Henderson the Rain King

Ahmad Sharabiani

Rating: really liked it
(Book 464 from 1001 books) - Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow (1915 - 2005)

Bellow's glorious, spirited story of an eccentric American millionaire who finds a home of sorts in deepest Africa.

Eugene Henderson is a troubled middle-aged man. Despite his riches, high social status, and physical prowess, he feels restless and unfulfilled, and harbors a spiritual void that manifests itself as an inner voice crying out I want, I want, I want. Hoping to discover what the voice wants, Henderson goes to Africa.

Upon reaching Africa, Henderson splits with his original group and hires a native guide, Romilayu.

Romilayu leads Henderson to the village of the Arnewi, where Henderson befriends the leaders of the village.

He learns that the cistern from which the Arnewi get their drinking water is plagued by frogs, thus rendering the water "unclean" according to local taboos.

Henderson attempts to save the Arnewi by ridding them of the frogs, but his enthusiastic scheme ends in disaster, destroying the frogs but also the village's cistern.

Henderson and Romilayu travel on to the village of the Wariri. Here, Henderson impulsively performs a feat of strength by moving the giant wooden statue of the goddess Mummah and unwittingly becomes the Wariri Rain King, Sungo.

He quickly develops a friendship with the native-born but western-educated Chief, King Dahfu, with whom he engages in a series of far-reaching philosophical discussions.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «سلطان باران»؛ «هندرسون سلطان باران»، اثر: سال بیلو (بلو)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هفدهم ماه آگوست سال1984میلادی

عنوان: سلطان باران؛ اثر: سال بیلو (بلو)؛ مترجم: عباس کرمی فر؛ مشخصات نشر تهران، اردیبهشت، سال1363، در480ص، موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20م

عنوان: هندرسون سلطان باران، نویسنده: سال بلو؛ مترجم: مجتبی عبدالله نژاد، تهران، فرهنگ نشر نو، سال1397، در450ص؛ شابک9786007439517؛

کتاب «سلطان باران» در ردیف چهارصدوهشتادوچهار از فهرست هزار و یک جلد، و نامزد دریافت «جایزه پولیتزر» نیز بوده، ولی برنده نشده است، نویسنده ی کتاب، «سولومون بلو» که سپس خود را «سال بیلو (بلو)» نامیدند است؛ ایشان از تحسین برانگیزترین نویسندگان «کانادایی» تبار، آمریکایی بودند، ایشان در سال1976میلادی، برنده ی «جایزه نوبل» ادبیات، و سپس برنده ی «مدال ملی هنر» نیز، در سال1988میلادی شدند؛ داستان درباره ی مردی بداخلاق، و تند مزاج است، که همه جا درگیری، و دردسر، برپا میکند، او سپس در پی رخدادهایی، به «آمریکا» سفر میکند؛ در آنجا با رئیس قبیله ای آشنا میشود، و همین سرآغاز دیگر شدن شخصیت همین شخصیت داستان است؛ ...؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 08/01/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ 04/09/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Vit Babenco

Rating: really liked it
Do the modern achievements of civilization bring good? Or do they bring evil? Isn’t it better to return to the primordial roots and become a part of nature?
Protagonist – a future rainmaker – is a picturesque persona…

Here comes Henderson of the U.S.A. – Captain Henderson, Purple Heart, veteran of North Africa, Sicily, Monte Cassino, etc., a giant shadow, a man of flesh and blood, a restless seeker, pitiful and rude, a stubborn old lush with broken bridgework, threatening death and suicide.

Henderson is tired of civilization and, in search of pristine human origins, he runs away to Africa.

All human accomplishment has this same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination! It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!

But an incorrigible intellectual among the primordial people is like a sailor marooned on a desert island among mice. An idealist at home is an idealist anywhere.
Render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.

Manny

Rating: really liked it
Although I enjoyed the book, I have trouble improving on this brief summary from onestarbookreviews:

A rich old man goes to Africa to find himself, only to get tangled up in one huge, extended metaphor with a lion.

Barry Pierce

Rating: really liked it
Holden Caulfield goes to Africa.

Richard Hensley

Rating: really liked it
If you can endure the narcissistic, misogynistic narrator-protagonist, if you can pretend to believe that every woman he meets wants to jump his bones, every guy wants to become his pal and no one anywhere wants to slap him silly, if you can abide the phony African setting, if you can shrug off the plot contrivances and force yourself to care about yet another privileged male’s midlife crisis, if you can avoid rolling your eyes out of socket at the “humorous” mishaps caused by the Rabelaisian hero against the noble savages he pursues, then occasionally you will find some perceptive observations in this novel. Eventually the narrator will reveal a spark of humanity. Once or twice he will treat women as though they’re almost human. And some of the author’s descriptive flourishes will evoke genuine pleasure.

