a young Persian-speaking orphan boy who snuggles up asleep on Henderson’s lap . Add on that the two are accompanied by a lion cub and aided by a sweet, understanding and of course pretty air hostess! The ending, in my view, just couldn’t have been worse!
I was wrong to assume Bellow was actually saying something of importance with this novel! I believe readers are simply to laugh, but the story is just too weird for me to laugh at. Its humor is not my kind of humor. At Wikipedia I found this:
“A week before the novel appeared in book stores, Saul Bellow published an article in the New York Times entitled ‘The Search for Symbols, a Writer Warns, Misses All the Fun and Fact of the Story’. Here, Bellow warns readers against looking too deeply for symbols in literature. This has led to much discussion among critics as to why Bellow warned his readers against searching for symbolism just before the symbol-packed Rain King hit the shelves.”
Reading this has been a chore. I have searched to find a reason to like it. I have failed.
Joe Barrett narrates the audiobook. I dislike his dramatization, particularly of the native Africans. French words are not translated, and Barrett’s French is deplorable. Maybe we are meant to laugh at this too. Since, it is not hard to follow the limes of the text, I am willing to give the narration two stars.
********************
*Herzog 4 stars
*The Victim 4 stars
*Seize the Day 3 stars
*Dangling Man 3 stars
*More Die of Heartbreak 2 stars
*The Adventures of Augie March 2 stars
*The Actual 2 stars
*Henderson the Rain King 1 star
*Humboldt's Gift maybe
*Ravelstein maybe
December 17, 2012
This novel is staggering. It is the story, which we have heard so many times, of a bellicose foreigner who goes to Africa in order to find himself. But something is amiss. This isn't just some person who has lost their way a little bit, but someone that while good intentioned at times is a drunkard and a lout, selfish and violent; while he wants to be a good person, he simply isn't. Then he decides to ditch the tourist Africa and find the true heart of it in order to understand and heal himself, but when he arrives at a remote village with his guide and meets the prince of a very small and location, he is disappointed to hear him speaking English. "We are discovered," the prince says, apologizing.
What follows is a continued parody of the philosophical finding of one's self in a foreign country trope. Intentions to fix the villagers foolish superstition (as deemed by Henderson) lead to a larger disaster and another superstition (which, truly, he discovers, is merely a form of control for a group of powerful individuals) which leads him to being the Rain King. The ideas further collapse as in the heart of Africa Henderson is lectured in psychology and philosophy and biology by the almost-doctor King.
With lush prose and richly rendered, flawed and three dimensional main characters, Bellow provides a satire that is surprisingly erudite and logical and it seeks to undermine the genre it is masked in not by silly exaggerations, but by subtle turnings of expectation. This slim volume is certainly one of the best books of the last fifty years.
What follows is a continued parody of the philosophical finding of one's self in a foreign country trope. Intentions to fix the villagers foolish superstition (as deemed by Henderson) lead to a larger disaster and another superstition (which, truly, he discovers, is merely a form of control for a group of powerful individuals) which leads him to being the Rain King. The ideas further collapse as in the heart of Africa Henderson is lectured in psychology and philosophy and biology by the almost-doctor King.
With lush prose and richly rendered, flawed and three dimensional main characters, Bellow provides a satire that is surprisingly erudite and logical and it seeks to undermine the genre it is masked in not by silly exaggerations, but by subtle turnings of expectation. This slim volume is certainly one of the best books of the last fifty years.
July 27, 2014
I want therefore I am - Bellow’s version of Descartes’ proposition. Eugene Henderson’s trip is a Hemingway parody and a satirical allegory of our search for self sprinkled with beautiful writing that touches the soul. It both makes fun of the contemporary pursuit of being real and seriously questions our values. The story is fanciful but purposeful. Henderson’s boorishness and bombastic outbursts can become tiresome (just like the original EH) but Bellow’s poetic prose always comes to the rescue offering something deeper. Somehow the incongruous juxtaposition got me reflecting on my own life and that made it worthwhile.
February 7, 2017
I am a steady admirer of Saul Bellow and this since I read, some thirty years ago, “Humboldt’s Gift”. And I was thinking, while reading “Henderson, the Rain King” how important (although irrelevant) is the first reading of an author. For if I had read this book first, I doubt I have ever tried another. Not because it is bad, but because it didn’t say much to me. As a complex parody it was sometimes boring instead of funny, even though I quite liked the idea of an anti superhero (I don’t know if Bellow is the first to introduce him in literature, but it sure was the first I came across). On the other hand, the African tribal experience felt somehow deprecatory, its dark and black magic childish enough to border ridicule.
