Henderson The Rain King
by Saul Bellow
Award: Nobel Winner 1960
Nomination: National Book Finalist 1960
Date Read: January 24, 2023
Henderson The Rain King is a brilliant work by Bellow, combining a bumbling oaf of a man with meaning of life discourse to provide an overall entertaining and compelling work of art. Eugene Henderson has always been a man of privilege, however, in his middle age he has discovered his life lacks purpose and he cannot shake an inner voice that chants, “I want. I want.” Not knowing exactly what it is he wants, he embarks on a trip to Africa to discover that which is unknown.
From the get-go, Henderson proves to be a bumbling, but well-intentioned, idiot. When he splits off from his original traveling companions to seek more remote and untraveled roads, his hired man and he meet the Arnewi tribe. Realizing they are in the midst of a drought because of a plague of frogs, Henderson devises a means to rid the tribe of the frogs by blowing up their watering hole. This, predictably, brings down their damn and ruins their entire water supply, in addition to decimating the frogs. Realizing he is no longer welcome, he and Romilayu leave for more undiscovered tribes.
After considerable travel, they next stumble onto the village of the Wairiri. Having been warned the Wairiri are not as welcoming as the Arnewi, Henderson was bracing himself for difficult times and difficult times are indeed had. From the outset, the duo are almost captured and held in the village by force, quartered with a ghastly cadaver. When they try to remove the cadaver and dispose of it a ways off from the village, they return the following evening to discover it has reappeared in their hut.
Unbeknownst to Henderson, this was all an elaborate test to see if he was able to lift heavy loads as they were in need of a man who could move an impossibly heavy god in their rain ceremony. After the Rain King attempts to move the god and fails, Henderson is beside himself to give it a try and is successful, thereby unwittingly becoming the Rain King. So named, he is paraded through the village and many humiliations and trials are foisted on him. He finally makes his way back to the palace, where he is now quartered, bruised and bloodied.
Throughout this ordeal, Henderson becomes friends with Dahfu, the king of the Wairiri. Through his relationship with a lion, Dahfu teaches Henderson that it is possible to live in harmony with the body, the spirit and the external world. Henderson, through his discussions and lion exercises with Dahfu, begins a spiritual rebirth that makes him long for home and a bright future as a doctor. He had been hesitant to embark on a medical career at his late age but is now certain that is the path for him.
Bellow satisfyingly concludes the novel by Henderson’s eagerness to raise the lion cub he stole upon his exit and to reunite with the wife whom he previously thought of as a burden. He does an excellent job of blending an entertaining plot while driving home his point of view. For Henderson, the point being that although death is inevitable and your life may have been wasted to a point, it is never too late to fulfill your destiny.
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