EPISODE SUMMARY

Listening to this 1988 conversation between Nobel-prize winning American writer, Saul Bellow, and former Canadian Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, we possess the advantage of hindsight. In the midst of a US presidential election, Bellow bemoans the vapid discourse between candidates George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis—their language constrained by groupthink and moral rigidity and the fact that neither one says anything worth listening to. One almost wants to say aloud: "Bellow, stop! Be careful what you wish for!" After the election we've just had—36 years later—it seems almost quaint to think that US presidential candidates are plagued with the problem of not saying enough. Clarkson delicately puts pressure on Bellow to claim a tribe: not only in terms of his Jewishness, but is he really a misogynist, and what's the deal with the accusations of racism against him? Bellow's defense that these questions feel "McCarthyite" in their demand for loyalty is both incisive and ironically blind to its own implications. Though he stands as one of America's most significant literary voices of the 20th century, Bellow emerges here as a figure suspended between eras, embodying both timeless insight and the beautiful limitations of his age.

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The audio recording of Saul Bellow in conversation with Adrienne Clarkson was recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1988. It's used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Find out more about all of TIFA’s Canadian and international author events, both virtual, in-person and on-demand, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca. 

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.

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SHOW NOTES

Works by Saul Bellow
More Die of Heartbreak (print edition) (ebook)
Dangling Man (print edition) (ebook)
Humboldt's Gift (print edition) (audiobook)
Herzog (print edition) 
There is Simply too much to Think About: Collected Essays (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
Saul Bellow: Letters (print edition) (ebook)

Works about Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow: I was a Jew and an American and a Writer by Gerald Soring (print edition)
Saul Bellow's Heart: a Son's Memoir by Greg Bellow (print edition)

Other Related Books or Materials

The Adventures of Saul Bellow: a video featuring Martin Amis on Bellow's life and career
Seize the Day: a 1986 film adaptation of a 1965 Saul Bellow work
"Saul Bellow is now a stamp" (this link opens an article from Lithub from Feb 2024)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.