The List

(page 9 of 10)

MAKING IT

The Adventures of Augie March (1953), by Saul Bellow

"I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles."

The story: A plucky young Jewish American with tenacity to rival Don Quixote's rises above his humble beginnings in Depression-era Chicago.

Why the book resonates: "Reading Augie March was my handbook to urban success," says Hugh Ingrasci, professor of American literature, culture, and film at DePaul University. While some books—Richard Wright's Native Son, James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy—painted bleak portraits of the immigrant experience, Augie March offered hope for beating society's odds. "The book is not just about the outsiders trying to get even; it's about the outsiders trying to get equal," Ingrasci says. "[It] crystallized for me how an ethnic guy with moxie could do just fine in Chicago."

The author (1915-2005): Raised in Humboldt Park, the son of a poor immigrant onion importer. Longtime professor at the University of Chicago (though decamped Hyde Park for Boston late in life). Won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. Married a whopping five times, but that's another story. 
—E. P.

 
 

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