The Dean's December

by Saul Bellow

Overview

Albert Corde, dean of a Chicago college, is unprepared for the violent response to his expose of city corruption. Accused of betraying his city, as well as being a racist, he journeys to Bucharest, where his mother-in-law lies dying, only to find corruption rife in the Communist capital. Switching back and forth between the two cities, The Dean's December represents Bellow's "most spirited resistance to the forces of our time" (Malcolm Bradbury).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141188867
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/31/2008
Series:	Modern Classics
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.08(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

A literary giant, the novelist Saul Bellow (1915-2005) was one of the foremost chroniclers of the Jewish-American post-war experience. His many prizes include the Pulitzer, three National Book Awards, and the Nobel Prize, which he received in 1976 for the "human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work." Herzog, Seize the Day, Henderson the Rain King, and the picaresque novel The Adventures of Augie March are among his best-loved books.

Date of Birth:

June 10, 1915

Date of Death:

April 5, 2005

Place of Birth:

Lachine, Quebec, Canada

Place of Death:

Brookline, Massachusetts

Education:

University of Chicago, 1933-35; B.S., Northwestern University, 1937

What People are Saying About This

Malcolm Bradbury

The Dean's December represents Beller's most spirited resistence to the forces of our time.

Editorial Reviews

''The Dean's December'' is heavily thematic - and talky. But the themes are fully grounded in the book's matrix of idea and event and language. And the talk is excellent. Despite my distrust of didacticism and my yearnings for a stronger line of action, I found the novel continuously interesting in its play of ideas (even when cranky) and moving in its fervor. And Bellow's style - the play of language, the ''spin'' that he puts upon words - has never been more arresting. -- New York Times

Robert Tower

[Bellow’s] most spirited resistance to the forces of our time.”

author of The History Man Malcolm Bradbury

Sharp, erudite, beautifully measured…[Bellow] is one of the most gifted chroniclers of the Western world.”

praise for the author Times (London)

The backbone of twentieth-century American literature has been provided by two novelists—William Faulkner and Saul Bellow.”

Philip Roth

Rich yet dry and static, Bellow’s somber new book (his first as Nobel laureate) is often more essay than novel: a wintery meditation on death—a death in the family, the death of American cities, the death of the planet—as filtered through the mind of Albert Corde…Certainly displays all [Bellow’s] paragraph-by-paragraph greatness—the gravely exuberant, not-a-word-wasted style; the wide-ranging powers of observation; the Talmudically restless intelligence. And every page of it commands the attention.”

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)