"I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way."
With this phrase begins The Adventures of Augie March, and it is exactly what the title says, the comic and spiritual adventures of a young American Jew from the 1920s to World War II, from interwar Chicago to Mexico and Europe. Augie drifts from job to job and relationship to relationship, philosophizes, blends into his surroundings like a chameleon, and, without having any particular ambitions, remains always optimistic despite the adversities.
As for the writing of the book, it was and remains unique; a style unmatched in American literature of its time and thereafter. This novel earned the author his first National Book Award (1954), catapulting him to the top of the literary pantheon of his generation, and later the Nobel Prize (1976), the highest honor for the art of words.
With zest and vitality, Bellow wrote a great American novel of the 20th century.