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Saul Bellow
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Henderson the Rain King Audio CD – CD, July 15, 2009

by Saul Bellow (Author), Joe Barrett (Reader)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 694 ratings
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Henderson the Rain King is a seriocomic novel by Saul Bellow, first published in 1959. The novel examines the midlife crisis of Eugene Henderson, an unhappy millionaire. The story concerns Henderson's search for meaning. A larger-than-life 55-year-old who has accumulated money, position, and a large family, he nonetheless feels unfulfilled. He makes a spiritual journey to Africa, where he draws emotional sustenance from experiences with African tribes. Deciding that his true destiny is as a healer, Henderson returns home, planning to enter medical school.

“A kind of wildly delirious dream made real by the force of Bellow’s rollicking prose and the offbeat inventiveness of his language.” ―Chicago Tribune

“Bellow’s aura of fable is constantly washed over by humor, impulsive creation, and actual, turbulent detail.” ―The Nation

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    12 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Brilliance Audio
  4. Publication date
    July 15, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    6.5 x 1.13 x 5.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    142339349X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1423393498
  8. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bellow's classic novel of a dissatisfied American millionaire finding himself in Africa has been newly recorded in time for the novel's 50th anniversary. Joe Barrett reads the seriocomic tale of Eugene Henderson, who flees workaday American anomie for the freeing chaos of Africa. Barrett's voice is pleasingly gravelly, rimed with experience and rising to a growling screech at particularly heated moments. Every audio recording should be so lucky as to work with Bellow's prose, but this version, directed by Keith Reynolds, is more than adequate. Barrett is to be commended for sounding like a man of Bellow's era, not his own; one can almost picture Bellow's voice emitting a similar blend of assurance and self-conscious anxiety. A Viking hardcover. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Saul Bellow won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel HUMBOLDT’S GIFT in 1975, and in 1976 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature ‘for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work.’ He is the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards, for THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH, HERZOG, and MR. SAMMLER’S PLANET

Joe Barrett began his acting career at the age of five, in the basement of his family’s home in upstate New York. He played the non-speaking “Old Gardener” in a drama written by his seven older siblings. The character was murdered in the opening scene, setting the plot in motion. Joe does not remember the plot but knows the murder was gruesome and heinous. Joe has gone on to play many stage roles, old and young, both on and off-Broadway and in regional theaters from Los Angeles to Houston to St. Louis to Washington, D.C. to San Francisco to Portland, Maine. He has appeared in films and television, prime time and late night, and in hundreds of television and radio commercials. Joe is a two time Audie Award finalist and has won six Earphones Awards from Audiofile Magazine. That magazine said of Joe’s narration of John Irving’s A Prayer For Owen Meany: “This moving book comes across like a concerto in this audio version, with a soloist – Owen’s voice – rising from the background of an orchestral narration.” Publishers Weekly had this to say about Joe’s narration of Richard Ford’s The Lay of the Land: “[Frank Bascombe] must be one of the most difficult fictional characters to bring to audio life [but] Barrett . . . has a voice that . . . catches every nuance from the odd to the tragic.” Joe is married to actor Andrea Wright. They have four great big children.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Brilliance Audio; Unabridged edition (July 15, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Audio CD ‏ : ‎ 12 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 142339349X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1423393498
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.13 x 5.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 694 ratings

About the author

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Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow

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Saul Bellow won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel HUMBOLDT'S GIFT in 1975, and in 1976 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 'for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work.' He is the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards, for THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH, HERZOG, and MR. SAMMLER'S PLANET

Photo by Keith Botsford [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
694 global ratings
Good book, but the condition is horrible
2 Stars
Good book, but the condition is horrible
I know I bought a used copy, but I’m pretty sure the condition was deemed “fair” or “good” when it is, in fact, pretty poor. It’s a super interesting read, through culturally incompetent in some ways (but I think that’s just part of the character). I mainly chose to read it because Adam duritz of counting crows is my hero.
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Top reviews from the United States

Wordsworth
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant and endearing work by a literary master
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2001
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For those who want to get into the work of Saul Bellow, this is perhaps one of his most accessible novels. It's about a rich and eccentric man who travels to Africa and encounters a tribal chief who own lions. The tribal chief is brilliant and teaches Henderson some valuable lessons. The encounters with the lion were real and vivid and moving. Henderson is vintage Bellow and is relatively easy to read: it has less of a scholarly bent than several of Bellow's other novels like Ravelstein, Herzog and Humboldt's Gift, all of which take the reader into a very high intellectual plane. This novel is existential: it's Bellow not so much him versus the intellectual premises of ancient scholars but is rather Bellow versus the raw power of the forces of life itself. I admire greatly this literary work which displays all of Bellow's virtuosity with the power that the reality of his experience brings into this story. I highly recommend this novel for anyone wanting to gain access into Bellow without having first to take a course in the philosophy of ancient scholars. This is Bellow at his most accessible and most powerful. I strongly encourage you to savor this great and highly original novel.
6 people found this helpful
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H. Schneider
4.0 out of 5 stars Look at clouds from both sides now
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2013
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Tales of a poetic pig farmer. 'At birth I weighed 14 pounds. Then I grew up.' 'My face is no common face, but like an unfinished church.'
Life story of a big bully of an ugly rich guy, a nuisance to everyone.
This is a grotesque book, full of surreal happenings and madcap philosophizing. If you need a name for the genre, you could call this a travel book, though the destination is entirely fictional despite the fact that it has a real name, Africa. You can also call it a Bildungsroman, though the hero is nearer 60 than 20. Or an adventure story.