All along I felt the author tried his hand a little half-hearted, and I struggled to finish it out of respect for him.
All along I felt the author tried his hand a little half-hearted, and I struggled to finish it out of respect for him.
December 21, 2022
“Maybe time was invented so that misery might have an end?”
Eugene Henderson could possibly be the most magnificent protagonist since Fitzgerald conjured up Jay Gatsby. Henderson is a hot mess. He’s rich, he’s strong, he’s bursting with testosterone, and yet he’s hopelessly well-intentioned and painfully lovable. This is every bit as good as Bellow’s Seize the Day, if not just a wee bit better!
Eugene Henderson could possibly be the most magnificent protagonist since Fitzgerald conjured up Jay Gatsby. Henderson is a hot mess. He’s rich, he’s strong, he’s bursting with testosterone, and yet he’s hopelessly well-intentioned and painfully lovable. This is every bit as good as Bellow’s Seize the Day, if not just a wee bit better!
November 9, 2017
I belong in the service of the Queen
I belong anywhere but in between
She's been crying, I've been thinking
And I am the rain king
-Counting Crows
Just a great novel from a top American writer. Quite funny also.
I belong anywhere but in between
She's been crying, I've been thinking
And I am the rain king
-Counting Crows
Just a great novel from a top American writer. Quite funny also.
July 23, 2025
یادم نیست که آقای اخوت توی کدوم کتابش، راجع به "هندرسون شاه باران" نوشته بود. احتمالا صرفا یه جمله بود ولی همینم یادم نیست و فقط گوشهی ذهنم مونده بود که این کتاب رو بخونم.
اما متأسفانه تونستم به زور فقط 10 فصل از کتاب رو بخونم و دراپ کردم.
وایب این کتابهایی که در جستجوی عرفان سفر میکنن تا معنای زندگی رو پیدا کنن میداد که واقعا در سلیقه و علاقهی من نیست. نمیتونم چنین چیزی رو بپذیرم که انسان با دنبال مرشد گشتن و توی سختی و محرومیت قرار دادن خودش بخواد اصطلاحا معنی زندگی رو بیاموزه.
اما متأسفانه تونستم به زور فقط 10 فصل از کتاب رو بخونم و دراپ کردم.
وایب این کتابهایی که در جستجوی عرفان سفر میکنن تا معنای زندگی رو پیدا کنن میداد که واقعا در سلیقه و علاقهی من نیست. نمیتونم چنین چیزی رو بپذیرم که انسان با دنبال مرشد گشتن و توی سختی و محرومیت قرار دادن خودش بخواد اصطلاحا معنی زندگی رو بیاموزه.
June 3, 2022
I just finished another bout with Eugene Henderson, this time via audiobook. And I'm so sad. This novel is like a beloved eccentric uncle to me, the one who used to be my favorite when I was younger, but as the years passed I changed and he didn't, and now I've discovered that he's slid irrevocably into maudlin self-pity, egoism, and blinding privilege. I've tried so hard to keep on loving him, but just now I can't forgive him.
I can still remember why this novel used to be my favorite, though. See below.
prior review--
I've read this novel many times now and each time I'm overwhelmed by the narrative force, the joy of it. I do wish someone other than the guy famous for asking "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans?" had written it...or alternatively I wish that Henderson had gotten in a space ship and gone to Mars to have his mythological encounter rather than to a mythological Africa. Be that as it may my favorite writing of all time is the late-in-the-book chapter about a young Henderson riding a Ferris Wheel with Smolak the Bear, a scene that stands on its own as a masterpiece of narrative imagination.
I can still remember why this novel used to be my favorite, though. See below.
prior review--
I've read this novel many times now and each time I'm overwhelmed by the narrative force, the joy of it. I do wish someone other than the guy famous for asking "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans?" had written it...or alternatively I wish that Henderson had gotten in a space ship and gone to Mars to have his mythological encounter rather than to a mythological Africa. Be that as it may my favorite writing of all time is the late-in-the-book chapter about a young Henderson riding a Ferris Wheel with Smolak the Bear, a scene that stands on its own as a masterpiece of narrative imagination.
Read
August 18, 2018Abbandonato, non fa per me.
