Behold, a book by Saul Bellow that I didn't fully and thoroughly adore! And my last acquisition from the £1 Halcyon Books store in Greenwich before its closure.
What I liked were Henderson's back-story, his sheer size, and a number of his inner thoughts and dialogues with himself. Then again, all of these things - except the size! - are the things I normally love in Bellow's books.
What I was far from being comfortable with was him going to Africa and playing (an arguably well-intentioned) god. When he does get things epically wrong and blows up the village's cistern, I wasn't happy that he was being put in his place. I could only think about the lives destroyed by his act and about the (very) rich white man who would then move to the next village (with all the guilt in the world, obviously, but also with his millions).
Had I read this book when it was first published I would have probably reacted differently. But it would have been quite hard, because, well, that was 28 years before I was born...
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