The Adventures of Augie March

By: Saul Bellow

Narrated by: Tom Parker

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.

Well crafted narration, vivid language, imaginative storyline

While I wasn’t wild about the readers voice, Bellows writing makes it worth listening to. The second time reading it 20 years later, the slow-ish beginning pays off in wild and unforeseen adventures worth the listen. I first picked this up in my 20’s while traveling from Russia to the UK while utterly broke. Augies adventures more than made up for my lack of dough and made the trip so much better. Reading second time was a bit of reliving those days lolling around parks and cafes reading.

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.

THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL

Tom Parker provides us with a superb narration of Saul Bellow's great 20th Century novel. Bellow's writing stands out in a class by itself.

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).