"Ravelstein" is Saul Bellow's last novel, created in 2000 based on the real biography of his old friend - the famous philosopher and publicist Alan Bloom, who was repeatedly called - some with admiration, and some with condemnation - "Machiavelli of the 20th century" "Alan Bloom's students were the most conservative and decisive "hawks" of the American political elite; he was considered a kind of "gray eminence" of the White House. The degree of Bloom's influence on American politics for many decades can hardly be overestimated. There were legends about his eccentricity and extravagance. But how did Bellow’s friend and great connoisseur of human souls see him, not an “outsider”, not an indifferent biographer?..