Philistine in Elbow Patches

At one point in The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow’s larky protagonist gets hooked up with an eccentric millionaire named Robey. Augie will, presumably, be his research assistant and, presumably, Robey will write a “survey or history of human happiness from the standpoint of the rich”: “He wanted to call it The Needle’s Eye [Augie tells us] because there never had been a spiritual life for the rich if they didn’t give up everythin...