BASC70181 - Hiding in Plain Sight: Love, Art, and Self in Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March

Course Description

2023 marks the seventieth anniversary of the publication of Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March. How well has it aged? While not his greatest novel (by consensus that title belongs to Herzog), for its ambition, scope, and energy, Augie March assured Bellow a distinguished place in the annals of American literature. Its title announces its picaresque quality. But do these “adventures” add up to something more than the sum of their parts? Bellow’s first two novels were highly focused. Did the breadth of the third require a sacrifice of unity? We will read the novel with the expectation that a coherent vision underlies Augie’s adventures and that it revolves around the three ideas of love, art, and self.

We will use the Penguin Classics paperback edition of the novel, ISBN 978-01430-39570.

Notes

Online registration deadline: Thursday, December 29 at 5 pm CT