But Bellow here wants it both ways: he wants to parody the Hemingway-esque hero type and he also wants page after page philosophical babble to be taken seriously. I couldn’t do it. Over and over again I set this book aside never wanting to look at it again; I read review after review trying to appreciate what others saw; I forced myself to continue in an effort to understand its critical acclaim; but I'm still baffled.

Arun Divakar

Rating: really liked it
There is a thriving trade in self-help books which have always baffled me. I could never relate to another person telling me Look, these are the steps you need to take to better your life & if you don't take them you are done for ! Well, no book will be so absolute in saying so but underlying all the sugarcoating there is this message loud & clear in most books of this genre. Then however comes the matter of literature where a clever author without even giving you the faintest clue ties a blindfold around your eyes and walks you along telling you the story of a character & a quest. At some point (s)he pulls the blindfold off you & cries There, you see where our character is right now ? Then and only then do you realize the importance of the word self-discovery. Precisely what Saul Bellow does in this book !

There is no patronizing in the words, no hollow advise on quick fixes you need to follow to discover the meaning of life. There is however a series of nerve wracking ordeals through which the guinea pig of a character named Eugene Henderson has to go through. Eugene is the oddball scion of an illustrious American family which counts State Secretaries, Scientists, Scholars & Lunatics among wealth and a solid ancestry. Eugene however is a totally different beast altogether, he is from rind to core a mass of confusion.When confronted with situations or emotions that threaten to get the better of him, he reacts in the only way best known to him : violence. He tries to find an inner meaning & solace in a lot of totally unconnected areas : Music, Sex, Soldiering, Alcohol, Farming but each tend to be a bigger disaster than the one preceding it. Eugene to me was very much akin to what a gorilla would have been in a glass factory. Leaving behind such a trail of shattered things, he escapes to Africa. It is among two of the most isolated of tribes : The Arnewi & The Wariri that the rest of his life story is penned.

One amusing character I found in the tale was of King Dahfu of the Wariri. Eugene's interactions with the King give way to some of the most mind boggling & quote worthy prose in the book. The eccentric intelligence of the King rubs off on Eugene and the first tentative roots of transformation take hold in his character. Of significant presence for the principal protagonist is also the prophecy of Daniel on Nebuchadnezzar for at all phases in life, Eugene is closely linked to the lives of animals around him.

The prose is extremly powerful and moving. While retaining the touch of a master wordsmith, Bellow creates extremely witty monologues especially in the earlier half of the book. This is easily a favorite for me !

Duane

Rating: really liked it
This is my first Saul Bellow book and while I didn't hate it, I didn't love it either. I get that Henderson was on a spiritual journey to find the answers to his life's questions, and that the reader can pluck a few jewels of inspiration from Bellow's examples throughout the novel, but I've experienced that in many other novels that I enjoyed much more than this one. I think the problem I had was with Henderson's personality. He reminded me of a few people that I have known, one in particular, who always rubbed ne the wrong way.

Théodore

Rating: really liked it
A book of a brilliant comic, after all, and completely innovative, to which I cannot stick a clear label,
a book that is both serious and frivolous, that encourages an academic reading, but at the same time, ironizes it.
A quite crazy book, I could say, but not without a crazy authority.

Bellow's Africa has for Henderson - the central character - the same role as the village owned by the kafkaesque castle for K. , giving the protagonist from the outside a completely unknown test area, in which to turn his deepest desires into reality, to find - if he can - the peace of his soul, explosively, through the zeal of useful toil.
But unlike the kafkaesque man, who is constantly prevented from fulfilling his desire, Henderson constitutes the directionless human force, which a savage insistence makes her triumph.
Henderson's biography is as heavy as a millstone : a drunkard, a middle-aged billionaire, in a state of a permanent emotional revolt. He is suffocated by the chaos of " my parents, my wives, my children, my farm, my animals, my music lessons, my drunkenness, my prejudices, my soul "...
Due to all his deformities, he is, according to his own judgment, equally a Disease, not just a human being.
He leaves his home, and goes to Africa, among wild tribes, to defeat this disease, to defeat himself , through this.
Africa as a medicine.
I liked this idea, and this foray as a whole, and , as a bonus, the writing is a natural, restful one.

