'Without Explaining': Saul Bellow, Hannah Arendt, and Mr Sammler's Planet

This essay analyses Saul Bellow's response to the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, focussing in particular on Bellow's novel Mr Sammler's Planet and Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. The essay considers what light Bellow's critical attitude to Arendt sheds upon his novel, and what light, if any, the novel sheds on Arendt's thought. Finally, the essay seeks to reflect on storytelling as a form of thought, by placing Bellow's argument with Arendt alongside the latter's own thinking about the political and philosophical significance of narrative.