Saul Bellow and Ghetto Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

Consider Shapiro. “His nose was sharp and angry and his lips appeared to be smiling away their anger. His cheeks were white and plump, and his thin hair was combed straight back, glistening in the Rudolph Valentino or Ricardo Cortez style of the twenties.” That gigolo’s hair marks him as a dandy and a villain, while those lips, smiling through their anger, reveal him to be a man of mixed intentions. Like all the best people in Herzog, he is an uneasy composite, a walking (and talking) oxymoron, whose breeding is mobilized against his instincts. From all appearances, Shapiro is a man of manners, taste, and charm, and on this hot summer afternoon on the lawn in Ludeyville he clings obstinately to his professorial composure, refusing to even loosen his conservative necktie as he holds forth eloquently and flirtatiously with Madeleine Herzog on any subject under the hot sun: the Russian Church, Tikhon Zadonsky, Dostoevsky, Herzen, Soloviev, what have-you. He is a gentleman and a scholar until lunch is served, and then, under the spell of spice and vinegar, he is transformed.