Reconsidering bellow.

Thank you for Anne-Marie Cusac's article on the inimitable Saul Bellow ("Saul Bellow Reconsidered," June issue). Misogyny never occurred to me as a teenage girl growing up in small town Montana in the 1970s when I discovered Bellow. I only marveled at the richness and the sparkle of the writing, the settings, content, and unforgettable characters. Saul Bellow has his weaknesses like any writer, but he captured my imagination as a teenager because of his artistry and the cerebral nature of his novels. I was within the psyche of urban, middle-aged Jewish men when I was reading Bellow's novels and stories. I was escaping from my rural small town American (nonimmigrant) existence.

I am now a middle-aged, leftwing, urban, working mother of two, and I still read Bellow. I forgive him his women characters if, in fact, they are inadequate to some. The rest makes up for it. I don't think he "lacks morality in his treatment of women," as Cusac writes. I don't read Bellow for agreement with my morality or agenda.

Meg Koonce

Hillsboro, Oregon

Bravo to Anne-Marie Cusac! Her piece on Saul Bellow was precisely on target. A longtime reader of Bellow, I had always been edgy about his blatant misogyny, well-documented by Cusac. This destroyed for me any grand acceptance of his "glorious place" in the world of letters. No one spoke of it. Now, Cusac has.

Marie Collins

New York, New York