Bellovian Ideology: Sauls Radical Repudiation

1
Bellovian IdeologySauls Radical Repudiation

• Richard OBrien, 2/7/08

2
The old Joseph

• He does not have what people call an open look,
  but is restrained at times, despite his
  amiability forbidding. He is a person greatly
  concerned with keeping in tact.
  (Bellow, 1944,
  p.27)
• He likes to refer to himself as a Machiavellian
  and works everything out in accordance with a
  general plan.
  (Bellow, 1944, p.29)

3

• The plans. Unfortunately, most of them were
  foolish. They led him to be untrue to
  himself. He made mistakes of the sort people make
  who see things as they wish to see them or, for
  the sake of their plans, must see them.
  (Bellow, 1944, p.39)
• The old Joseph is wearing his cast-off
  clothes, it adds to his appearance of maturity.
  (Bellow,
  1944, p.27)

4
Josephs colony of the spirit

• A group whose covenants forbade spite,
  bloodiness, and cruelty. To hack, to tear, to
  murder was for those in whom the sense of the
  temporariness of live had shrunk.
  (Bellow, 1944, p.39)

5

• I dangle, and grow more and more dispirited.
  It is perfectly clear to me that I am
  deteriorating, storing bitterness and spite which
  eat like acids at my endowment of generosity and
  goodwill. (Bellow, 1944, p.12)

6

• You dont understand because youre a person of
  no political experience. Simply because I am
  no longer a member of their party they have
  instructed him and boobs like him not to talk to
  me. His party doesnt want him to think, but
  to follow its discipline.
• Because its supposed to be a revolutionary
  party. Thats whats offending me. When a man
  obeys an order like that hes helping to abolish
  freedom and begin tyranny.
  (Bellow, 1944,
  p.33-34).

7

• An ideal construction, an obsessive device.
  There have been innumerable varieties for study,
  for wisdom, bravery, war, the benefits of
  cruelty, for art the despot, the ascetic,
  the millionaire, the manager. I could name
  hundreds of these ideal constructions, each with
  its assertions and symbols, each finding its
  particular answer and each proclaiming This is
  the only possible way to meet chaos.
  (Bellow, 1944, p.140)

8
Tu As Raison Aussi

• But what of the gap between the ideal
  construction and the real world, the truth?
• Yes
• How are they related?
• An interesting problem.
• Then theres this the obsession exhausts the
  man. It can become his enemy. It often does.
• Hm.
• What do you say to all this?
• What do I say?
• Yes, what do you think? You just sit there,
  looking at the ceiling and giving equivocal
  answers.
• I havent answered. Im not supposed to give
  answers.
• No. What an offensive career youve chosen.
• (Bellow, 1944, p.141).

9

• If I had Tu As Raison Aussi with me today, I
  could tell him that the highest ideal
  construction is the one that unlocks the
  imprisoning self. We struggle perpetually to free
  ourselves.
• Or, to put it somewhat differently, while we
  seem so intently and even desperately to be
  holding on to ourselves, we would far rather give
  ourselves away. We do not know how. So, at times,
  we throw ourselves away.
  (Bellow, 1944, pp.153-54)