The Dean's December by Saul Bellow

First published: 1982

Type of plot: Comic realism

Time of work: Approximately the 1970’s

Locale: Bucharest, Chicago, and California

Principal Characters:

• Albert Corde, a professor of journalism and a dean at a university located in Chicago
• Minna, his Rumanian-born wife, a professor of astronomy at the same university
• Valeria Raresh, Minna’s mother, who is dying in Bucharest, a former Communist Party member and Minister of Health
• Elfrida Zaehner, later Sorokin, Corde’s sister
• Mason Zaehner, Sr., Elfrida’s deceased husband
• Mason Zaehner, Jr., Elfrida’s son and Corde’s nephew
• Alec Witt, the provost, Corde’s superior at his university
• Dewey Spangler, a famous journalist and Corde’s boyhood friend

The Novel

Most of The Dean’s December takes place in Rumania; only the last thirty pages are set in the United States, and these are divided between Chicago and California. At the opening of the novel, Albert Corde and his wife, Minna, have just arrived in Bucharest, where Valeria, Minna’s mother, is dying. They have come—in December—to be with her during the last days of her life. The bulk of the novel describes these last days and the efforts by Corde and Minna to communicate with Valeria. She is partially paralyzed and in intensive care; they want to be with her as she dies. This is no simple task. Valeria is in a Party hospital, and visits are strictly limited by a colonel in the secret service. A minor duel of wits, or influence, ensues, Corde pulling strings with the American ambassador and a famous journalist in an attempt to circumvent the colonel and see Valeria. Even after Valeria’s death, this “duel” with authorities continues over the arrangements for Valeria’s burial.

Another significant series of events is taking place in Chicago, thousands of miles from Bucharest. These events are recounted by means of flashbacks, mail arriving for Corde in Bucharest, and encounters with Americans such as the ambassador and the influential journalist mentioned above, Corde’s boyhood friend, Dewey Spangler. A student at Corde’s university has been killed; a black man is on trial for the murder. Corde follows the trial closely—he has personally posted a reward for information leading to conviction. The provost opposes Corde’s involvement— and that of the university—in the trial. Corde’s nephew Mason also opposes it; he is a friend of the black man accused of the murder, and he attacks Corde for having no real understanding of the Chicago underworld. In addition, Corde’s own cousin Max Detillion, a flamboyant and corrupt Chicago lawyer, is defending the accused killer.

The novel thus establishes a counterpoint between events in Rumania and different (yet similar) events in Chicago. These events are less important, however, than Corde’s speculations about them. To a large extent The Dean’s December is a novel of ideas. Corde has a restless, impatient, questing mind, and he constantly attempts to explain the actions in which he is caught up, drawing conclusions from them. Approximately the first half of the novel is “about” a comparison between Communism and Chicago politics. This comparison slowly breaks down for a variety of reasons. The personality of the dean—full, “round,” entirely believable—comes to occupy center stage, and the Rumanian setting, although concretely described, becomes shadowy, and the Communist Party mechanism is invisible. Although Corde theoretically compares the Communist “jungle” to that of Chicago, he has no real access to the Rumanian “jungle,” and his presence in Bucharest is that of an American tourist. The comparison is an excellent idea. Tocqueville made a different yet analogous comparison more than a hundred and forty years ago; it remains very much a part of American culture and contemporary consciousness. Bellow starts the novel with an ambitious analogy between a Rumanian colonel in the secret service and his counterparts in the Chicago political machine. Yet as the novel progresses, this promising parallel retreats far into the background. The colonel disappears; Chicago concerns come to the fore even in Bucharest, via the mail. When Corde and Minna return to the United States, interest in Rumania and Communism has long since ceased to engage the reader. The strong-minded Valeria is no more, and in practical terms the same holds true of the colonel—the author’s available material seems to be exhausted.

The Characters

It is not fair to discuss The Dean’s December only in terms of what “happens” in the book. It is a novel of ideas or, to be more exact, of speculations. The person who constantly speculates, trying out new theories and coining witty phrases, is the dean, Albert Corde. Who is he? The title of the book notwithstanding, Corde is not really a dean. Although a college dean holds great prestige and power over people, the reader quickly learns that Albert Corde does not fit this mold. He has many insecurities. He regrets that he is not a “hard” scientist, and it turns out that he does not even have a Ph.D.—he is an “outsider” to academia, having made his reputation as a journalist for the Herald in Paris. It appears that diplomacy is not his forte, and this is one of his endearing characteristics; he has written several speculative, emotional articles for Harper’s Magazine about Chicago and has offended many people.

