Rating: Summary: The Condition of Modern Breakdown Review: Middle-aged Wilhelm las lost his sense of direction. He cannot find the means to support his wife and kids, who he recently walked out on, and is looking for pity and help from everyone that he can. The premise may not sound that interesting but Bellow does an incredible job of showing how suppressing emotions come back to haunt us. Throughout this book, Wilhelm has several life-changing interactions with the other characters, and comes out a totally different person. These interactions are gracefully executed by Bellow, showing an amazing grasp of differing psyches and how they interact with others. I don't want to give anything away, but Wilhelm's final confrontations with Tamkin and his father are absolutely amazing. If your interest can be held by an intensely personal journey (as opposed to a plot driven thriller), then this book may be for you. Once you've finished the book, just compare the opening paragraphs with the closing ones and you should get a hint of what you just gained. Doing so may even convince you to give it another go.
Rating: Summary: Portrait of a breakdown Review: Seize The Day concisely portrays a good hearted, but pitiful man's struggle to cope with a life of failed endeavors. It's an interesting examination of the psychological gymnastics sometimes required to cope with life's tribulations. And the unadulterated despair which results when hope is lost. Depressing, but also absorbing.
Rating: Summary: Bradley's Book Review... Review: Seize the Day is a fiction novel about a man in his early forties, named Wilhelm Adler. Constantly reminded of his past and his mistakes, he strives to do right, but has the worst of luck.Wilhelm continues to recieve advice from people close to him. He thn gets betrayed by someone he trusted. Will his proble goes unsolved at the end? This book is intersting to a certain degree, but that only my opinion.
Rating: Summary: A Great Read for Writers Review: 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.
Rating: Summary: a grim little entry Review: This book is a lovely piece of painful truth. As I go through each of Bellow's novels one thing that stands out progressively is the assured confidence that grows and grows each time we cross through similar terrain. This is not to say that he repeats himself--certainly not as the on-going philosophy matures through both personal life experience and a further understanding of human nature. Seize the day is, as usual, extremely well-written but with this short novel I believe that Bellow began crossing into that phase of maturity that makes an author ever-lasting and forces his vision upon the world at large. It is no wonder that when Bellow won his Nobel Prize twenty years after the publication of this book that it was singled out for special notice. Basically your middle-class everyman is portrayed (with, of course, the particularities related to Bellow himself to give the human reactions more sincerity) at one of those mid-life boiling points when the decisions made will effect everything that comes later. You read along with a similar urgancy, rooting yet never hoping, aware that many of Tommy Wilhem's mistakes are similar to your own and breathlessly hoping to find an answer to your own questions. Four books into Mr. Bellow's career I am now convinced that all the high-handed praise is, for once, truly justified. This guy is one of the true American wonders, one of the gods of our literature.
Rating: Summary: A haunting spectre for the midde-class! Review: 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.
Rating: Summary: Exquisite and painful. Review: This film is one of Robin Williams' best performances. Perfect as Saul Bellow's protagonist, Williams plays Wilky Adler, a man approaching an inevitable mid-life crisis. Wilky is pathetic and pitiable, an everyman who could never get his life in order. Devoid of redemption, this film is familiar and painful, with stellar acting from Williams, Joseph Wiseman (Dr. Adler), and Jerry Stiller (Dr. Tamkin).
Rating: Summary: It was BORING Review: This had to have been the dullest book I have ever read. I waited through out the whole novel for something to happen! All it consisted of was some man leading a boring life. Yeah I know it was called SEIZE THE DAY but really, do we need to be put through the agony of hearing of someone else's continuous problems that were all self inflicted?
Rating: Summary: Saul Bellow -- Seize the day Review: This is a book about a man who is tired of life in NY City, tired of his father, tired of everything...the writing is a little hard to understand at first, but soon enough one can understand it. The fact that this book (or novella) is 107 pages (with relatively big font size) is good, because one can read it quickly. I was able to read the whole book in 3 days. I do recommend this because it is a GOOD book.
Rating: Summary: Dull, with a huge D. Review: This is a novel about boring things happening to boring people. The most boring hour of my day has more life in it than this novel. It's sad because i love the Adventures of Augie March (see my famous review); but unlike that book, the main character remains flat throughout, and nothing but nothing happens! I am getting bored even writing this review about it. Prescription: Lots of Nabokov.
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