For some readers, the title of Saul Bellow’s third novel The Adventures of Augie March makes a promise that it fails to keep. Sure, the story of a Jewish boy’s childhood and young adulthood in early 20th century Chicago has incidents that one would call adventurous, including an escape from the police, joining a group of political subversives in Mexico, and getting shipwrecked in World War II. But the vast majority of the novel chronicles Augie's drifting from job to job, romantic partner to romantic partner.
Published in 1953, The Adventures of Augie March both follows in and critiques the literary tradition of the bildungsroman, a novel of education. We certainly watch as Augie toils...
