BELLOW'S 'PLEASURE IN IMAGINARY STATES'

Author: By Marian Christy, Globe Staff

Date: Wednesday, November 15, 1989
Page: 81
Section: LIVING

In this interview in an elegantly appointed Boston townhouse, Bellow, now 74, also admits that the maturing process (the passage into what he calls ''one's twilight years") has mellowed his views of himself and the world at large.

Bellow, currently teaching "Selected Modern Novels" at Boston University, takes time from classes to munch on great clusters of red grapes and to reminisce about the details of his life that have influenced his 15 books. In this conversation, he reveals two subjects that fascinate him: scandals and speaking up under pressure.

He won a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for "Humboldt's Gift," and is the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards. The Canadian-born Bellow, who was raised in Chicago and still lives there, recently surprised the publishing industry by agreeing to sell his latest book, "The Bellarosa Connection," as a novella in paperback. He is scheduled to give a reading from the new work tomorrow night at 7:30 at the Tremont Temple (88 Tremont St., Boston).

Bellow attended the University of Chicago before switching to Northwestern University, graduating in 1937. He did graduate work in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. A list of his many honorary degrees would name Harvard, Yale and Brandeis universities.

He has been married and divorced four times.

"Lately I came across an attack from a British critic of one of my books. I recoiled. Then I thought: 'Maybe I should have paid attention to what he said.' As you get older, you set less store on yourself. You're less vulnerable to negative opinions. Criticism isn't as wounding.

"I'm very aware of the passage of time.

"Before I was embattled. Narcissism changes as you get older. In 10 or 15 years, I'll be dead. I won't be here to make a fuss. I won't be here to guard my republic with a sword. As you get older, you become more impersonal about yourself.

"When an object falls, it accelerates. The acceleration is expressed in seconds. The speed is compounded by the pull of gravity. When you're young, the tempo is slower.

"What makes life go faster when you get older is that you're a creature of established habits. You're experiencing your own habitual world. You don't live so much in terms of discovery. You've already discovered.

"When I was a boy, I thought of myself as a Jewish Indian. After regular school, I went to Hebrew school and after Hebrew school, I'd go into a public park and pretend I was an Indian scout. When I had time, I liked to indulge in fantasy.

"Indian braves walked through the forest silently. I'd find an area of bushes and see if I could walk without even the sound of a twig bent. I threw an old broomstick like a spear. I found an old umbrella and I used the shaft to fashion a bow. I used the ribs to make arrows.

"Then I couldn't explain what I was doing. But now, contemplating these fantasies with you, I see that I found pleasure in imaginary states.

"I was very talkative. I invented things. Women in the neighborhood used to tell my mother: 'What a liar your boy is!'

"My early imaginings led to a career based on imagination.

"I think you don't master your fate so much as understanding that you're stuck with your own fate. I have shortcomings, vanities, imperfections and weaknesses. I don't ever expect to be rid of these. I can't undo things that I've done and don't approve of now.

"When I'm extremely depressed, I pray. I don't pray for anything specific. I don't believe in petition prayers. My requirements are too trivial. I don't bug God. My prayers are acknowledgment prayers. I acknowledge that I owe my life to the existence of a Great One.

"The scientific rationality of death is that it's simple annihilation, obliteration. The body returns to the sphere of matter. I have my doubts about the scientific view.

"There are some people who are so interesting, so clever, so gentle, so beautiful that it's impossible to accept that death will annihilate them. Someone is missing who used to be there. You are forced by your scientific outlook to accept their death as natural.

"Something in me can't accept that. I rebel. So I think of them as if they were still alive. Then I wonder when I die how their memory will continue.

"I've always admired courageous people. I like people who take risks. They're spirited people. They feel they've been called upon to do something extraordinary, something exemplary. But there are all kinds of courage. The courage to bear witness, to speak up, is important to me.

"When I was in the ninth grade, an innocent student was scolded in front of the whole class. The student, accused of stealing another student's science notebook, which he denied, was called a liar. I knew who really stole the notebook.

"I told the teacher I knew who the thief was. I told the teacher that an innocent student was being unjustly punished. It didn't do any good. The thief turned in the notebook as his own.

"People don't speak up because they think it's pointless. They should speak up anyway. People think they're insignificant, that they can't argue with City Hall. To them I say: 'If you can live with it, OK. If you can't live with it, ask yourself why you can't live with it.'

"The world has changed since my youth.

"In a democratic country, the appetite for shock increases continually. People like scandals. They like new scandals every day. We have a hunger for spicy sensations because we are essentially a passive population. Scandals become a form of social entertainment, a satisfaction for blood.

"I'm thinking of writing about scandals. We don't dwell on one scandal. We need a succession of scandals. If you dwell on one, you have to contemplate it. People don't have time to think. We are so rushed, we can't stop and say: 'What's this?'

"I haven't gotten down to the bottom of things yet. I try a variety of explanations. Some are contradictory.

"One is that the gods are just. Another is that the gods kill us for their sport. They are both true in context. But in the end, I can't make up my mind which explanation is the truth.

"I've been called 'the cranky great man.' I'm not cranky. But I don't play games with the press. I don't do interviews regularly. When I won the Nobel Prize, I refused to be on somebody's television program. The host said I was cranky.

"He said: 'Why did you accept the prize if you will not appear on television?' I replied: 'I'd trade the prize for a beautiful house on a tropical island somewhere. Then I could be away from all the people demanding interviews.'

"He called me 'cranky.' Ha, ha, ha."

BERTRA;10/05 NIGRO ;11/15,09:50 BELLOW15