Scott on Bellow

From Times Week in Review, A.O. Scott's encomium to Saul Bellow

"(Bellow's) characters are unthinkable outside of the cities that tormented them, and in this they became something of a lost tribe. The postwar Americna novel resembles, for the most part, a suburb, populated by standardized ciphers who dream of becoming charcaters and wonder (along with their readers) why they can't quite succeed."

Boing! Especially the part about the suburbs. That's a good strong sentence that holds a lot of water. And yet the fact that suburban un-drama of accomodation and dreams less stifled than not dreamed is repeated millions of times in reality and a similar number of times doesn't make it less compelling or real. The romantic vision of the urban eccentric, from Joseph Mitchell through Jane Jacobs and Jim Jarmusch, is really something of a foil, and antipode, to the suburban vision of getting the kids in bed on time, plied with vegetables. Or rather, it is the mental spice, kicking out a stream of cultural commodities with which suburbanites can leaven and lessen their boredom. That is, for those that are actually bored.

Dunno, one thing it ain't is simple.