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who will be remembered, though not for this novel in
particular. Generally, it has the tone of valediction-butnot-quite.
This could be because Rosamund is the real
inspiration of this book, with Ravelstein as the unlikely
bonding agent. Though she appears, like Amy’s face
in The Actual, at the end of the book, she is about the
present and future; death is gratefully postponed. In the
process, it resurrects Ravelstein.
In fact, the question of how the apparently dead past
binds to the present weighs on the novel throughout.
BUY Saul Bellow books online from and
Ravelstein and Chick are both unpious Jews, but they
know the facts of history. One of Chick’s friends is a
Romanian implicated in the Fascist Iron Guard of World
War II. Ravelstein is appalled and tells Chick that if he
is to meet the Romanian again to think of the Jews they
hung on meat hooks: “we must not turn our backs on
the millions who died” he says. Chick finds it difficult;
he doesn’t want to think about it. Anyway, he is amused
by the Romanian. By the end, we are familiar with this
characteristic. �
075
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