SOURCE: Fuchs, Daniel. “The Adventures of Augie March.” In Saul Bellow: Vision and Revision, pp. 57-77. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1984.

In the following essay, Fuchs examines Bellow's early revisions of The Adventures of Augie March, observing that a study of the manuscripts “gives us the clearest perception of Bellow's intention in this novel of mixed intentions.”

In an otherwise laudatory review of The Adventures of Augie March, Robert Penn Warren was perhaps the first to comment on what is now commonly regarded as the central problem of the novel—Augie's character. “It is hard to give substance to a character who has no commitments,”¹ said Warren, implying that it was particularly at big moments that Augie seemed somewhat insubstantial. Augie is, for Warren, a “static” character, redeemed, though, by a style which is itself a powerful device for characterization. Some critics, less generous, have thought that...