The Adventures of Augie March

By: Saul Bellow

Narrated by: Tom Parker

Length: 22 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Augie is a poor but exuberant boy growing up in Chicago during the Depression. While his friends all settle into chosen professions, Augie demands a special destiny. He tests out a wild succession of occupations, proudly rejecting each as too limiting - until he tangles with the glamorous perfectionist Thea.

©1949 Saul Bellow (P)1993 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Wow!

The writing is often closer to poetry than to story telling. I’ve read two or three other books by Bellow (Humboldt, Herzog) but this is the best I’ve read so far. Fascinating characters, great writing. The reading also very good, though once in a while the reader mis-pronounced a title or foreign word, but no big deal - he has a good ear for the characters he is reciting. The prose moves so quickly that I am tempted to start again from the beginning.

Great Novel

Great novel by an almost forgotten master. Very well written and captures a fictional life with all the real flavorful details of the era(s).

A stylistic breakthrough for its time but...

A stylistic breakthrough for its time but reading this in 2021 it lacked the fresh force it must have had when it was published in the 1940s. Bellow is obviously a very skilled writer, and his prose and reflections on life captured my interest well into the book. He is a master of the novelistic apercu, a comment that makes an illuminating point. But the plot structure is weak and after a while the character and plot didn't develop enough to maintain my interest. If I had a greater capacity to enjoy well crafted descriptive prose and scattershot philosophy, I'd have given it a higher rating.

THAT part of the Universe visible from Chicago!

I knew from the first couple paragraphs of this novel that it was fantastic, amazing, like a well-built Italian or German sports car. However, once Bellow jumps into Augie's flight to Mexico with Thea (where they try to to catch Mexican lizards with a wussy eagle) it was equivalent to discovering the sports car you are driving actually has 7 gears and your radio goes to 11. Anyway, this is one of those books where sentences seem likely to escape the gravity of English, the characters are as big as planets, and the plot is as big as Eternity or at least the Universe or at least that part of the Universe visible from Chicago.

Little Action, Little Story, Great Book

If you require action and a strong arc of plot, this is likely not the book for you. I loved it. I suspect this book will be better appreciated by more mature readers. The young might feel this book portrays life as a chaotic unpleasant cacophony, while mature readers might better appreciate the underlying beauty of the individual’s interactions with the chaos that is life. This book follows the protagonist from a poor Chicago childhood through adulthood and the many strange twists and turns of life while the narrator evolves with the protagonist, learning about himself and the world, yet never having, or even wanting, control. Some reviewers comment upon the blatant sexism and objectification of women. Yep, the guys in this book (as some in non-fiction) are dogs. There were other surprising aspects of reality reflected in this 1949 novel: gays, transvestites, abortion, adultery, communism, and more. The prose ranges from good to spectacular. Bellows amazingly makes the language seem American colloquial while avoiding, almost entirely, clichés.

The narration is wonderful, with brilliant characterizations from youth to adulthood, clarity to confusion, and conveying both the wisdom and foolishness of human existence in America.

Why Some Authors Win Nobel Prizes

I have read other books by Saul Bellow but somehow missed this one. To say that I loved it is an understatement. Such beautiful prose to describe hard lives in an ugly time!.This was a joy all the way through. My thanks to Mr. Parker for his wonderful narration.

Augie is a mess of contradictions

Augie knows only what he doesn’t want. Every time he thinks he knows what he wants he chases it with fervor and ends up in a mess. Bellow fills Augie’s world with a myriad of colorful and beautifully described characters. Geniuses, cranks, damaged souls, narcissists, and everyone you would ever want to know. Brilliant fun!

A magnificent book!

Augie is a philosopher in the clothing of a 1930s lower class Chicagoan . get into the rhythm of the book and you will not be disappointed. My new favorite book!

Less about Chicago then Studs Lonigan — Informative - Well Narrated

Bellow’s experiences — that which he knows — are well conveyed to the reader, and unlike in so much of the literature in the ‘American Classics’ literary canon his female characters are well developed. Though this is a longer listen it is worth your time.

The first half is better than the second. His childhood and the formative years — before the labour sojourns to New York and Mexico and the rearing of hunting falcons and being struck by torpedoes and cast-away at sea — one can identify better with, especially those of us a that are lucky to be members of the historically marginalised classes.

-Noah Balfour
04/

Wonderful story, wonderful reader

What a fabulous novel, and so well read by Tom Parker. I ended up buying the book as well, to reread some chapters and have the opportunity to ponder the philosophical musings expressed by the various vivid characters in this story. I found myself thinking of Dickens so often as I was listening to and reading this novel--the rich teeming life of a city, the wildly improbable yet wholly believable one-of-a-kind characters, the comic antics, the sorrow, the crazy business of living and trying to find any meaning in it at all. I've been listening to lots of Dickens on Audible, and now I'll add Bellow to my wish list. These are great books to listen to and live with, and think about long after you've read or heard the last word. One line I love from Augie's tale: "I refuse to live a disappointed life."