Henderson is an unusual narrator, but not of the deviously unreliable kind. One wonders why one would believe a word that he says. His perception of the world is so off. He keeps assuming things about the meaning of his inexplicable adventures, but we can hardly take him serious. He is jumpy and lacks logic. His actions are not explained, as if he watches himself with disbelief. He is a bit of an over-aged fool, an am-bay-seel.

He was unhappy with his life in Connecticut, so he goes on this trip. There is no attempt at the simple Hemingway style. I am often intrigued by the artful language, which is at times humorous and skillful with words, as one would not expect from a pig farmer. Maybe that is a point of criticism. If a narrator is invented, should he not be plausible?
Henderson is also good at quirky aphorisms. 'Even civilized women are not keen on geography, preferring a world of their own'. Isn't that true.
The truest of these: 'ideas make people untruthful. Yes, they frequently lead them into lies.'

Is there anything realistic about Bellow-Henderson's Africa? I don't know if Bellow even meant to be realistic in a generic way. I suspect he didn't bother about that at all. Henderson has no clue where he goes, though his local counterpart, the real king, mentions Lamu and Malindi and Zanzibar as places where he has been. One assumes they serve as anchors in the sea of a fairy continent.
The trip to Africa is a bit like Kafka's sending his young man to 'Amerika'. Eugene Henderson is a big fat violent Alice in his own Wonderland. An innocent abroad. A Don Quijote he is not though, he fights no windmills but his inner devils.
The philosophical core of the story is the artificially mysterious 'grun-to-molani', the will to live. Schopenhauer in the lion's den.

This is an irritating book, and that might be its strong point. Don't we read in order to get shaken or stirred? And find some entertainment on the way?
I was quite pleased with it. I re-read it after 30 years and liked it much better this time than then. And way better than Augie March, which had turned me off recently. However, I would have liked it better had it been 100 pages shorter.
5 people found this helpful
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Sarah O'Hara
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved every page
Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2017
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I've read the negative reviews on here, and I can't really wrap my mind around them. This book is intensely quotable, intimately relatable, and - at points - hilarious. Henderson (narrator / main character) is both hyper-aware of himself and utterly oblivious to the connection between his actions and their results. He seems a creature of the now as much as anything. He seems to come to, at 50+ years of age, to realize that he is a stranger to life, stranger to himself, asleep in his spirit, and it becomes monumentally important to him to "burst the spirit's sleep" before he submits to decay and death.

This book does not have our modern sensibilities vis a vis race, colonialism, classism, etc. Saul Bellow was a creature of his time, too. So, for the modern reader it is likely to grate and gnaw at those sensibilities. But still, if you read it, you may also find an apt exploration of the forces that drive us through life, of how we confront aging and death, how we create ourselves in real time based on the models we have around us, how we come to face the cumulative ledger of our decisions years after we've made them. I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who has lived a certain amount of life - who has confronted loss, confronted death, confronted disappointment. You may find some mirror here.
37 people found this helpful
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Mothram
3.0 out of 5 stars HENDERSON THE WILD MAN
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2014
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Saul Bellow is one of my all-time favorite writers, but I found Henderson tough going. The story is told by Henderson, an English wild man who is searching for his place in life. He hears this voice inside saying "I need, I need."

After tearing up himself and others, he takes off for Africa. This is where the story really slows down. He and a kind guide he finds go deep into the bush, Henderson searching for what he needs, whatever that is. The first village they settle on is amuzingly disasterous, so they head for another with an inauspicious welcoming party. This part turns into long, philosophical discussions between Henderson and the king that are mostly nonsense.

Of course the language is as only Saul Bellow can write--the story disappointing.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Arsentiy Novak
5.0 out of 5 stars Very satisfactory!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 19, 2022
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Great quality and great delivery. Thank you.
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Pedro Avelar
5.0 out of 5 stars Leveza velada
Reviewed in Brazil on March 1, 2020
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Bela obra de uma cômica crise existencial. Leitura fluida e um protagonista excêntrico digno de risadas e reflexões sobre os descaminhos da vida.
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isabel
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfecto
Reviewed in Spain on October 14, 2016
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El libro es perfecto para lo que yo lo necesitaba en el grado de estudios ingleses de la Universidad de Zaragoza y mucho mas barato que la compra habitual.
One person found this helpful
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Arunansu Banerjee
5.0 out of 5 stars Thanks Amazon
Reviewed in India on May 23, 2015
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The product is good. Delivery was on time.
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Penfriend
4.0 out of 5 stars Unusual story, well-written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 8, 2023
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Nowadays I read for the quality of the writing. I have read this twice now. The story concerns a rich man without purpose in his life, who travels into the African wilderness in search of meaning. He learns to manage his unruly temperament.
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