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Seize the Day

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About this listen

Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm has reached his day of reckoning and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos: he is separated from his wife and children; at odds with his vain, successful father; failed in his acting career (a Hollywood agent once placed him as “the type that loses the girl”); and in a financial mess. In the course of one climactic day he reviews his past mistakes and spiritual malaise, until a mysterious, philosophizing con man grants him a glorious, illuminating moment of truth and understanding and offers him one last hope.

Saul Bellow (1915–2005), author of numerous novels, novellas, and stories, was the only novelist to receive three National Book Awards. He also received the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

©1956 1974 by Saul Bellow. renewed 1984 by Saul Bellow (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Fiction

Critic reviews

“It is the special distinction of Mr. Bellow as a novelist that he is able to give us, step by step, the world we really live each day - and in the same movement to show us that the real suffering of not understanding, the deprivation of light. It is this double gift that explains the unusual contribution he is making to our fiction.” ( New York Times)
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This novel struck me as the execution of a technical experiment by the author to cram as much as possible into one day in the life of a not very pleasant lead character. As such it succeeds but he's such a self pitying loser that I felt no real sympathy for him and rather admired the old goat who fleeced him and the father and wife who despised him for his pathetic weakness.

A Day in the Life...

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existential dread, growing old, wasted time, a deep feeling of insignificance, and all that good stuff.

poignant

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beautiful just brilliant and beautiful. nothing more to say other than that really beautiful.

my review a review by me

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Great characters and a fascinating story. Beautifully written. My first Saul Bellow read. I want more!

Worthy of All the Praise

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Any additional comments?

I can't say it isn't a good book. It is well written and insightful. It just isn't a great pleasure to read. The lead character is so unlikeable I found myself hoping he would have a heart attack and the book would end. The rest of the characters aren't much better. It is actually something of an achievement to cram so many character flaws into one short account

Slighly annoying book about very annoying people

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