Malum

Rating: really liked it
Henderson the Rain King or, as I like to think of it, Hunter S. Thompson's African Adventure is one of those rare books that I didn't want to end. I found it powerful, beautiful, and funny. Looking through some of the negative reviews, however, I find myself confused about people's approaches toward literature. for example:

Complaint 1: Main character is a rich white guy: Can only disadvantaged minorities be interesting or have noteworthy events in their lives? Also, if every character in every book is a poor, Chinese, paraplegic lesbian then books would be just as boring as having every character be a white dude. We live in a wonderful time where minorities are represented in popular fiction more than ever. Go find those books and knock yourself out.

Complaint 2: Everyone likes Henderson right away: Henderson is an unreliable narrator.

Complaint 3: Henderson is a misogynist: Do you only read books where you agree with every single one of the main character's opinions and personality traits? Your reading life must be very dull. Also, being offended by a pretend person's views is kind of weird, isn't it?

So, if you have the complaints that I listed, then I am sure there are enough books with main characters who are poor minorities who are super nice and accepting of everyone and yet who everyone inexplicably hates for some reason out there. For everyone else who wants to be challenged by what they read, Henderson the Rain King is a modern masterpiece (or, at the very least, an entertaining and thought-provoking read).

Lark Benobi

Rating: really liked it
I just finished another bout with Eugene Henderson, this time via audiobook. And I'm so sad. This novel is like a beloved eccentric uncle to me, the one who used to be my favorite when I was younger, but as the years passed I changed and he didn't, and now I've discovered that he's slid irrevocably into maudlin self-pity, egoism, and blinding privilege. I've tried so hard to keep on loving him, but just now I can't forgive him.

I can still remember why this novel used to be my favorite, though. See below. And in spite of all this I can't not give it 5 stars because there is no prose like this any longer.

prior review--
I've read this novel many times now and each time I'm overwhelmed by the narrative force, the joy of it. I do wish someone other than the guy famous for asking "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans?" had written it...or alternatively I wish that Henderson had gotten in a space ship and gone to Mars to have his mythological encounter rather than to a mythological Africa. Be that as it may my favorite writing of all time is the late-in-the-book chapter about a young Henderson riding a Ferris Wheel with Smolak the Bear, a scene that stands on its own as a masterpiece of narrative imagination.

Chrissie

Rating: really liked it
Now I am grumpy. I have been struggling to understand what Bellow was saying with this book. Giving up in the middle was to acknowledge defeat. Now, on completion, I have come to the conclusion it was a total waste of time.

The book is said to be a comic adventure story. In fact, that is all it is. As you read, assorted philosophical themes are hinted at. I mistakenly thought that the book might have something of value to say. Why? Well because we are often in the central character’s head. He is a thinking sort of guy, and he travels to Africa. He ought to have something of consequence to tell us!

So, who is the central character? He is twice married and in his middle fifties. He has four kids. He goes by the name of Eugene Henderson. Yep, that is him in the title. He is your typical Bellowian schmuck, but in this novel, also exceedingly wealthy, strong and handsome. A thinker too, which misleads readers!

Henderson ponders suffering, death and the whole purpose of life. He goes off to Africa to find himself. He has so much money he doesn’t need to work, as most everyone else must do.

What is drawn is absurd, totally beyond believability. It borders on fantasy. Forget trying to understand the book in terms of the ordinary criteria of reality. Perhaps Bellow is saying something about reality. Maybe that what each person sees as reality is defined by their own life circumstances. As a result, we each define realty differently. Take this a step further--that which may seem absurd and fantastical to one could be reality to another. My thoughts follow this path because the villagers' lives in Africa are difficult to view as possible. Or maybe, I am just desperately searching to give the book a meaning it doesn't have.

The humor is a mix of both the crude and the intellectual. One I like, the other I don’t. It is not without humor, but most of what happens is simply so absurd it is hard to get your head around events, let alone laugh.

The story is too long and drawn out; it needs tighter editing.

On reaching the end, by observing how events are tied up, the book’s message is revealed. What is said is corny and pedestrian. The ending is shockingly bad, Henderson returns (view spoiler)[home to his wife, feeling, at least for the moment, full of love for her. At the age of fifty-six, he says he will begin medical studies (hide spoiler)]! Tell me, is that even the teeniest bit realistic?!

Besides Henderson’s schmaltzy decision (view spoiler)[to return to his wife and family (hide spoiler)], absurd and fantastical events unroll at the story’s close. They are bizarre and totally unnecessary extensions of the tale--a dancing bear and a young Persian-speaking orphan boy who snuggles up asleep on Henderson’s lap (view spoiler)[on the plane trip home to America (hide spoiler)]. Add on that the two are accompanied by a lion cub and aided by a sweet, understanding and of course pretty air hostess! The ending, in my view, just couldn’t have been worse!

