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Seize the Day

Seize the Day

List Price: $19.95
Your Price: $17.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Lard have mercy
Review: "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.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: MY REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE
Review: "DEAD POET SOCIETY" I like this movie, because I was moved by it. Perhaps, this movie tells us that you don't have to obey your parents and try to be honest to yourself and live anything you like!! In this film, all children obey their parents. The school the children go to is very strict. One day a teacher named Mr.Keating came to school. Mr Keating is a free-thinker. Because of his appearence,children's thinking is changing day by day. In this film, my favorite charactor is Mr Keating,because he always smiling and I like his way of thinking. The most impressive scene for me is when Mr.Keating leaves the school and students stand up on their desks and say, "Oh, Chaptain my chaptain" I couldn't control myself and moved into tears.

At last, I think this film is worth seeing very much , please rent this film and watch it!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Freudian and fun.
Review: A conversation with dad. This text is one of the most effective pieces of literature that encompasses the post-Freudian aftermath. Though the text goes "nowhere," it takes the reader to the realm of thought. Recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliantly funny and sad
Review: A great, great, short novel about capitialism, personal relationships, greed, foolishness, life and death. I've read the book many times and laughed and cried through all of them. Highly recommended to you all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A sensitive chronicle of a crumbling life
Review: A late Bellow, 'Sieze the Day' is a beautifully written story of a failed, luckless man in the last days before yet another unlucky decision sends him over the brink into financial and mental ruin. Bellow is penetrating yet characteristically compassionate in his telling of the tale. One of the great Bellow novels.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: day in the life of delusional 'everyman' makes for queasy r
Review: A novella set in the long gone 30's Upper Westside of Manhattan features a mid-forties nebish who has 'lost' it all yet still maintains the delusion that his life can magically turn around if the fates, his ex-wife, his father, the stock market come through for him. A day in the life of a lonely and weak man is not the greatest company, yet offers its humiliation and pathos with no frills, and may remind you of yourself at your worst.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Regrets over a wasted life
Review: A short novel about Tommy Wilhelm, a middle aged man, who is a loser in love, money and life in general. A powerful and universal novel: I, who hails from Malaysia, can easily relate to the novel. So, how not to be a loser ? Easy, carpe diem (Latin for seize the day).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Look, the Lard Has Held Its Place!
Review: Absolutely first-rate American novel of alienation. Tommy Wilhelm reaches mid-life with a divorce, a lost job, and a father who won't pay his debts. Tommy asks "How could I have been such a jerk as not to prepare for anything and just go on luck and inspiration?" It all goes down hill from there, Tommy's Dad telling him for good measure, "Those who wait for help must wait for help. You have to stop waiting." But Tommy can't, and we watch him till the bitter end. Brilliant writing; personally I feel this is much better than his longer, three-hundred pagers which tend to get diffuse and laden-down with theories and name-dropping. Here Bellow is writing tightly and concisely (like in his other great short novel, Dangling Man).

This otherwise handsome Penguin edition comes with a tedious, thirteen-page introduction by Cynthia Ozick, doyenne of the novel-as-text-to-be-taught-in-the-classroom school, a particulary inelegant writer to stick before Bellow (who is "irrefragably American" according to her). There is no need for her introduction, or anybody's, because Bellow is such a good writer the reader will have no problem understanding him. Why Ozick's superfluous bad prose at the start to mess this beauty up?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One Day...
Review: Bellow's books are a little more fun than this one...however, few are as powerful. As I read this I realized that I know quite a few people similar to Tommy Wilhelm; unfortunately, some of them are a little too close to me. A brilliant book because it makes you think (when most books being written now don't) and a painful book because of its ordinariness. There aren't any spies, guns, bombs, or assassinated presidents in this book; anyone looking for a quick read should probably look elsewhere. What you will find in Bellow is truth: truth written beautifully. The prefacing essay is pretty interesting too (it discusses how Bellow is just as influential as Hemingway). A definite recommendation for any reading list.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: historia de un fracaso
Review: Carpe Diem Saul Bellow

La historia, no solo de un fracaso, sino de un miedo generalizado al fracaso, por parte de una sociedad que te ve en términos e ganancias y beneficios, no solo para ti, sino para los tuyos y donde ser un fracasado implica ser una carga social para los demás, que no están dispuestos a tolerarte, a hacerse cargo de ti y mucho menos a oírte mientras te quejas de lo mal que te ha tratado la vida y lo injusto que han sido los demás para contigo.
De eso se trata esta historia, que no tiene desperdicios de ningún tipo, pues es corta, solo consta de 154 paginas, es precisa y cuenta el tema sin desvíos, muy frecuentes en la obra de Bellow. Tommy Wilhem es un fracasado de 44 años quien le gusta lamentarse de sus problemas con todo el mundo y es ese lloriqueo el que hace que el personaje nos resulte antipático, torpe y mediocre. En su juventud tomo las decisiones equivocadas, como muchos jóvenes han hecho, pero eso no es motivo para lloriquear por lo que se ha hecho o se ha dejado de hacer. Su problema no es ese, sino de actitud ante la vida. Su miedo a ser un inadaptado lo convierte en eso, en un inadaptado. La cosa de la que huimos a veces esta más cerca mientras más huimos de ella. Solo cuando nos enfrentamos a la vida con valor y con entereza estamos nosotros prestos a vencer nuestros demonios internos y llegar a ser alguien. Pero no se equivoquen en este punto; ser alguien no es ser un acaudalado millonario o un empresario prospero, por mucho que a usted se le quiera convencer de ello. Ser alguien es amarse como uno es, sin reservas y estar contento con lo que la vida y las circunstancias le han dado por el día de hoy, eso es ser alguien y alguien feliz.
Ya lo dice la cita completa del latín: carpe diem minimun crédula postera: Goza del día de hoy sin creer mucho en el mañana.

Luis Méndez.


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