The Resume

(June 10, 1915-April 5, 2005)
Raised in Chicago
Wrote ‘Dangling Man (1944),’ ‘The Adventures of Augie March (1953),’ ‘Seize the Day (1956),’ ‘Henderson the Rain King (1959),’ ‘Herzog (1964),’ ‘Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970),’ ‘Humboldt’s Gift (1975)’ and ‘Ravelstein (2000)’

Why he might be annoying:

He was a grouchy old curmudgeon.
Many find his writing style dense and incomprehensible.
He married five times.
He angered friends and colleagues by fictionalizing them in his books.
He constantly bitched about how pop culture is a ‘moronic inferno.’
He was booed off a university stage by young radicals.
He made racist comments about ‘Zulus’ at a party, and it got printed in ‘The New Yorker.’

Why he might not be annoying:

He said a writer should ‘rely on his own judgment, and say in his heart of hearts, To hell with you.’
His mother died when he was a teenager.
He often was confronted with anti-Semitism.
The head of his college English department told him: ‘No Jew could really grap the tradition of the English language.’
He won the Nobel Prize (1976).

Credit: Wieland Kalligaro

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• Guggenheim Fellowship Grant Recipients
• I am from Chicago
• I Attended Harvard
• I Attended Northwestern
• I Come from Canada
• I Died in 2005 (Ranked: 89)
• I Made a Biased Comment in Public [Some Alleged]
• I Write Bildungsroman
• Joker Faces/Huge Grins
• Look at Me, I'm Reading
• Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century [1998] (Ranked: 21)
• Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century [1998] (Ranked: 81)
• Nobel Prize for Literature
• NPR's 100 Best Literary Characters of the 20th Century [Authors - 2002] (Ranked: 36)
• NPR's 100 Best Literary Characters of the 20th Century [Authors - 2002] (Ranked: 100)
• Playboy Interview Subjects [1990s] (Ranked: 1997)
• Profiles 13751-14000 (Ranked: 13998)
• Red, White and Bagel [Canadian Jews]
• Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Novels [Authors]
• We Died on the Same Day (Ranked: 20050405)
• Wieland Kalligaro's Profiles [Series 5]

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 6 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
In 2014, Out of 15 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
In 2013, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
In 2012, Out of 9 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
In 2011, Out of 20 Votes: 55.00% Annoying
In 2010, Out of 29 Votes: 65.52% Annoying
In 2009, Out of 80 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
In 2008, Out of 24 Votes: 70.83% Annoying
In 2007, Out of 98 Votes: 71.43% Annoying
In 2006, Out of 123 Votes: 71.54% Annoying
In 2005, Out of 217 Votes: 50.23% Annoying