Stile formidabile. Storia datata su un ricco pazzo, un ereditiere violento e donnaiolo, che decide di combattere i suoi demoni partendo per un viaggio spirituale in Africa.
Il protagonista è spregevole e misogino, purtroppo però non ha altre qualità.
Roth con personaggi anche più meschini ci ha scritto dei romanzi grandiosi.
Henderson è un piangina noioso con i soliti first world problem a cui tutti inspiegabilmente cadono ai piedi.
Stile formidabile. Storia datata su un ricco pazzo, un ereditiere violento e donnaiolo, che decide di combattere i suoi demoni partendo per un viaggio spirituale in Africa.
Il protagonista è spregevole e misogino, purtroppo però non ha altre qualità.
Roth con personaggi anche più meschini ci ha scritto dei romanzi grandiosi.
Henderson è un piangina noioso con i soliti first world problem a cui tutti inspiegabilmente cadono ai piedi.
May 30, 2023
বাবুল আলমের অনুবাদ সংক্ষিপ্ত। বইয়ের প্রকৃত রস আস্বাদন করা যায় না। 'শ্রাবণ রাজা' নামে বইটির পূর্ণাঙ্গ অনুবাদ করেছিলেন সৈয়দ শামসুল হক। বাংলা একাডেমি বইটির প্রকাশক ছিল। এখন দুষ্প্রাপ্য।
March 30, 2022
ეს არ არის ჩვეულებრივი წიგნი. წიგნები, რომლებიც ძალიანაც მომწონებია და ქება-დიდება არ დამიშურებია, მრავალია, მაგრამ ეს წიგნი ბევრად მეტია იმ ყველაფერზე, რისი გადმოცემაც სიტყვებით შეიძლება.
ძალიან დინამიური საკითხავია, ამბავი ბოლომდე, სრულად გიპყრობს და გაინტერესებს. საოცრად მდიდარი, ზოგადსაკაცობრიო თემებით დატვირთული წიგნია. ყველაფერი განსხვავებულ ჭრილშია განხილული და გააზრებული.
ნამდვილად, გულწრფელად, არ მახსენდება მეფე დაჰფუს მსგავსი პერსონაჟი, უკიდეგანო განათლებითა და არაორდინარული შეხედულებებით. სამყაროს საოცარი აღქმა აქვს და უზომოდ გაწონასწორებულია. დიდებული მეგობარი, სულიერად ძლიერი წინამძღოლი და შესაშურად მშვიდი, ჰარმონიული სულის პატრონია. იუჯინი თავად ამბობს, რომ მასა და მეფეს შორის შემდგარი დიალოგების მსგავსს ვერსად ამოიკითხავთ - მართლაც ასეა. საოცარია, როგორ გადაშლილი წიგნივით კითხულობს ადამიანებს და ესმის მათი. ურყევად სწამს, რომ ოდესმე ბოროტების პასუხად ბოროტებას აღარ მივიღებთ და ამქვეყნად კეთილშობილი ადამიანების დრო დადგება. სჯერა, რომ შესაძლებელია, ყველა ადამიანი შეიცვალოს, განურჩევლად ასაკისა თუ ჩამოყალიბების ხარისხისა.
ველურ, ხელშეუხებელ მშვენიერებასაც კი მთელი არსებით აღიქვამს და იღებს. შიშისგან დაცლილია. მიაჩნია, რომ არსებობა უკვე თავისთავად შანსია. შანსია, ცვლილების გარეშე, ერთი და იმავე მისწრაფებებით ცხოვრების უსასრულო ციკლის დარღვევისა და საკუთარი ცხოვრების მოვლენების სურვილისამებრ წარმართვის.
სოლ ბელოუს საოცრად აქვს გადმოცემული აფრიკის ესთეტიკა - ამორძალებით და ტანმოხატული, სიცოცხლით სავსე, არაორდინალურად შემოსილი, ღვთაებების ქანდაკებების გარშემო გიჟურად მროკავი ადამიანებით.
