June 16, 2000

Public Intellectuals' Private Lives: Who's In On Who's Out?

By CARLIN ROMANO

"Be as hard on me as you like," Professor Abe Ravelstein tells his friend Chick early in Saul Bellow's controversial novel, Ravelstein. He's urging his pal, a moderately successful biographer, to write the story of his life "without softeners or sweeteners." The cantankerous Ravelstein -- a character now acknowledged by his creator to be based on the late University of Chicago political philosopher Allan Bloom -- isn't really worried about hagiography. He knows his

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