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The Actual
 
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The Actual (Paperback)

by Saul Bellow (Author)
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (27 Aug 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140253033
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140253030
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.8 x 0.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,350,451 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #74 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > B > Bellow, Saul

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Product Description

Product Description

Harry Trellman has loved Amy Wustrin for 40 years. In Amy, Harry sees what he calls his "actual". Harry has had his opportunities with Amy, but it is not until he finds himself at the cemetery with her for the exhumation and reburial of her husband that he feels free to speak out.

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:
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3 star:
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2 star:
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1 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Bellow touches every intellectual theme of our time., 4 Aug 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: The Actual (Hardcover)
In The Actual, Bellow touches on the major intellectual themes of the late twentieth century: materialism, capitalism, existentialism, nihilism, and postmodernism. Bellow once again, consciously or unconsciously, tells a great story placed in the philosophic world of actuality, where the individual, the particular, the personal triumphs over modernism's desire to subsume the part into the whole. Bellow uses the romantic genre to discuss these themes while flashing the caution light of pragmatism. A pragmatism that says existentialism can be nihilism, materialism creates numbness, captialism demands consumption, and love becomes a carnival unless anchored in the heart and objectified in an "other".
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1.0 out of 5 stars Bellow: In it for the money?, 24 Oct 2000
Nothing much happens. As you'd expect from Bellow, this purposeless aimless meandering is well observed and well written...

If your friend has a copy, borrow it and while away (half) an afternoon. But save your money for Bellow's better works.

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3.0 out of 5 stars A novella that passed me by, 14 Jun 2000
By A Customer
The synopsis above says it all. Many people consider Bellow to be one of the world's greatest novellists, but this one passed me by. I think I must have missed something. It's readable enough, but the meaning and purpose eluded me.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Harry Trellman is the narrator and the story is essentially one of recuperating a long lost love, of making amends over lost opportunities. Read more
Published on 23 Jul 2007 by Mr. D. J. Walsh

2.0 out of 5 stars I was disappointed
I was very excited to be able to sit down and read this book last night, but found myself an hour later with the book finished before I felt that it had started. Read more
Published on 2 Jul 1998

5.0 out of 5 stars An engaging book for the modern old-folk in us
A man moves back home to Chicago and into semi-retirement. We all have ghosts from our past, but Harry's ghosts, we come to understand, revolve around a lady he has known since... Read more
Published on 2 April 1998

3.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, until the last line
While there is little disputing Saul Bellow's remarkable gifts at capturing reality and creating amazingly dense and believable characters, I find it a bit disheartening to... Read more
Published on 28 Mar 1998

4.0 out of 5 stars Actually Unusual
Although Bellow (as usual) manages to navigate a perfect course through the nebulous region between material, modern life and the life of the mind, he leaves us with what I... Read more
Published on 25 Aug 1997

4.0 out of 5 stars This book makes me homesick for Chicago in the winter!
I've never read Saul Bellow, and my lit-geek friends have made me feel self-conscious. So I decided to give this novella a try. Read more
Published on 21 Jun 1997

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