თავად ჰენდერსონი, ვფიქრობ, რომანის ყველაზე საინტერესო პერსონაჟია - თავისი განვლილი გზით. თავდაპირველად, გაუწონასწორებელი ხასიათით, აფრიკაში წასვლის დაუოკებელი სურვილით, რომელიც იმედად ჰქცევია, რათა სულის ძახილი ჩაახშოს და საკუთარი თავი იპოვოს. ჰენდერსონი ის კაცია, რომელსაც ცხოვრება სწყურია; მიაჩნია, რომ ცხოვრება ქაოსზე ბევრად მეტია და რომ ადამიანი მხოლოდ იმიტომ არ იბადება, მთელი ცხოვრება „მყოფობაში“ გალიოს და არ გაიაროს ჩამოყალიბების, საკუთარ თავთან მიახლოების, განახლებისა და სულიერი აღდგომის პროცესი.
თითქოს ყველაფერი ვთქვი, მაგრამ ვხვდები, სიტყვები არ არის საკმარისი კითხვისას მიღებული ემოციების გადმოსაცემად და მწერლის სამადლობლად, ჩემი აწ უკვე საყვარელი წიგნის დაწერისათვის.
ძალიან დინამიური საკითხავია, ამბავი ბოლომდე, სრულად გიპყრობს და გაინტერესებს. საოცრად მდიდარი, ზოგადსაკაცობრიო თემებით დატვირთული წიგნია. ყველაფერი განსხვავებულ ჭრილშია განხილული და გააზრებული.
ნამდვილად, გულწრფელად, არ მახსენდება მეფე დაჰფუს მსგავსი პერსონაჟი, უკიდეგანო განათლებითა და არაორდინარული შეხედულებებით. სამყაროს საოცარი აღქმა აქვს და უზომოდ გაწონასწორებულია. დიდებული მეგობარი, სულიერად ძლიერი წინამძღოლი და შესაშურად მშვიდი, ჰარმონიული სულის პატრონია. იუჯინი თავად ამბობს, რომ მასა და მეფეს შორის შემდგარი დიალოგების მსგავსს ვერსად ამოიკითხავთ - მართლაც ასეა. საოცარია, როგორ გადაშლილი წიგნივით კითხულობს ადამიანებს და ესმის მათი. ურყევად სწამს, რომ ოდესმე ბოროტების პასუხად ბოროტებას აღარ მივიღებთ და ამქვეყნად კეთილშობილი ადამიანების დრო დადგება. სჯერა, რომ შესაძლებელია, ყველა ადამიანი შეიცვალოს, განურჩევლად ასაკისა თუ ჩამოყალიბების ხარისხისა.
ველურ, ხელშეუხებელ მშვენიერებასაც კი მთელი არსებით აღიქვამს და იღებს. შიშისგან დაცლილია. მიაჩნია, რომ არსებობა უკვე თავისთავად შანსია. შანსია, ცვლილების გარეშე, ერთი და იმავე მისწრაფებებით ცხოვრების უსასრულო ციკლის დარღვევისა და საკუთარი ცხოვრების მოვლენების სურვილისამებრ წარმართვის.
სოლ ბელოუს საოცრად აქვს გადმოცემული აფრიკის ესთეტიკა - ამორძალებით და ტანმოხატული, სიცოცხლით სავსე, არაორდინალურად შემოსილი, ღვთაებების ქანდაკებების გარშემო გიჟურად მროკავი ადამიანებით.
თავად ჰენდერსონი, ვფიქრობ, რომანის ყველაზე საინტერესო პერსონაჟია - თავისი განვლილი გზით. თავდაპირველად, გაუწონასწორებელი ხასიათით, აფრიკაში წასვლის დაუოკებელი სურვილით, რომელიც იმედად ჰქცევია, რათა სულის ძახილი ჩაახშოს და საკუთარი თავი იპოვოს. ჰენდერსონი ის კაცია, რომელსაც ცხოვრება სწყურია; მიაჩნია, რომ ცხოვრება ქაოსზე ბევრად მეტია და რომ ადამიანი მხოლოდ იმიტომ არ იბადება, მთელი ცხოვრება „მყოფობაში“ გალიოს და არ გაიაროს ჩამოყალიბების, საკუთარ თავთან მიახლოების, განახლებისა და სულიერი აღდგომის პროცესი.
თითქოს ყველაფერი ვთქვი, მაგრამ ვხვდები, სიტყვები არ არის საკმარისი კითხვისას მიღებული ემოციების გადმოსაცემად და მწერლის სამადლობლად, ჩემი აწ უკვე საყვარელი წიგნის დაწერისათვის.
