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The Victim
The Victim
Author: Saul Bellow
Leventhal is a natural victim; a man uncertain of himself, never free from the nagging suspicion that the other guy may be right. So when he meets a down-at-heel stranger in the park one day and finds himself being accused of ruining the man's life...well, he half-believes it. And because he half-believes it, he can't shake the man loose, can'...  more »
ISBN: 14970
Pages: 238
Rating:
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 1

3.5 stars, based on 1 rating
Publisher: Penguin
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
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reviewed The Victim on + 813 more book reviews
This is a tale of two men: Hero, a Jew of course and a one-time acquaintance of a now Down-and-out. Both are from the wide world of publishing (of sorts). Hero, the victim, is being stalked by Down-and-out who, in turn, alleges to have been victimized by Hero. That is why he is now down-and out. Neither does much to alleviate this; there merely antagonize one another. Eventually they even co-habit, of sorts. Strange bedfellows! Could it be that each is really a victim of himself? Resolution? Yes and no. Good writing, but this is Bellow, isnt it. Always a treat. Situation: abnormal.
Isabel-Batteria avatar reviewed The Victim on + 70 more book reviews
1963 Viking Press Edition.

From the back of the book:

The Victim represents another facet of the art of a storyteller whose 'Adventures of Augie March' has been hailed as one of the pioneering American novels of the post-World War II period âthe novel which won the 1954 National Book Award for fiction, and of which Robert Penn Warren said: "[It is] a rich, various, fascinating, and important book, and from now on any discussion of fiction in America in our time will have to take account of it... As a creator of character, Saul Bellow is in the great tradition of the English and American novel."

Diana Trilling wrote of 'The Victim':
"'The Victim' would be hard to match, in recent fiction, for brilliance, skill, and originality....
"So much of its virtue lies in its wonderful physical evocations... that not to linger over them is to do Mr. Bellow's sheer novelistic talent a grave injustice. But... like all good novels, it can be read on so many levels of meaning that to stay with only one or two of them is to put false boundaries on a very large experience....
"'The Victim' issolidly built of fine, important ideas; it also generates fine and important, if uncomfortable, emotions."
ConeyIslandHigh avatar reviewed The Victim on + 25 more book reviews
Interesting psychological portrayal of an average man. Great 1940s-era New York story.


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