第二回目 'Ravelstein' by Saul Bellow これは大金持ちになっても、そんなお金のまともな使い道はありません。NYとParisの飛行機FirstClassに浪費するだけ。と主張する小説。おもしろい。これが実存主義。
'Ravelstein' (hard cover, published in 2000 by Viking, Penguin. The original text on pages 45 and 46 is reproduced here for advanced English learners' convenience.
... . Ravelstein was vigorous and hard. Although even while teaching one of his Platonic dialogues he allowed himself to cut a caper.
He sometimes said, "Yes, I play the pitre."
"The straight man."
"The buffoon."
We had both lived in France. The French were genuinely educated--or had been so once. They had feeling for beautiful objects still, for leisure, for reading and conversation; they didn't despise creaturely needs--the human basics. I keep making this pitch for the French.
On any street you could buy a baguette, a pair of underpants taille grand patron, or beer or brandy or coffee or charcuterie. Ravelstein was an atheist, but there was no reason why an atheist should not be influenced by the Sante-Chapelle, should not read Pascal. For a civilized man there was no background, no atmosphere like the Parisians. For my part I had often felt myself hustled and despised by Parisians. I didn't see Vichy solely as a product of the Nazi occupation. I had ideas of my own about collaboration and fascism.
"I don't know whether it's your Jewish edginess or your unnatural need for a friendly welcome," said Ravelstein. "Or maybe you feel the Frenchies are ungrateful. I don't believe it's hard to prove that Paris is a better place than Detroit or Newark or Hartford."
It was a minor disagreement involving no big principles. Abe had excellent friends in Paris. He was well received by the ecoles and institutes where he lectured on French subjects in his own sort of French. He himself had studied in Paris years ago under the famous Hegelian and high official Alexander Kojeve, who had educated a whole generation of influential thinkers and writers. Among these Abe had quite a few buddies, admirers, readers. In the states he was controversial. He had more enemies at home than any normal person could want, especially among social scientists and philosophers.
But I have only the limited knowledge of these things that a non-specialist can have. Abe Ravelstein and I were close friends. We lived on the same street, and we were in almost daily contact. I was often invited to attend his seminars and to discuss literature with graduate students. In the old days there was still a considerable literary community in our country, and medicine and law were still "the learned professions," but in an American city today you can no longer count on doctors, lawyers, businessmen, journalists, politicians, television personalities, architects, or commodities traders to discuss Stendhal's novels or Thomas Hardy's Poems. You occasionally do come across a reader of Proust or a crank who has memorized whole pages of Finnegans Wake. I like to say, when I am asked about Finnegan, that I am saving him for the nursing home. Better to enter eternity with Anna Livia Plurabelle than with the Simpsons jittering on the TV screen.
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１．この小説は延々と肉欲そのもの、性行為のうんざりするシーンが延々と続くのですがこれが「この種の世界のくだらなさ」を読者に思い知らせる道場だったと納得しました。読み終わるまで頑張った人のみが味わう安堵感です。イラク戦争、サダム・フセインが世界（これを世界に報道したことで有名なのがJohn Simpson氏（BBC)でした。）を引っ掻き回した年月にあって人々は良心を傷め怒りを覚えたのですが、これが人として正常なことで、金を浪費するばかりのセレブにあこがれていてはいけないと主張しています。
２．「ラヴェルスタイン」として彩流社から和訳が出ています。ザッとこの小説の良さを解るには 朴 育美 先生のエッセイ「アドラー心理学から読む「ラヴェルスタイン」：ソール・ベローによるアラン・ブルームの回想録（http://doi.org/10.18956/00007875）」を読まれることをお薦めします。
３．上段にスナップ・ショット（単語の意味の記載はOALD,7th editionに依ります。他の文献名の記載が無い場合。）で示したのが私のStudy Noteです。どなたかにとって原文を読まれる切っ掛けとなればと願っています。原書で読まれる方々をより強力にエンカレジするべく、もっと多くのページを公開したいのですが、200ページ弱にも及ぶ故、エラー・錯誤などのチェックは当面出来そうにありません。
４．この小説には前述のJohn Simpsonのみならずソール・ベローが生きた時代、第二次大戦から２０００年頃の間に活躍した世界の有名人が実名で大勢登場します。フィクションなのですがソール・ベローの頭の中では事実であったというべきでしょう。私がおもしろいと評価したのはこのような観点からこの小説を読んだことに起因します。
５．John Simpson の著作 'Wars against Saddam' と 'Not Quite World's End' を読みましたが、ジャーナリストの文章で小説とは違った具体的（小説も現実以上に具体的かもしれませんが）な話題で私は引き込まれました。