July 13, 2007
i loved, loved, loved this book.
this is the book that adam duritz from the counting crows named the song "the rain king" after...i've meant to read it for years and years and just now got around to it. i plan on buying a copy and picking it up once a year or so.
it's just really so enjoyable and really beautiful.
favorite excerpts:
"I had a voice that said I want! I want? I? It should have told me SHE wants, HE wants, THEY want. And moreover, it's love that makes reality reality. The opposite makes the opposite."
"Sometimes I think it is helpful to think of burial in a relation to the earth's crust. Four thousand five hundred miles more or less, to the core of the earth. No, graves are not deep but insignifigant, a few mere feet from the surface and not fear from fearing and desiring. More or less the same fear, more or less the same desire for thousands of generations. Child, father, father, child doing the same. Desire the same. Upon the crust, beneath the crust, again and again and again. Well, Henderson, what are the generations for, Please explain to me? Only to repeat fear and desire without a change? This cannot be what the thing is for, over and over and over. Any good man will break the cycle. There is no issue from that cycle for a man who do not take things into his hands."
this is the book that adam duritz from the counting crows named the song "the rain king" after...i've meant to read it for years and years and just now got around to it. i plan on buying a copy and picking it up once a year or so.
it's just really so enjoyable and really beautiful.
favorite excerpts:
"I had a voice that said I want! I want? I? It should have told me SHE wants, HE wants, THEY want. And moreover, it's love that makes reality reality. The opposite makes the opposite."
"Sometimes I think it is helpful to think of burial in a relation to the earth's crust. Four thousand five hundred miles more or less, to the core of the earth. No, graves are not deep but insignifigant, a few mere feet from the surface and not fear from fearing and desiring. More or less the same fear, more or less the same desire for thousands of generations. Child, father, father, child doing the same. Desire the same. Upon the crust, beneath the crust, again and again and again. Well, Henderson, what are the generations for, Please explain to me? Only to repeat fear and desire without a change? This cannot be what the thing is for, over and over and over. Any good man will break the cycle. There is no issue from that cycle for a man who do not take things into his hands."
October 30, 2018
کتابی به غایت دوست داشتنی برای من.
همیشه می دونستم این کتاب رو دوست خواهم داشت، ولی به علل مختلف در خریدش تاخیر میکردم.
تا این که به وقت ش گرفتم ش، و به عادت دیرینه م بارها و بارها پیش از شروع به خوانش و در حین خوانش بو کردم ش و لذت بردم.
با اون طراحی و قطع دوست داشتنی نشر خوب چشمه.
از بد روزگار، کتاب رو به همراه کیفم و بسیاری وسائل شخصی و خانوادگی دیگر که کم ارزش هم نبودند، از ماشین مون دزدیدند.
و من موندم و کتاب نیم خوانده شده ی دوست داشتنی م، پس دست به کار شدم و این بار بدون کوچک ترین تردیدی برای بار دوم خریدم ش، و عیش م مستمر شد!
از شما چه پنهون با این که کلی وسیله دوست داشتنی مون توسط اون سارق خیر ندیده ربوده شد، اما داغ این کتاب که نصف ش رو خونده و خط کشی کرده بودم به همراه کتاب خیلی خوب فراسوی خواب به دلم. موند، هرچند که کتاب از معدود چیزاییه که امثال و نظایر زیاد داره به قول حقوقی ها!
من کتاب رو دوست داشتم، تعابیر ساده و سرراست و درعین حال عمیق توش فراوون بود.
داستان ش هم علیرغم این که کمی زیادی فانتزی بود، ولی به دل میشینه.
این کتاب کتابیه که اگر در نوجوانی میخوندم هم دوست میداشتم، در سالمندی هم دوستش میداشتم، و طبیعتا الان هم خیلی دوست ش دارم.
از معدود کتاب هایی که داستان سرراست، ماجرا، ادبیات و قلم خوب و طنز ظریف و بی ادعایی رو یک جا با هم داره.
نمره علاقه من به کتاب پنجه، و نمره م به خود کتاب چهار.
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January 7, 2008read more saul bellow. philip roth does. i hate the word romp. so let's say this book is all about personal exploration. henderson is opinionated, an american bull. he's in africa. he's being ugly and how you'd expect him to be. but he's the only one giving revelations and you couldn't imagine it any other way. he's like a teddy roosevelt mid life crisis tour guide. henderson's a brute with color. it's a search for the meaning of life with your dickhead uncle who owns a brand new chrysler. the worst part is - he finds it.
