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"...Bellow has fashioned a rich, loving and affecting book..It is a measure of how faithfully Bellow has portrayed this friendship that this book rings with its laughter and joy, indeed at times is as funny as anything Bellow has ever written, no small accomplishment in and of itself. The book has no plot to speak of and should not be read by anyone in search of one....[Ravelstein] is an extraordinary character, one to take his place alongside Augie March and Henderson and, most particularly, Humboldt....Bellow, who is now midway through his ninth decade, still feels with the intensity of youth, and here shows us that friendship, however platonic, can provoke longing and passion just as does love. Surely his memoir would please his subject; as for the reader, it is hard not to feel privileged at being allowed a glimpse into a human connection as intimate and rewarding as this one."

Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World, 04/09/2000

"[A] chatty, intermittently engaging work that feels more like a fictionalized portrait than a fully fashioned novel. Indeed, the book is at its most compelling when Mr. Bellow's narrator--a writer named Chick, who functions as an authorial stand-in--simply reminisces about his old friend Abe Ravelstein, memorializing his antics, his idiosyncrasies and tastes. When Mr. Bellow tries to give the book more of a plot, to flesh out Chick's relationship with Ravelstein and more minor members of the cast, his efforts feel peculiarly tentative and flaccid, as though he wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to make of his hero's story....Mr. Bellow would have ended up with a better book (and doubtless done better by his late friend) had he simply written a straightforward memoir instead of trying, unsuccessfully, to pump up his reminiscences into a work of fiction."

Michiko Kakutani, New York Times, 04/20/2000

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