Seize the day

a novel

No cover

Saul Bellow: Seize the day (1968, Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

126 pages

English language

Published April 20, 1968 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

ISBN:
978-0-297-17674-9
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(11 reviews)

is a man in his mid-forties, temporarily living in the Hotel Gloriana on the Upper West Side of New York City, the same hotel in which his father has taken residence for a number of years. He is out of place from the beginning, living in a hotel filled with elderly retirees and continuing throughout the novel to be a figure of isolation amidst crowds. The novella traverses one very important day in the life of this self-same Tommy Wilhelm: his "day of reckoning," so to speak.

18 editions

reviewed Seize the Day by Saul Bellow (Penguin Classics)

Entre fracasso e redenção silenciosa – Minha leitura de Aproveita o Dia de Saul Bellow

Ler Aproveita o Dia foi como acompanhar alguém durante um único dia que, paradoxalmente, contém uma vida inteira. Saul Bellow nos apresenta Tommy Wilhelm, um homem na casa dos quarenta, afogado em dívidas, desempregado, separado da esposa e, ao mesmo tempo, ainda buscando desesperadamente aprovação – sobretudo a de seu pai, um médico frio e distante.

O romance se passa em Nova York, em poucas horas, mas a densidade é enorme. Eu senti a angústia de Wilhelm a cada página: sua ansiedade, seu senso de fracasso, sua esperança ingênua em negócios duvidosos e promessas vazias. É doloroso porque Bellow não o trata como caricatura, mas como alguém assustadoramente real. Muitas vezes, me vi refletindo sobre minhas próprias inseguranças e sobre como carregamos expectativas que não são só nossas, mas também impostas por outros.

O que me impressionou foi a forma como Bellow escreve – clara, direta, mas cheia de camadas …

Review of 'Seize the day' on 'Goodreads'

What an immaculate presentation of the infantile nature of a man too preoccupied with his past and his inflexibly naive worldview. Do not be mistaken, he does not suffer because he is a dreamer, he suffers because he cannot ground himself. The whole of life, up in the air, existing only within the clouds of his thoughts, wherein he has formerly established despondency as his reigning doctrine.

Review of 'Seize the day' on 'Goodreads'

I thought this was incredible. The judiciously crafted narrator, able to stay so close to Wilhelm but not give up an ability to jump into other characters, felt effortless and freed up Bellow to describe the world and these characters with such emotional access. There are interactions here which I found riveting and the stakes were ordinary stakes, yet profoundly implicating. This is a slim novel with a great protagonist written with a set of razor sharp writing chops.

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