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lilyaulait's review against another edition
4.0
And so the day remains unseized, in spite of a pathetic, far-too-late attempt to grasp at it. “Tommy” Wilhelm “Wilky” Adler shall spend the second half of his life half-heartedly repairing the mistakes of the first half–just as he feared.
jyotideepa's review against another edition
4.0
One of the best-written books I read this year. A valuable read for those who want to master the craft of Storytelling.
christene_littlelibrary's review against another edition
3.0
Seize the Day, follows the chronicles of a single day of a man named, Wilhelm Adler. A failed middle aged actor, out of work, nearly broke, and estranged from his wife and children. He is haunted by all of his setbacks and bad decisions in life and is in search of salvation through an easy financial win that will solve all his problems in the help of this so called man, Dr. Tamkin. He has invested the last of his savings and was advised to shed the burden of his failed past and to live in the here and now, in other words, to "Seize the Day".
A very well written novella. Simple yet impactful. 3.5/5
A very well written novella. Simple yet impactful. 3.5/5
christopher_azure's review against another edition
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
chiara_everywhere's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
carthaginian's review against another edition
3.0
Saul Bellow to me is in the category of Beatniks of the period, like Kerouac or Burroughs. All of those men spoke of the less glamorous parts of the world and life, with newer ideas brought to the fold.
Seize the Day was one such novella.
I love a story about a man on a downward spiral. I read decadent literature for fun. However, when you lose the French aesthetics of that movement and keep the misery, what do you get? It’s a somewhat captivating romp, but I really didn’t have much interest left by the end. Perhaps I’m too young to truly understand Tommy Wilhelm’s midlife crisis. Some parts I was gripped by, feeling his inferiority and failure truly take ahold of him.
I could not feel anything else but underwhelmed however when I read this. Hopefully with more time I can gain a better understanding.
Seize the Day was one such novella.
I love a story about a man on a downward spiral. I read decadent literature for fun. However, when you lose the French aesthetics of that movement and keep the misery, what do you get? It’s a somewhat captivating romp, but I really didn’t have much interest left by the end. Perhaps I’m too young to truly understand Tommy Wilhelm’s midlife crisis. Some parts I was gripped by, feeling his inferiority and failure truly take ahold of him.
I could not feel anything else but underwhelmed however when I read this. Hopefully with more time I can gain a better understanding.
robertlashley's review against another edition
5.0
Seize The Day, Saul Bellow’s novella about a failure desperate to find humanity separate from financial success, is a masterpiece that outlives the demons of its creator. Published in 1956, it remains a stylistic tour de force, brimming with Joycean riffs, brilliant intensity, and an exquisite structure that was wildly experimental yet still fully contained. Rightly lionized in its time, Seize the Day has been quietly ushered out of polite conversation due to Bellow's later obsessions with blacks, feminists and homosexuals – which, as true and ugly as it is, cannot take away the fact that he, at his best in this book, was as great a writer of prose fiction as there was in the 20th century.
The story centers on Tommy Wilhelm, a fortysomething who has failed as an actor, son, husband, father and businessman. He begins the story alone, holed up in a hotel, a middle-aged boy who refuses to grow up. The book takes the tone of his quiet madness, a desperation realized not in cartoonish outburst, but in a realistic depiction of angst and failure. During the course of a day, Wilhelm has to come to terms with himself and his mistakes, and does so in ways that are complicated, troubling – and heartfelt.
On the fourteenth floor he looked for his father to enter the elevator; they often met at this hour, on the way to breakfast. If he worried about his appearance, it was mainly for his old father's sake. But there was no stop on the fourteenth, and the elevator sank and sank. Then the smooth door opened and the great dark red uneven carpet that covered the lobby billowed toward Wilhelm’s feet.
–from Seize The Day
What makes Seize the Day special is Bellow's beautiful prose, fluent in both the formalism of Proust and street slang, the Talmud and Leaves of Grass, the highbrow tone of New York intellectualism and the city cadences of the Chicago of his youth. It is the glue and the solvent for Wilhelm’s personal confessions, his jeremiads against the idea of financial success and his introspection into his own failure. Bellow seems endlessly inventive, a master who does not bring the common and the academic together so much as create a style that rises above both conventions. This is the Saul Bellow who will last, the one who belongs in the pantheon of authors who expanded the territory of the story and gave it new definition and texture.
As he got older, went through more divorces and became warier and warier of the changes of the era, he personalized the character of Wilheim; repackaging him in novel after novel, taking him from the realm of literary creation and making him a symbol of the right wing anger against the civil rights movements of the time. Yet the original Wilhelm exists, and the novel in which he was created withstands – and should be divorced from – the diseased late rages of its author. In short, Seize the Day endures, and will endure long after Bellow’s outbursts are resigned to history.
The story centers on Tommy Wilhelm, a fortysomething who has failed as an actor, son, husband, father and businessman. He begins the story alone, holed up in a hotel, a middle-aged boy who refuses to grow up. The book takes the tone of his quiet madness, a desperation realized not in cartoonish outburst, but in a realistic depiction of angst and failure. During the course of a day, Wilhelm has to come to terms with himself and his mistakes, and does so in ways that are complicated, troubling – and heartfelt.
On the fourteenth floor he looked for his father to enter the elevator; they often met at this hour, on the way to breakfast. If he worried about his appearance, it was mainly for his old father's sake. But there was no stop on the fourteenth, and the elevator sank and sank. Then the smooth door opened and the great dark red uneven carpet that covered the lobby billowed toward Wilhelm’s feet.
–from Seize The Day
What makes Seize the Day special is Bellow's beautiful prose, fluent in both the formalism of Proust and street slang, the Talmud and Leaves of Grass, the highbrow tone of New York intellectualism and the city cadences of the Chicago of his youth. It is the glue and the solvent for Wilhelm’s personal confessions, his jeremiads against the idea of financial success and his introspection into his own failure. Bellow seems endlessly inventive, a master who does not bring the common and the academic together so much as create a style that rises above both conventions. This is the Saul Bellow who will last, the one who belongs in the pantheon of authors who expanded the territory of the story and gave it new definition and texture.
As he got older, went through more divorces and became warier and warier of the changes of the era, he personalized the character of Wilheim; repackaging him in novel after novel, taking him from the realm of literary creation and making him a symbol of the right wing anger against the civil rights movements of the time. Yet the original Wilhelm exists, and the novel in which he was created withstands – and should be divorced from – the diseased late rages of its author. In short, Seize the Day endures, and will endure long after Bellow’s outbursts are resigned to history.
liambetts's review against another edition
3.0
Easy to read, insightful, and reminded me of Dostoevsky in terms of how it delves into the psychology of the main character. Loved the character of Tamkin.