NOPE, NOT WOLFOWITZ

Earlier I had written that George Packer identified Ravelstein as Bellow's version of Paul Woflowitz. It looks like either I or Packer were mistaken: the model was Allan Bloom.

Cynthia Ozick:

In a review of Saul Bellow's novel "Ravelstein," whose sensualist hero was explicitly based on the University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom, she dismisses the all-too-human urge to identify fictional characters with real-world individuals.

SOURCE:The Canon as Cannon
New York Times Book Review, The (NY) July 2, 2006 Author: WALTER KIRN
THE DIN IN THE HEAD Essays. By Cynthia Ozick. Illustrated. 243 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company. $24.

Far from being a conservative ideologue, Bloom, a University of Chicago professor of political philosophy who died in 1992, was an eccentric interpreter of Enlightenment thought who led an Epicurean, quietly gay life. He had to be prodded to write his best-selling book by his friend Saul Bellow, whose novel "Ravelstein" is a wry tribute to Bloom.

SOURCE: Allan Bloom and the Conservative Mind
New York Times Book Review, The (NY) September 4, 2005 Author: Jim Sleeper

Because he was a graduate student at the University of Chicago during the ascendancy of political philosophers Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom - a thinly disguised Wolfowitz appears in "Ravelstein," Saul Bellow's novel about Bloom - many attempts have been made to trace to them the pedigree of his thinking.

SOURCE: The real Paul Wolfowitz steps forward
Ocala Star-Banner (FL) May 16, 2005 Author: George Will Writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.

Finally, Irving Kristol, dubbed the neocon godfather, decided to take the name as a compliment. He defined a neoconservative as "a liberal mugged by reality." (That phrase also summarizes the plot of the Great Neocon Novel, "Mr. Sammler's Planet," by Saul Bellow. Bellow's last novel, "Ravelstein," actually has a character modeled after Wolfowitz.)

SOURCE: The evolution of neocons
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (PA) April 24, 2005 Author: Michael Kinsley

Many of Strauss's ideas were popularized by Allan Bloom, who was the author of the best seller "The Closing of the American Mind" and a mentor to both Mr. Fukuyama and Mr. Wolfowitz (who became the inspiration for a minor character in "Ravelstein," Saul Bellow's 2000 roman à clef about Bloom).

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK How Books Have Shaped U.S. Policy
New York Times, The (NY) April 5, 2003 Author: MICHIKO KAKUTANI

AHA!!! Here's the Wolfowitz character:

In "Ravelstein," a biography of Bloom in the form of a novel published in 2000, Saul Bellow depicts the information-avid professor Abe Ravelstein fielding calls on his cellphone from former students who have made their way to high places in government. His disciples include Philip Gorman, a Wolfowitz-like official in the first Bush administration who rings up his former professor to show that he's in the loop.

SOURCE: The Nation: Leo-Cons A Classicist's Legacy: New Empire Builders
New York Times, The (NY) May 4, 2003 Author: JAMES ATLAS

There is an entertaining echo of his frustration in "Ravelstein," Saul Bellow's roman à clef about Wolfowitz's college guru, Allan Bloom. In the novel, Wolfowitz has a walk-on part as a former student who has made it big in Washington and periodically delights his old tutor by phoning in tidbits of inside dope.

SOURCE: The Sunshine Warrior
New York Times Magazine, The (NY) September 22, 2002 Author: Bill Keller

There is even a minor character in Saul Bellow's novel "Ravelstein" inspired by Mr. Wolfowitz: a gifted Pentagon official named Philip Gorman who phones Abe Ravelstein (a thinly disguised Allan Bloom) from time to time with inside information (unclassified, of course). "It's only a matter of time before Phil Gorman has cabinet rank, and a damned good thing for the country," Abe Ravelstein says at one point.

SOURCE: In a Humble World, Defense Deputy Stands Firm
New York Times, The (NY) April 2, 2001 Author: ELAINE SCIOLINO

Bloom had a scary intensity. He loved jokes and devoured information, about both high and low culture. He stuttered. He bought outrageously expensive French suits. He was unmarried, his sexuality a bit of a mystery among his students. "It was sort of, Don't ask, don't tell," said his protege, Paul Wolfowitz, the former assistant secretary of state who is an inspiration in "Ravelstein" for Philip Gorman, a Defense Department official who delights Ravelstein with phone briefings about the gulf war.

SOURCE: With Friends Like Saul Bellow
New York Times Magazine, The (NY) April 16, 2000 Author: D.T. Max