More Die of Heartbreak

Saul Bellow passed away today at the age of 89. The dean of American letters, followed by John Updike and Philip Roth, wrote some of the best post-war fiction but I seem to have only read his minor works. I've read his two early works The Victim and Dangling Man, which he says helped him to write his masterpiece The Adventures of Augie March. I hate to admit that I've only read about one-seventh of that book and it's on my To Read list, alongside Moby Dick and Madame Bovary. I read and enjoyed Herzog and wondered what the fuss was about Humboldt's Gift. Frankly, I enjoyed the sterile The Dean's December, which I read in a cramped Book of the Month Club edition with a small type on lousy paper, and the bitter Mr. Sammler's Planet than the exhausting and pointless Humboldt.

Oddly, one of the Bellow books I truly enjoyed was More Die of Heartbreak, which I read as a lifeguard at a retirement community and was the first book that signaled that the writer was growing old and his powers might be fading. I still remember passages and bits of dialogue. I loved the scene where the botanist who marries into a wealthy family realizes that his wife might not be the perfect match when he admires a plant that always sat beside her in their grand dining room and discovers that it is plastic. Nice.

I have read a good portion of Augie March but I remember Martin Amis' introduction where he advises the reader to stop looking for the Great American Novel -- this is it, he says. I'll read it and also finish the last hundred pages of Henderson the Rain King -- I think I read that Jack Nicholson was once set to play the violinist/pig farmer who goes to Africa to find his calling -- to complete my Bellow chase. I also have to re-read Herzog but if I return to More Die, I am almost certain it won't live up to my original enjoyment. Books are like flowers that way -- walk away and the petals fall.

I read the NY Times obituary and they didn't mention Bellow's work to champion William Kennedy. Legend has it that Bellow liked the Albany novelist's books and demanded that his publisher buy and distribute Kennedy's most recent work about a bum who tries to confront his ghosts in a lousy working-class city north of Manhattan. The book was Ironweed.

Saul Bellow is dead. John Updike and Philip Roth have just moved up a wrung.

A 600-Foot Tunnel?

If the Holy See had not passed away this weekend, I can not think how the recent attack on the notorious Abu Ghraib prison would not be at the top of the news hour. Now, the headline in the New York Times is "Second Attack On Iraq Prison in 48 Hours." This time, a tractor driver blew himself up and wounded half a dozen Iraqi civilians. This follows a well-coordinated and very ballsy attack on the prison known for torture by the hands of unsupervised US soldiers and over-eager intelligence officers.

The details of the recent story are startling. "Last week, prison officials discovered two tunnels at Camp Bucca, one of them 600 feet long, dug by prisoners in a failed attempt to escape."

Either the insurgency needs to liberate a few prisoners for a much-needed infusion of talent or the prison itself has become synonymous with the hatred at the American occupation and its attempts to create a democratic Iraq. Either way, it's clear that the prison is a true hotspot and needs help. I hope someone at the Pentagon is ramping up the security.

Happy Jo Moore Day

If you're a business executive or a government official with bad news to deliver, I'd wait until Friday. With the entire news media focusing on Rome for the Pope's funeral, you might not get a chance to release and bury any bad news until, oh, when a new pope is chosen in a few weeks! Mickey Kaus of Slate calls it Jo Moore Day, after the British official who sent out an e-mail on September 11, 2001 suggesting that the tragic day would be a fine time to release any bad news. Poor kids not getting their free breakfasts? Utility companies dumping toxins into the river? More unchecked illegal aliens in the country than ever before? Release those pesky reports on a bad or busy news day and your front page story will be reduced to a few paragraphs in the next day's weekend edition. We all read the Saturday paper, don't we?

Kaus says Sandy "These documents would look nice in my boxers" Burger knew what he was doing when he plea-bargained on Friday.

Pope John Paul II

I remember back in 1979 when the Vatican announced that an unknown cleric from Poland would be the next Pope. It was odd because we had just named a new Pope a month before. I even remember joking with my eighth grade friends about the new one that was in the process of being elected. He better outlast the last one. Maybe two months, we said. Later at mass, I remember the young hotshot priest of the church reading some one-liners delivered by the new Pontiff to his adoring crowd. The attendees of the five o'clock mass in St. Joseph's chuckled at the mild jokes of the new Pope. Maybe he'll be special, I remember my mom telling me. She was amazed that a non-Italian was now the leader of the church, the first one in more than four hundred years. Now the talk is the new Pontiff will be either an Italian or an African in order to shore up the church's base. I still think we might see a cardinal nominated from South America because that seems to be the real strength of the faith. This will be an interesting few weeks.

Life Serial

It's been an exhausting week in this "culture of life." A woman in Florida who has lived in a vegatative state for more than a decade and a half survived thirteen days without food and water. Similarly, a priest in Rome is living out his final hours after enduring Parkinson's, a tracheotomy, kidney failure and the lingering effects of an assassin's bullets. People have an amazing capacity to hang on and to fight for life. Throughout the entire Terry Schiavo debate, I wondered what would be the harm in allowing her to be fed and cared for by her family. Her husband reported that she said that she would not want to be kept in this condition but according to a few press reports, he shared this confession years after her condition became clear. Would erring on the side of life be that awful?

And now the Pope. Those close to the holy father said he wanted to show the dignity of suffering and surrendering oneself to Christ. Fine. Catholic leaders lead by example. They have to be better, stronger, wiser and more devout than the rest of us. That is their role. And I found it oddly moving to see the Pope -- a man who recognized the evils of communism alongside Reagan and Thatcher -- submitting himself to God's brutal plan.

It's been an exhausting few weeks and death has been busy. All we can do is pray and look forward to spring. Life marches on.