Seize The Day
(Saul Bellow)
This is perhaps Bellow's best known novel, and was singled out for particular praise by the Nobel committee when he was awarded the Literature prize in 1976. Tommy Wilhelm is a fading charmer, one-time bit-part actor, salesman and loser, now in his forties - and he has reached his day of reckoning. Impetuous and childish, he is estranged from his wife and children, has lost his job and is at odds with his vainglorious, cold and emotionally sterile father. Living in the Gloriana Hotel on Broadway (a few floors up from his wealthy, retired Doctor father), financial oblivion beckons, made worse by his estranged wife's constant and unjust financial demands and the fact that, despite his better judgement, Wilhelm has invested the last of his money in the commodities market - all on the advice of the dubious Dr Tamkin (who has by cunning obtained power of attorney over Wilhelm's investment). During one New York day we take a brief roller-coaster ride with Wilhelm as he tries to evoke an emotional response from his father (whom he considers to be mesmerised by his own mortality), suffers defalcations at the hands of Dr Tamkin, and, overburdened by his troubles, gradually cracks-up. Bellow's world is not a place of parables, but of truth and wisdom - Tamkin is both crook and saviour; Wilhelm both loser and wise-man.
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- Seize The Day
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