Saul Bellow, Seize the Day

Gloria Cronin (Brigham Young University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1956

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Seize the Day

(1956), Bellow’s most read book, is a sober and deliberate retreat from the exuberance of

The Adventures of Augie March

. While it has all the surface appearance of a “victim novel”, it has fewer of its pessimistic conclusions. The world of this novel appears to be the urban wasteland replete with the sepulchral Hotel Gloriana. Out of work as a salesman, and estranged from his wife and children, Tommy Wilhelm finds himself nearly penniless in early middle-age. As a young man he has rejected his father’s profession, medicine, tried for a career in Hollywood, been tricked by a phoney talent scout, ended up in sales and lost his sales district due to nepotism. The classic

schlemiehl

of Yiddish folklore, he ends up in the dreadful Hotel Gloriana amidst the aging…

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469 words

Citation: Cronin, Gloria. "Seize the Day". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 November 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2189, accessed 18 April 2024.]

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