“In a recent essay, one of our finer critics, Lee Siegel, asks what is it with Bellow and a number of non-American writers. Martin Amis had an almost father-son relationship with him (and it can’t be said that this was for lack of a literary parent). James Wood co-taught a class with him at Harvard. Ian McEwan’s Saturday pays homage to a Bellovian inspiration. What other American novelist has had such a direct and startling influence on non-Americans young enough to be his children?”