Point of View

The Adventures of Augie March is presented as the fictitious narrator's memoir. Author Saul Bellow virtually removes himself from the story in favor of giving his chief character complete autonomy. This mitigates against the examination of anyone's inner mental processes except Augie's—and anyone's whom he might, rightly or wrongly, surmise. Augie is consciously telling his life's story to people whom he believes to be interested in the details of his tale and not antithetic to his foibles and many failings. He prides himself on honesty and integrity (after adolescence, when it is always problematic) but never conceals his mistakes.

The process of becoming aware of who he is and why he exists is assisted for Augie by input from a plethora of characters, both major and minor. These occur at all stages of his life, in ordinary times and those of crisis. People seem...