Character Clues

Character Analysis

Clothing

Moses Herzog is proud of his appearance, but he also knows he should spend more time thinking about the clothing he wears. It's only when he has a woman in his life that he dresses well, because these women all inevitably see the flaws in his clothing and dress him up. The funny thing is that it's Herzog's lack of fashion awareness that makes a woman like Ramona like him so much, since she sees his bad fashion as an opportunity to help him improve himself.

Direct Characterization

When you spend an entire novel trapped inside one character's perspective, you're bound to get some direct characterization, at least when it comes to other characters. But you can't necessarily trust this direct characterization because it's always filtered through Moses Herzog's prejudices. In other words, all the direct characterization in this novel tends to tell you just as much about Moses Herzog as the character it's describing.

Family Life

Moses Herzog has been divorced twice. He loves his two children (one from each marriage) but has icy relationships with both his ex-wives. He mentions at one point that he's a crummy father in spite of his love for his kids.

He seems to mean well but never gets up and does anything about it. Instead, he agonizes over his personal anxieties, many of which seem rooted in childhood trauma. Herzog gives us a good example of how a person can be messed up as a kid and then mess up his own kids as a result. And the cycle continues…

Occupation

In a lot of ways, Herzog is a typical academic who thinks way too much about every little thing and spends more time analyzing his own thoughts than he does living his life. His buddy Val works in radio and is just the opposite, talking all the time without ever really thinking about what he says.

There's should be some sort of happy medium between the two extremes, but you never see any examples of it in this book. The lawyer Sandor Himmelstein is practical, but also harsh because he works in a harsh environment. Madeleine, on the other hand, is a graduate student who wants to prove herself and get out of her ex husband's academic shadow. In every instance, a character's occupation tells us a ton about them.

Sex and Love

When Moses Herzog isn't over analyzing every thought he's ever had, he's thinking about sex. In fact, sex seems to be the only thing that can get him out of his own head for a few minutes. Either he's alone with his thoughts or he's knockin' boots… which doesn't leave any time for talking or connecting with anyone else.