The book s revelation kept his brother from speaking to him again for years. Bellow, like Artur Sammler, was once faced down by a radical student in a classroom. A couple of lifelong friends appear in The Dean s December where, for no real reason, they are chewed up and spat out. Atlas makes the point over and over that for all his faithlessness to others, Bellow needs love, and not just love but unyielding devotion. He brooks little criticism of any kind anything less than lifelong allegiance to his every word is a declaration of war.
Longtime pals don t get off any easier, especially if they write bad reviews.
Bellow never forgave the estimable Alfred Kazin for the single time he broke with tradition and gave Bellow a bad notice. He was equally severe with another, Ted Solotaroff, for making minor objections in an otherwise positive review, and he even stopped speaking to one editor for merely failing to commiserate with him over another review. There does get to be something a bit nagging about Atlas harping insistence that Saul Bellow sees the world revolving around him, as he passes up no chance to make the point again. He quotes Studs Terkel s belief that Bellow thinks he is greater than Tolstoy. He finds in Bellow s latent distaste for popular culture a belief that Literature was over because Saul Bellow was over.