This notion of an “outsider dean” (some of his relatives call him the “dud dean”) lacks verisimilitude—Bellow never explains how or why Corde was appointed, and it would seem his university either lacked evaluative controls or acted suicidally. (Perhaps Bellow was imagining an analogy with his own unique position as a writer in a university.) Nevertheless, by the novel’s premise Corde is a dean, and a highly interesting one at that: humorous, given to theorizing, emotional, and apocalyptic, with a real gift for words. His background is French and “Huguenot-Irish-Midwesterner and whatever else,” and he is in his early fifties, very much in love with his Rumanian, “hard scientist” wife. His mind is the novel’s center of interest: fully sympathetic, vulnerable yet carrying the world on his shoulders, he is everything for which a reader of fiction could reasonably ask—except that he is not a credible dean. The speculations and ideas of the novel are convincingly Corde’s. They have real urgency and centripetal force—occasionally the reader is tempted to wonder if these ideas, with their driving momentum, are also those of the author. Sometimes, no doubt, Corde acts as Bellow’s stand-in or mouthpiece. Critical opinion is divided on this topic, but Corde is very likely an authentic, relatively independent creation. Unless the reader knows Bellow’s work extremely well and inevitably finds numerous echoes, Corde, the unconvincing dean, stands on his two feet as a character, the novel’s most successful creation.

Corde’s wife, Minna, who is generally obliging and lost in the clouds of her vocation, is attractively drawn but is a rather flat character. Minna’s mother, Valeria, is supposed to be a strong, warm, and sterling woman, greatly respected and wielding considerable influence over others. The reader must accept this image of Valeria largely on faith—she is incapacitated during most of the book and is largely seen reflected in other people’s opinions. It is claimed that

she had loved her husband, that was why she became a Communist militant: she had loved her husband, loved her daughter, her sister. Then for thirty years she had made up for the Marxism, for the sin of helping to bring in the new regime, by a private system of atonement, setting up her mutual-aid female network.

She was even at one point Minister of Health, yet she “fell in disgrace” or resigned. The reader can accept her former militancy, her Party membership, but the claim that she was Minister of Health would put her in an entirely different class and milieu and defies credibility, just as Corde’s deanship defies it. Perhaps the author felt the need to add these vocations because there are so many speculations about the nature of power in the novel.

The other characters are all substantial, although less important to the design of the book. Corde’s sister Elfrida is finely rendered. Elfrida’s deceased husband and her son, Mason, Jr., are flat characters and somewhat crudely drawn, yet believable. The blacks Rufus Ridpath and Toby Winthrop are sensitively sketched, although sometimes Bellow has difficulties with the rhythms of black vernacular.

Critical Context

The critical reception of The Dean’s December was mixed. No one has claimed for it the excellence of Herzog (1964), The Adventures of Augie March (1953), or Henderson the Rain King (1959). Some critics have claimed that the novel is a failure. In John Updike’s felicitous phrase, Bellow is not simply a good writer, “He is one of the rare writers who we . . . feel to be taking mimesis a layer or two deeper than it has gone before,” yet The Dean’s December lacks “a firm, simple center.” Some critics have admired Bellow’s descriptions of Bucharest, yet there is a consensus that the descriptions of Chicago are even more effective. Most critics and readers have felt that the Tocquevillian comparison of the Communist system with that of Chicago does not work. There is more disagreement about the second major criticism of the novel, the figure of Corde. Although an unconvincing dean, he is nevertheless a substantial, contradictory, fascinating character. As Robert Towers pointed out, even more than in Herzog Bellow has staked everything upon the personality, reflections, and speech of his central character. This daring is not without interest and rewards. The Dean’s December is certainly a problem novel—it is far from an aesthetic success—but in it Bellow has revealed some of his most intimate, intriguing personal concerns.

Bibliography

America. CXLVI, February 20, 1982, p. 136.

The Atlantic. CCXLIX, February, 1982, p. 78.

Bach, Gerald, ed. The Critical Responses to Saul Bellow. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995. A collection of critical essays on Bellow’s career from the 1940’s to the 1990’s. Includes essays on The Dean’s December, a chronology of Bellow’s life, and a bibliography.

Christian Science Monitor. January 15, 1982, p. B2.

Cronin, Gloria, and Ben Seigel, eds. Conversations with Saul Bellow. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1994. A collection of interviews with Bellow from 1953 to 1992 in which the novelist reflects on the craft of writing, his approaches to fiction, and his times.

Harper’s Magazine. CCLXIV, February, 1982, p. 62.

Nation. CCXXXIV, January 30, 1982, p. 117.

The New York Times Book Review. LXXXVII, January 10, 1982, p. 1.

The New Yorker. LVIII, February 22, 1982, p. 120.

Noreen, Robert G. Saul Bellow: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1978. A bibliography of criticism on Bellow.

Saturday Review. IX, February, 1982, p. 73.

Shatzky, Joel, and Michael Taub, eds. Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Includes an entry on Bellow’s life, major works and themes, an overview of his critical reception, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

Time. CXIX, January 18, 1982, p. 77.

Trachtenberg, Stanley, comp. Critical Essays on Saul Bellow. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979. A compendium of critical essays about Bellow and his work. Beginning with the novels of the 1940’s and 1950’s, the reviews and articles discuss Bellow’s heroes as seekers and doubters and treat some of the author’s main themes.

Wasserman, Harriet. Handsome Is: Adventures with Saul Bellow—A Memoir. New York: Fromm, 1997. An illuminating memoir by Bellow’s former literary agent. Wasserman gives insights into Bellow’s personal and literary life and his approaches to writing.