I was wrong to assume Bellow was actually saying something of importance with this novel! I believe readers are simply to laugh, but the story is just too weird for me to laugh at. Its humor is not my kind of humor. At Wikipedia I found this:

“A week before the novel appeared in book stores, Saul Bellow published an article in the New York Times entitled ‘The Search for Symbols, a Writer Warns, Misses All the Fun and Fact of the Story’. Here, Bellow warns readers against looking too deeply for symbols in literature. This has led to much discussion among critics as to why Bellow warned his readers against searching for symbolism just before the symbol-packed Rain King hit the shelves.”

Reading this has been a chore. I have searched to find a reason to like it. I have failed.

Joe Barrett narrates the audiobook. I dislike his dramatization, particularly of the native Africans. French words are not translated, and Barrett’s French is deplorable. Maybe we are meant to laugh at this too. Since, it is not hard to follow the limes of the text, I am willing to give the narration two stars.

********************
*Herzog 4 stars
*The Victim 4 stars
*Seize the Day 3 stars
*Dangling Man 3 stars
*More Die of Heartbreak 2 stars
*The Adventures of Augie March 2 stars
*The Actual 2 stars
*Henderson the Rain King 1 star
*Humboldt's Gift maybe
*Ravelstein maybe

J.I.

Rating: really liked it
This novel is staggering. It is the story, which we have heard so many times, of a bellicose foreigner who goes to Africa in order to find himself. But something is amiss. This isn't just some person who has lost their way a little bit, but someone that while good intentioned at times is a drunkard and a lout, selfish and violent; while he wants to be a good person, he simply isn't. Then he decides to ditch the tourist Africa and find the true heart of it in order to understand and heal himself, but when he arrives at a remote village with his guide and meets the prince of a very small and location, he is disappointed to hear him speaking English. "We are discovered," the prince says, apologizing.

What follows is a continued parody of the philosophical finding of one's self in a foreign country trope. Intentions to fix the villagers foolish superstition (as deemed by Henderson) lead to a larger disaster and another superstition (which, truly, he discovers, is merely a form of control for a group of powerful individuals) which leads him to being the Rain King. The ideas further collapse as in the heart of Africa Henderson is lectured in psychology and philosophy and biology by the almost-doctor King.

With lush prose and richly rendered, flawed and three dimensional main characters, Bellow provides a satire that is surprisingly erudite and logical and it seeks to undermine the genre it is masked in not by silly exaggerations, but by subtle turnings of expectation. This slim volume is certainly one of the best books of the last fifty years.

Stela

Rating: really liked it
I am a steady admirer of Saul Bellow and this since I read, some thirty years ago, “Humboldt’s Gift”. And I was thinking, while reading “Henderson, the Rain King” how important (although irrelevant) is the first reading of an author. For if I had read this book first, I doubt I have ever tried another. Not because it is bad, but because it didn’t say much to me. As a complex parody it was sometimes boring instead of funny, even though I quite liked the idea of an anti superhero (I don’t know if Bellow is the first to introduce him in literature, but it sure was the first I came across). On the other hand, the African tribal experience felt somehow deprecatory, its dark and black magic childish enough to border ridicule.

All along I felt the author tried his hand a little half-hearted, and I struggled to finish it out of respect for him.

Lark Benobi

Rating: really liked it
I just finished another bout with Eugene Henderson, this time via audiobook. And I'm so sad. This novel is like a beloved eccentric uncle to me, the one who used to be my favorite when I was younger, but as the years passed I changed and he didn't, and now I've discovered that he's slid irrevocably into maudlin self-pity, egoism, and blinding privilege. I've tried so hard to keep on loving him, but just now I can't forgive him.

I can still remember why this novel used to be my favorite, though. See below.

prior review--
I've read this novel many times now and each time I'm overwhelmed by the narrative force, the joy of it. I do wish someone other than the guy famous for asking "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans?" had written it...or alternatively I wish that Henderson had gotten in a space ship and gone to Mars to have his mythological encounter rather than to a mythological Africa. Be that as it may my favorite writing of all time is the late-in-the-book chapter about a young Henderson riding a Ferris Wheel with Smolak the Bear, a scene that stands on its own as a masterpiece of narrative imagination.

d.a.v.i.d

Rating: really liked it
I belong in the service of the Queen
I belong anywhere but in between
She's been crying, I've been thinking
And I am the rain king
-Counting Crows


Just a great novel from a top American writer. Quite funny also.