Barney Panofsky, a Montreal policeman's son, meets his third wife at his second wedding, a gilded gala that he stumbles into halfway between his wayward bohemian youth and his distempered dotage. Barney, played with shambling energy and vulgar elegance by Paul Giamatti, catches a sudden, breathtaking glimpse of Miriam (Rosamund Pike) and pretty...
SAUL BELLOW Letters By Edited by Benjamin Taylor 571 pp. Viking. $35 ''We often stopped before a display of children's shoes. My mother coveted for me a pair of patent-leather sandals with an elegantissimo strap. I finally got them -- I rubbed them with butter to preserve the leather. This is when I was 6 or 7 years old, a little older than Rosie...
LETTERS By Saul Bellow Edited by Benjamin Taylor. Illustrated. 571 pages. Viking. $35. Herzog, the title character of Saul Bellow's 1964 novel, is famously a writer of letters he never sends, letters to friends, rivals, relatives and strangers; letters that satisfy his craving ''to explain, to have it out, to justify, to put in perspective, to...