Ravelstein [SEP] narrative location
who is dying, asks the narrator to write a memoir about him after he dies. After his death, the narrator and his wife go on holiday to the Caribbean. The narrator catches a tropical disease and flies back to the United States to convalesce. Eventually, on recuperation, he decides to write the memoir.
The title character, Ravelstein, is based on the philosopher Allan Bloom, who taught alongside Bellow at the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. Remembering Bloom in an interview, Bellow said,
Typical of Bellow's most accessible fiction, and resembling his short novel "Seize the Day", "Ravelstein" mixes dialogue, narration, and unanswered questions. Abe Ravelstein is a paradox - the serious and mundane, the corporeal and spiritual, the conservative and radical. The one constant is the kindly friendship between "Chick" and Ravelstein. Few intellectual or personal subjects are taboo. Chick makes it clear that Ravelstein thinks he is too old to become a philosopher. 
The story follows the physical decline of Ravelstein,