The Adventures of Augie March

The Adventures of Augie March is a novel by Saul Bellow. It centers on the eponymous character who grows up during the Great Depression. This picaresque novel is an example of bildungsroman, tracing the development of an individual through a series of encounters, occupations and relationships from boyhood to manhood. Although the picaresque style is among the earliest forms of the novel, Bellow's concerns are fundamentally modern. With an intricate plot and allusive style, he explores contrasting themes of alienation and belonging, poverty and wealth, love and loss, with often comic... undertones. Its protagonist may be said to represent the modern Everyman—an individual struggling to make sense of, and succeed in, an alienating world. The novel is also specific to the American literary canon in that it celebrates the capacity of the individual to progress in society by virtue of nothing more than his own "luck and pluck." This idea is stated explicitly in the opening and most famous lines of the novel, in which the narrator defines himself as an American. This was an important act of self-definition for the author and narrator, both immigrants to America.
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