Adam Bellow responds to Stephen Lyle and Alex Joffe on Mr. Sammler’s Planet

Stephen Lyle’s thoughtful comment on the one-eyed Cyclopean vision of radicals and reactionaries is well taken. They do seem to be counterparts, mutually blind and uncomprehending, each demanding a certitude that necessarily eludes us. In contrast, the literary vision embraces ambiguity and paradox. My father’s gaze uniquely combined the human and cosmic perspectives, as you could tell from the detached, appraising way he sometimes looked at you. This kind of highly cultivated outlook is all but gone today along with the vocation to become what used to be called “a man of letters.” We are much the poorer for it.

Alex Joffe appears to suggest that I am “projecting” elements of my relationship with my father onto his book instead of properly explaining its themes. I’m sure he’s right, but why is that a problem? His own mini-essay on Sammler is interesting and his insights are undoubtedly valid. But in the end, they are his insights — not Sammler’s, not Saul’s, and not mine. Saul was frequently amused (and sometimes annoyed) by the various deep readers who wished to “explain” what his books were “about.” But it was not his purpose to write books that were “about” things. Nor was it my purpose to exhaust the many potentially illuminating ways there are of reading what he wrote. One of the things that marks a classic novel is that it can sustain multiple and widely different readings over time without exhausting its possible meanings. It is a prism, not a puzzle, and it inevitably reflects our own personal angle of vision. Seen in this light, Mr. Joffe’s objectivity is not necessarily a strength, nor is my subjectivity a weakness. If it makes him happy, we can both be right.