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The Birth Day
"Seize The Day" is about the day Tommy Wilhelm hit his financial and emotional bottom and emerges from a lifetime of confusion and failure to find his true self, his spiritual self. Bellow's novel of psycological introspection and intrege compelled this reader to examine his own life a little closer. Maybe you will be fascinated by doing the same.
Publié le Mai 26 2004 par William Ramsey
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› Voir plus de commentaires 5 étoiles, 4 étoiles |
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carpe diem!
Just kidding with my tittle. I can't help but connect Robin Williams and co. jumping off of desks in Dead Poet's Society to the phrase Carpe Diem/ Seize The Day. (I know, Saul Bellow wrote this book before Mr.Williams was even born!) I thought this book had a great start. I loved the characterizations in the first half, I felt I was really getting into it. Sadly, by...
Publié le Jui 27 2001 par lady detective
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› Voir plus de commentaires 3 étoiles, 2 étoiles, 1 étoiles |
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The Birth Day, Mai 26 2004
"Seize The Day" is about the day Tommy Wilhelm hit his financial and emotional bottom and emerges from a lifetime of confusion and failure to find his true self, his spiritual self. Bellow's novel of psycological introspection and intrege compelled this reader to examine his own life a little closer. Maybe you will be fascinated by doing the same.
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an agony to read about a loser losing, Mars 4 2004
This is Bellow's paean to failure, the slow slide of a good-hearted though dumb and self-destructive man. He is heading to his doom, and is a sucker the whole way. Reading this is hard, much like the inexorable decline of people in a Balzac novel, but it is a peculiarly American brand of failure with the post-war culture and Hollywood dreams in tow. It is a masterpiece.Recommended, but keep the valium handy.
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for bellow, this is the place to start, Fév 18 2004
I generally agree with what the other reviewers say about this book, though I'm not sure they appreciate the level of sympathy, and even love, Bellow has for his flawed creation (and Bellow's warmth is one of many things I love about him). I would add that this book is the best introduction to Bellow's work. Like Herzog and The Adventures of Augie March it is unarguably a classic of twentieth century literature; unlike them it's short and relatively straightforward, and once you see what the man can accomplish in a mere 115 pages you'll definitely be primed for more.
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Throw Him a Lifeline, He's Drowning!, Nov. 25 2003
Poor Tommy Wihelm! This is a sad spectacle of a novella. Sad, in that you can't help but feel for this poor guy. Tommy Wilhelm has squandered his life. He chased his dreams to Hollywood.... and failed. He got into business... and failed. He got married and had to boys... and failed. He tried to become a commodities trader... and failed.
I can't help but think of Biff Loman, when I read this one. Tommy Wilhelm's life is a story of bad choices and missed opportunities. We all have experienced moments like this, but Wilhelm's whole life is based on this premise.
As the story comes to a conclusion. Tommy Wilhelm's life begins to crash down bit by bit until it looks totally hopeless. And really, it is totally hopeless.
Tommy's plunge into a torrent of tears is a fitting end to this sad, sad story.
Bellow's writing is lean and direct. This book is a great case- study of futile, life planning. It is well written and worth your attention.
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Packs a Mighty Wallop, Nov. 5 2003
How is it that a novel of such importance, by one of our country's premiere men of letters, has been reviewed by only one other Amazonian? Goodness, the state American Literature is in. We are a country losing our soul, much as Tommy Wilhelm in Bellow's "Seize the Day." This book should be appreciated by more readers, plain and simple.Imagine a man. A child of a man, really, who never quite grew up and never took the time to know himself. He took pills instead. He took the easy route. He painted his life into a corner, and the paint... ain't... drying. Tommy can you hear me? Tommy, it's time to smash the damn mirror and all those bottles of pills and all the bum advice you take from that quack who lives above you in that New York Hotel where you have breakfast with your successful dad every day, the same dad who practically begs you to grow up and go back to your wife and kids and fix what's wrong in your life instead of blaming others. Sound familiar? Sound like a parable for a nation gone fat with overindulgence and extended adolescence? And yet it's such a personal story. It's just one day in a man's life... a day-long trial for a man who can't make things right because he pushes when he needs to pull. We all maybe need to push a little less and pull a little more is all I'm saying. Bellow's work represents a life so eff'd up that there may be no solution. Again I ask, sound familiar?
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A Slender American Classic, Sep 22 2003
I first read this book years ago, when I was losing my shirt (and just about every other item of clothing I owned) as a commodity-futures trader. Someone had told me the book concerned a guy in the same situation. Readers certainly won't find much in "Seize the Day" about the workings of the commodity markets, but they will discover an incredibly well-explored character named Tommy Wilhelm, who gambles what's left of his money in a desperate effort to get out of hock. Wilhelm is an excruciating combination of victim and self-defeating loser. Bellow's relentless examination of a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown makes for riveting reading. And while Tommy Wilhelm could serve as a poster-boy warning to anyone thinking of speculating in risky investments, he definitely stands as a symbol of what can happen to people when they take themselves and the "American Dream" too seriously.
