SOURCE: Hendry, Diana. “The Crowded Wilderness Within.” Spectator 287, no. 9044 (8 December 2001): 57-8.

In the following review, Hendry traces Bellow's favorite themes in the tales of Collected Stories.

With Bellow nearing 90, there has to be ‘A Collected’, though personally I'd prefer three slim paperbacks. Apart from the frivolous thought that this volume [Collected Stories] is too heavy to take on the train and requires strong knees in bed, Bellow is such a brilliant writer that small helpings are sufficient. A feast like this has you reaching for the metaphorical Rennies.

It's to do with the fact that Bellow gives the reader meat for the mind rather than space for the imagination. It's also to do with the particular quality of his prose, aptly defined by P. J. Kavanagh. Writing in the TLS about Bellow's last novel, Ravelstein, Kavanagh described Bellow as the one who ‘manages to cram in all that...