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Seize the Day

By: Saul Bellow
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
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Summary

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.
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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)

What listeners say about Seize the Day

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poignant

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

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

it's now been about 45 years.....

since I first read this minor caricature of the warts on the American dream. it is as easy to read today as it was then. this is a picture. of the here and now as experienced by the author and a marvellous benchmark for any son, perhaps a son smarting from the criticism of a father perhaps a little overzealous in preparing them from life once the father has moved on.

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my review a review by me

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

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Worthy of All the Praise

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

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    3 out of 5 stars
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A Day in the Life...

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.

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Just not my bag

Some things just aren’t for you, couldn’t vibe with much of anything in this to be honest

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Slighly annoying book about very annoying people

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

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1 person found this helpful