Number One
SAUL BELLOW is Number One now. In a recent interview a well-known American novelist quoted him as saying. 'There are those who didn't like Herzog. but since the big critics treated it so well—and especially since it became a best-seller —there have been many attacks . . I'm on top and must be cut down. I understand that, or try to: There are compensations, however, if the suc- cess of Herzog means that Bellow's earlier novels are to be re-issued. The Victim, first published in 1947, tells the story of Asa Leventhal's 'show- down' summer—a New York summer of almost tropical intensity that is brilliantly evoked. Leventhal is a struggler, a nervy man with a frail grip on the bottom rung of the ladder. He works for a dreary trade journal. His wife, whom he loves, has gone south for the summer when Albee, his accuser, turns up. Albee, Gentile, a drunk, blames his ruin on Leventhal. Years ago when Leventhal was searching for a job in New York, Albee arra,nged for him to see his boss, and Leventhal, failing to click, insulted him. Albee, who insists he was fired as a direct con- sequence, claims the insult was deliberate- Leventhal's calculated revenge for a casual anti- Semitic remark Albee once made at a party.
There is more, much more to Albee's accusa- tions. Albee, the WASP going under (`Do you know one of my ancestors was Governor Winthrop!'), senses emergent Jewishness trium- phant all around him. Calibans everywhere. He
tells Leventhal, . . last week I saw a book about Thoreau and Emerson by a man named Lipschitz.' The Victim is about WASPS going to seed and Jewish guilt. It is a remarkable novel, really, and belongs on the shelf with Seize the Day and Herzog. It's a pleasure to have it in print again.
MORDECAI RICHLER
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