Recommendations
Books Like Henderson the Rain King
Best books to read after Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King is his funniest novel — Eugene Henderson, a Connecticut millionaire in Africa, a rain king by accident, driven by a voice crying 'I want, I want, I want!' These recommendations share its comic picaresque energy, its portrait of an American in search of transformation, or its place in the Bellow literary universe.
- 1Buy
Herzog
by Saul Bellow
The complementary Bellow — the same excess of self-consciousness turned inward, Moses Herzog's unsent letters, funnier in a more painful and more cerebral register.
- 2Buy
The Adventures of Augie March
by Saul Bellow
The picaresque predecessor — Augie's exuberant self-invention from Chicago, the same restless energy in a less wild register.
- 3Buy
Humboldt's Gift
by Saul Bellow
The Nobel year Bellow — Charlie Citrine and the ghost of his mentor, the same comic intelligence in a Chicago setting, more melancholy than Henderson.
- 4Buy
Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes
The great ancestor of the romantic idealist who can't stop himself — Don Quixote pursuing windmills like Henderson pursuing rain, the founding text of the comic hero.
- 5Buy
A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
Ignatius J. Reilly in New Orleans — the other great comic hero of excess, equally ridiculous in his self-importance, the American urban picaresque counterpart.
- 6Buy
Gargantua and Pantagruel
by François Rabelais
The Renaissance giant-comedy — the Rabelaisian excess, the enormous appetites, the picaresque travels through an absurd world that Henderson most directly inherits.
- 7Buy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
The American picaresque classic — Huck traveling down the Mississippi, the same journey-as-self-discovery structure that Henderson parodies on a grander and more philosophical scale.
- 8Buy
Travels with My Aunt
by Graham Greene
Henry Pulling and his extraordinary Aunt Augusta on a journey of transformation — the comic novel of an ordinary man pulled out of his safe world by a more vital companion.
More Henderson the Rain King Resources
More Reading Recommendations
View all →Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.