September 26, 2022
They don’t make novels like this anymore. I’m just diving into the beautiful prose of Mr. Bellow and while this is a perfect 4.5 ⭐️ novel I kept thinking for as much as I enjoyed, why don’t writers today try something different like the wacky adventures of Eugene Henderson. I’m kind of jealous of his exploits. I’m almost 50 and I ain’t going to Africa anytime soon. This was a great read. Bellow continues to fill up my TBR.
June 21, 2024
In my favorite Bullwinkle cartoon that greatest of Moosylvanian mooses joins the Peace Corps. As he struggles to engage the African villagers in learning to build wells they are working on a secret project of their own. We eventually find they are building a rocket to blast Bullwinkle into space. I thought about that a lot as I read Henderson the Rain King. Jay Ward, the creator of the cartoon series, was skeptical of America's world's savior post-war aspirations and delighted in skewering the very idea of American supremacy. I grew up watching Bullwinkle reruns and perhaps as a result when I first read this book, in the 80s I think, I loved it. Since then my worldview has changed some, and my tastes as a reader have changed wildly. There is still a lot to revere in this book, but it did not live up to my memories.
Briefly, Eugene Henderson is a bumbling rich fool, a graduate of Princeton largely because of his wealth (it certainly is not due to his intellectual facility.) He was the least distinguished of three children of an accomplished physician, and the only one to survive to adulthood. He thereby becomes the head of the family, much to his father's chagrin. Henderson is a large man in every way and he throws around his gigantic personality, his enormous wealth, and his monumental physical size as bullies do. He is cruel, clueless, destructive and inconstant, and boy does he dislike women (as it is clear in every book Bellow did) and golly gee is he racist and does he ever fetishize blackness? Henderson's roots are very different than Bellow's, but in many ways I suspect Henderson is quite like Bellow. I suspect that because there is no satirical remove when Bellow talks about Henderson's relationships to women or to the African characters (even when he is discussing the size of black women's asses.) If I am right about this, and we are seeing Bellow in the Henderson character, it must be said that it appears Bellow was a right prick. Eventually, Henderson gets it into his head that he needs to find himself so he leaves his wife and many children and jets off to Africa with loads of money and vanity but no preparation or clear purpose. There he finds out who he is his after his arrogance causes calamity and he meets a tribal king named Dahfu who is educated, brilliant, and also despotic and insane in a lot of the same ways Henderson is despotic and insane. Suffice to say his impressions of what he has done and learned in Africa through experience and lengthy discussions with Dahfu on the meaning of life (mostly these are metaphysical discussions) may differ from the reader's impressions.
Henderson is a loudmouth, and his are the eyes we see this through. As a result, there is nothing in the way of pretty or elegant language here. There is a lot of bluster and misinformation. That though paints the picture of this character, and what a character! Yes, this is satire so there is a lot of exaggeration, but Henderson at his heart feels pretty real. Being vile does not mean one is not entertaining and edifying. Henderson is both. Bellow certainly knows how to write.
I really try not to judge literature by my own political and social beliefs or by social norms that did not exist when books were written. I think Bellow accomplished what he wished to accomplish and did so brilliantly, but I had a really hard time enjoying this after the action moved to Africa. Apparently, when I read this 40 years ago I was more intellectual in my reading, or maybe I just brought less life experience to the task. This is 5-star craft, but I can't go higher than a 3 when I factor in my enjoyment and the absence of the timelessness I hope to find in books considered modern classics.
Briefly, Eugene Henderson is a bumbling rich fool, a graduate of Princeton largely because of his wealth (it certainly is not due to his intellectual facility.) He was the least distinguished of three children of an accomplished physician, and the only one to survive to adulthood. He thereby becomes the head of the family, much to his father's chagrin. Henderson is a large man in every way and he throws around his gigantic personality, his enormous wealth, and his monumental physical size as bullies do. He is cruel, clueless, destructive and inconstant, and boy does he dislike women (as it is clear in every book Bellow did) and golly gee is he racist and does he ever fetishize blackness? Henderson's roots are very different than Bellow's, but in many ways I suspect Henderson is quite like Bellow. I suspect that because there is no satirical remove when Bellow talks about Henderson's relationships to women or to the African characters (even when he is discussing the size of black women's asses.) If I am right about this, and we are seeing Bellow in the Henderson character, it must be said that it appears Bellow was a right prick. Eventually, Henderson gets it into his head that he needs to find himself so he leaves his wife and many children and jets off to Africa with loads of money and vanity but no preparation or clear purpose. There he finds out who he is his after his arrogance causes calamity and he meets a tribal king named Dahfu who is educated, brilliant, and also despotic and insane in a lot of the same ways Henderson is despotic and insane. Suffice to say his impressions of what he has done and learned in Africa through experience and lengthy discussions with Dahfu on the meaning of life (mostly these are metaphysical discussions) may differ from the reader's impressions.
