Humboldt's Gift Study Guide & Plot Synopsis

Humboldt's Gift Plot Summary

Preview of Humboldt's Gift Summary:

Humboldt's Gift is a slice-of-life novel with undertones of dark comedy. From the perspective of Charlie Citrine, a poet and essayist of considerable success, it examines life in America from the 1930s through the mid-1970s. Much of the novel consists of Charlie's memories of his childhood in Chicago and his days in Greenwich Village with his mentor, Von Humboldt Fleischer, who has already descended into madness and death at the time of the telling. Charlie is driven throughout the novel by memories and recriminations of Humboldt. Saul Bellow is generally recognized as one of the great 20th Century American writers and won the Nobel Prize for literature for this work.

Humboldt's Gift begins with a brief review of Charlie's childhood in Chicago, when he first reads The Harlequin Ballads by New York poet Von Humboldt Fleischer. Charlie is so impressed by Humboldt's work that he borrows money from his teenage...
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