Finished Sa 12/5/15
This is from my collection and looks like I got it when I was a member of Quality Paperback Books. According to the flyleaf, I read half of it in late February, 2001, and I checked out THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND by Allan Bloom from the library.
This time through, I really enjoyed the book I'm blown away that Bellow wrote this when he was 85.
Stunning tribute to his friend and colleague, Allan Bloom (Abe Ravelstein). Roman a clef.
Six and a half feet tall and addicted to 'the finer things', and always in debt. Constantly talking and smoking, bald, opinionated and loved to gossip. He had a multitude of friends at every level of government and business. Always the first to know of a dramatic change in government or business policy. Asian partner, Niki (in the novel)
The last quarter of the book is about Bellow's (Chick in the book) near death experience. He was poisoned by eating a tainted fish in San Juan, Puerto Rico while on vacation with Rosamund after Ravelstein's passing.
The ciguatoxins (CTXs) are a group of marine biotoxins, which are the cause of a foodborne intoxication known as ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP). CFP is associated with consumption of coral reef fish from tropical and subtropical waters in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Caribbean sea.
He was first diagnosed with Dengue. I wonder if this really happened to Saul Bellows.
Last line of the book, and perfectly sums it up-
"You don't easily give up a creature like Ravelstein to death"
wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravelstein
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