The Victim by Saul Bellow
I never found Saul Bellow's books gripping but his choice of characters and plots make me read his books. "The Victim" starts off in a rather mundane manner with a typical middle-class youngish man in a not too exciting job and family relations more or less a mess. But the manner in which Bellow describes each facet of his life and puts them under the scanner is simply superb. The main character is Asa Levanthal who works in a publishing firm. "A man brought up on hardships should have known better than to cut himself adrift". This comes after Levanthal overcomes his early struggles to enter the civil service. When in the civil service, he finds life improving, enjoys the company of friends and meets Mary and becomes engaged to her. Its almost as if Levanthal takes this change from granted but fails to appreciate this new life. Maybe he just assumes that things will continue that way and good times are not something to constantly fight for. On hearing about Ma