Henderson is a loudmouth, and his are the eyes we see this through. As a result, there is nothing in the way of pretty or elegant language here. There is a lot of bluster and misinformation. That though paints the picture of this character, and what a character! Yes, this is satire so there is a lot of exaggeration, but Henderson at his heart feels pretty real. Being vile does not mean one is not entertaining and edifying. Henderson is both. Bellow certainly knows how to write.
I really try not to judge literature by my own political and social beliefs or by social norms that did not exist when books were written. I think Bellow accomplished what he wished to accomplish and did so brilliantly, but I had a really hard time enjoying this after the action moved to Africa. Apparently, when I read this 40 years ago I was more intellectual in my reading, or maybe I just brought less life experience to the task. This is 5-star craft, but I can't go higher than a 3 when I factor in my enjoyment and the absence of the timelessness I hope to find in books considered modern classics.
April 17, 2023
Absolutamente adorei todo o absurdo e epifania que são descritas por Saul Bellow nessa obra, porque ao final, "chega um dia, sempre chega um dia de lágrimas e loucura", sendo precisamente essa última o grande destaque norteador da aventura de Henderson e seu grande reinado caótico no continente africano.
Com diversos pontos de reflexão sobre o homem-médio e seu local no mundo, Bellow nos conta a vida e propósito de Henderson, um milionário em fuga e em busca de despertar o sono do espírito, que, partindo para uma viagem inóspita com um guia África à dentro, encontra não apenas "rostos inteiros de esperança, pés de respeitos, mãos de justiça e sobrancelhas de serenidade", mas o mais absoluto contraste à figura do homem branco cosmopolita e salvador e em especial, do sonho americano.
Com um choque cultural tão expressivo, com uma noção de respeito e hierarquia tão distinta da sua, Henderson é despido dos seus privilégios quando se depara com dois grupos quase intocáveis dentro do continente; quando percebe que não pode, por sua incapacidade física e intelectual de resolver os problemas que ali surgem, deixando, no entanto, mais danos do que benefícios àqueles que julga poder salvar, é quando seu reinado de fato começa, metaforicamente e também concretamente, sendo tão absurdo e tão divertido ao mesmo tempo.
Há, no entanto, muito o que se pode dizer disso, mas nem sempre cabe fazê-lo, portanto, quando todos os relógios forem jogados para fora do céu, quando o tempo não existir na felicidade, será possível entender que "o sofrimento é praticamente o único despertador confiável para o sono do espírito", foi para Henderson aqui. Excelente leitura a mim.
Com diversos pontos de reflexão sobre o homem-médio e seu local no mundo, Bellow nos conta a vida e propósito de Henderson, um milionário em fuga e em busca de despertar o sono do espírito, que, partindo para uma viagem inóspita com um guia África à dentro, encontra não apenas "rostos inteiros de esperança, pés de respeitos, mãos de justiça e sobrancelhas de serenidade", mas o mais absoluto contraste à figura do homem branco cosmopolita e salvador e em especial, do sonho americano.
Com um choque cultural tão expressivo, com uma noção de respeito e hierarquia tão distinta da sua, Henderson é despido dos seus privilégios quando se depara com dois grupos quase intocáveis dentro do continente; quando percebe que não pode, por sua incapacidade física e intelectual de resolver os problemas que ali surgem, deixando, no entanto, mais danos do que benefícios àqueles que julga poder salvar, é quando seu reinado de fato começa, metaforicamente e também concretamente, sendo tão absurdo e tão divertido ao mesmo tempo.
Há, no entanto, muito o que se pode dizer disso, mas nem sempre cabe fazê-lo, portanto, quando todos os relógios forem jogados para fora do céu, quando o tempo não existir na felicidade, será possível entender que "o sofrimento é praticamente o único despertador confiável para o sono do espírito", foi para Henderson aqui. Excelente leitura a mim.
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