Henderson the Rain King (Penguin Classics)

Tales of a poetic pig farmer. 'At birth I weighed 14 pounds. Then I grew up.' 'My face is no common face, but like an unfinished church.'Life story of a big bully of an ugly rich guy, a nuisance to everyone.This is a grotesque book, full of surreal happenings and madcap philosophizing. If you need a name for the genre, you could call this a travel book, though the destination is entirely fictional despite the fact that it has a real name, Africa. You can also call it a Bildungsroman, though the hero is nearer 60 than 20. Or an adventure story.Henderson is an unusual narrator, but not of the deviously unreliable kind. One wonders why one would believe a word that he says. His perception of the world is so off. He keeps assuming things about the meaning of his inexplicable adventures, but we can hardly take him serious. He is jumpy and lacks logic. His actions are not explained, as if he watches himself with disbelief. He is a bit of an over-aged fool, an am-bay-seel.He was unhappy with his life in Connecticut, so he goes on this trip. There is no attempt at the simple Hemingway style. I am often intrigued by the artful language, which is at times humorous and skillful with words, as one would not expect from a pig farmer. Maybe that is a point of criticism. If a narrator is invented, should he not be plausible?Henderson is also good at quirky aphorisms. 'Even civilized women are not keen on geography, preferring a world of their own'. Isn't that true.The truest of these: 'ideas make people untruthful. Yes, they frequently lead them into lies.'Is there anything realistic about Bellow-Henderson's Africa? I don't know if Bellow even meant to be realistic in a generic way. I suspect he didn't bother about that at all. Henderson has no clue where he goes, though his local counterpart, the real king, mentions Lamu and Malindi and Zanzibar as places where he has been. One assumes they serve as anchors in the sea of a fairy continent.The trip to Africa is a bit like Kafka's sending his young man to 'Amerika'. Eugene Henderson is a big fat violent Alice in his own Wonderland. An innocent abroad. A Don Quijote he is not though, he fights no windmills but his inner devils.The philosophical core of the story is the artificially mysterious 'grun-to-molani', the will to live. Schopenhauer in the lion's den.This is an irritating book, and that might be its strong point. Don't we read in order to get shaken or stirred? And find some entertainment on the way?I was quite pleased with it. I re-read it after 30 years and liked it much better this time than then. And way better than Augie March, which had turned me off recently. However, I would have liked it better had it been 100 pages shorter.

Gene Henderson, a 50-something millionaire living in 1950s America, decides to take a trip to Africa to try to quiet the voice inside him that keeps saying, "I want, I want." Since Henderson already has everything material he could want, he can't find any way to satisfy that voice, and as he has already tried several other things prior to his African trip, he doesn't hold out much hope. But it becomes a very strange trip - for only in a very strange place could he find what he actually needs.I can't read Bellow's mind, of course, but as I read his book, Henderson represents America - huge, crude, often well-meaning but sometimes causing unintentional destruction. Bellow's imaginary Africa would then be the entire developing world - or even the whole world outside America. It's hard to like Henderson at first; even his own first-person narration casts him in a bad light despite his high opinion of himself. As his attempts to help the people in the first tribe he meets end in catastrophe, he definitely seems to represent the American ignorance and arrogance that led to so many disastrous overseas projects in the 1950s and 1960s. Subdued by his first failure, Henderson allows himself to learn from the second tribe, and although he ultimately barely escapes with his life, he comes away with the inner peace he had sought, with a new wisdom, and with a determination to become a healer. The message seems pretty obvious - a call for a wiser America dedicating itself to higher goals.An alternative way to read it makes Henderson representative of anyone who no longer has to work for a living and who searches for something to give life meaning. This should resonate with any young dot com millionaire as much as with any healthy retired person. In that interpretation, Henderson learns that just because you don't have to work doesn't mean that you shouldn't work and that to be ennobling, work must be helpful to someone else - not all activity suffices - and not meant to glorify yourself either.Either way, the book reads smoothly and moves along briskly. Read it long enough to get past your initial dislike of Henderson, and it will reward your efforts.

Bela obra de uma cômica crise existencial. Leitura fluida e um protagonista excêntrico digno de risadas e reflexões sobre os descaminhos da vida.

From such a great and acclaimed author I expected more. There are moments of brilliance but, for the most part, the rambling gets centre stage.

An interesting read. I came across the title via another book I was reading and was curious.

Great quality and great delivery. Thank you.

This is not as good as his other books. I bought it for my husband but he thought it silly.