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Lard have mercy, Mars 17 2003
"Seize the Day" is a sad little novel about a man, lost in the wilderness of his life, whose struggle "toward the consummation of his heart's ultimate need" can succeed only when he surrenders his composure to his deepest emotions, that secret place in all of us from which we beckon our tears. The one day in which the entire novel takes place completely encapsulates his past, present, and future into the portrait of a man mired in his environment.The man is 44-year-old Tommy Wilhelm who, like some of Bellow's other fictional protagonists Augie March, Eugene Henderson, and Moses Herzog, is a little piece of the chaos of twentieth-century urban America distilled into a single confused character. Wilhelm is a native New Yorker (although it's obvious his author is not), a failed actor, and an unemployed former sales executive. He is separated from his wife, who is always selfishly demanding from him money that he doesn't have, and his two sons. His only financial support now is from his father, a successful physician who is annoyed by his son's lack of discipline but nevertheless brags about his past accomplishments to anyone who will listen. Wilhelm has a friend named Dr. Tamkin who professes to be a psychologist, has many various interests but dubious talents, and persuades him to invest his last dollar in lard commodities. Tamkin, a world traveler, has told Wilhelm that he "had attended some of the Egyptian royal family as a psychiatrist," a statement that evokes an image of the biblical Joseph prophesying for the Pharaoh seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine; but Tamkin's optimistic expectation for lard is all profit, no loss. His philosophy is that the future is not worth the worry; live for the "here-and-now": seize the day. He is undoubtedly a charlatan, but in Wilhelm's eyes he means well. One of the novel's themes is atonement, which is signified by the reference to Yom Kippur. Wilhelm is not very religious and has not planned to attend a synagogue, but he recognizes the importance of saying Yiskor for his dead mother; his sincere but idle threat to the unknown hoodlums who vandalized the bench next to her grave will not suffice to honor her memory. Ironically, the place where he ultimately atones is the funeral of a man who is evidently not Jewish (open casket, presence of flowers) -- and he weeps with the knowledge that death is all we achieve from life. Seize the day, indeed.
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A Great Read for Writers, Janv. 6 2003
Par Un client
Suffering...we've all had it...or it's coming...is Bellow's theme of this work. I've never read an author who described heartbreak and tears so well as Saul Bellow. My face was red and hot and strained by the time I finished the book--he moved me! Suffering--admitting and recognizing that anguish might be your temporary lot in life--has never been so beautifully penned and honestly told. The more I think of the book, the less I like it for the story, but the more I appreciate its truthfulness in describing how problems can stack higher and higher and higher and nobody will help you.I think you'll find what the main characters "seizes" after a few days of thinking and observing life on your own. Read it! It's only 120 pages packed with a lot of insight.
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A deep psychological work, Avril 3 2002
This is a story about relationships and alienation. It is a psychological work by Bellow, getting in the head of a man coming to grips with his mid-life failures. It also shows his relationships with a tough love (or just tough?) father, and manipulative friends. As you read it, you struggle between repulsion, sympathy and identification with the lead character. The book is very accessible and easy to read given the intellectual pedigree of the author. Even still, one is left at the end wondering, "What did I miss?" While the reader may be left perplexed, it is a sign of the depth of material pushed into such a short novel. I'm left thinking, "It's a good, deep book" - perhaps a more in tune reader would find it a great one.
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A haunting spectre for the midde-class!, Fév 2 2002
This could be described as the archetypical story of mid-life, middle-class man who hasn't made it and surely never will. Tommy Wilhelm is down on his luck and combats his misery with the hopeful expectation of something turning up. His father, Dr. Adler, views Tommy as having lacked the ability to persist during the various endeavours in his life. He adheres firmly to his cold logic and refuses to help his son, who is the architect of his own downfall.
Tommy cannot find the mastery of his destiny within himself and therefore looks to others, eminently unsuitable for the impossible task; to Dr.Tamkin (their joint commodities scheme is financed with Tommy's bottom dollars) and to his innerly deadened father who does not want to be disturbed in his old age by his failed over-age son. Dr.Tamkin is a charlatan who bewilderingly produces the odd pearl of wisdom from amongst the rest of his pseudo-scientific debris. He represents the soul without substance, and Dr. Adler the substance without soul.
His estranged wife torments him for his past sins. The wealthy old Mr.Rappaport is pathologically self-centred. No help is forthcoming from his fellow humans.
As a product of Western society, with its tradition in state and religious institutions, benign omnipotent divinity, universal laws, natural justice and so on, Tommy seems to be clinging on to the belief in some kind of metaphysical scheme of things that surely must be out there somewhere to make it all right in the end. The message seems to be that these putative structures and mechanisms of sustenance are non-existent when it comes to the crunch, i.e. you're on your own, Pal!
And then comes the ending.
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Ce produit
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CDN$ 16.50 CDN$ 11.41
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Accueil Amazon
