The Nobel Prize winning author’s first major novel is a sprawling, brawling, and finally very engaging picaresque story of Augie March, from his early childhood to his WWII service, marriage, and business wheeling and dealing in Europe.  Startling characters include the Armenian lawyer Mintanchian, the biochemist Basteshaw with whom he shares a lifeboat after the Sam MacManus is torpedoed, Stella and Frea and Mimi, his brother Simon and grandmother Lausch.  A series of unlikely though credible adventures (eagle taming in Mexico; illegal immigrant running in Buffalo; Trotsky in Mexico) combine in this ‘coming of age’ tale.  Augie doesn’t want to just be a ‘recruit’ filling roles in other people’s dramas.  He wants to define himself, make choices and above all, make a difference, leave a mark. Bellow shows some amazing prescience, e.g. Basteshaw is working to create ‘simple cells that wish for immortality’ a vividly clear description of cell culture in 1953 only two years after Henrietta Lax and HeLa cells were begun.  He also anticipates global warming: “Damn you guys, you don’t care how you fiddle with nature.  Somebody is going to burn up the atmosphere one day or kill us all with a gas”.  Not bad predictions. In the end, Augie manages to find his own niche:  “Look at me, going everywhere! Why I am a sort of Columbus of those near at hand and believe you can come to them in this immediate term, terrra incognita, that spreads out in every gaze.  Bellow is the master of ‘every person has  a story’ and is ‘waging a great battle. Augie is first exhausted and then exhilarated by confronting and dealing with this.