Henderson the Rain King

If this 1959 novel, one of Saul Bellow's most beloved, seems to have exceeded its shelf life, it helps to remember that much of the absurdity is intentional: Many believe the title character is a send-up of Hemingway. Joe Barrett is an excellent choice as the narrator of this tale about a rich American who journeys into remotest Africa. His gruff voice is well suited to Henderson, a physically large and garrulous man with a penchant for bombastic dialogue and philosophical ramblings. The voices Barrett gives to the African characters--notably the western-educated King Dahfu--are hardly authentic, but they're not grating, and some of the discordance can be laid at the feet of Bellow. D.B. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

September 28, 2009
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.