By Saul Bellow.
Begun 09 Nov 2008; finished 11 Nov.
Review written 24 Dec 2008.
Read for the Author A-Z Challenge.
Seize the Day, by Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow, is a bite-sized modernist novella set in the 1920s. The story is about Tommy Wilhelm, a down-and-outer, second-rate actor and salesman (now unemployed). He is desperate for a break out of his downward spiral, so he naively goes into the stock-market speculation to try and make some money. The novel tracks a single day of Tommy’s life: the people that he meets (including his arrogantly proud father), ruminations about his past failures, and the anxiety, paranoia, guilt and dissolution he goes through as he is humiliated, swindled, and ultimately ruined.
Seize the Day was a succinct, stark picture of a man’s breakdown in a ruthless, cutthroat, uncaring society. Tommy’s existential crisis and emotional breakdown was described nakedly and dispassionately; Bellow did not mince any words, and we are confronted by the nightmare of a man’s dissolution. Indeed, the story made me very uncomfortable, because who wants to face the reality of how cruel and selfish human beings can be? It was a very effective criticism of the heartless, ambitious, and greedy spirit of the 1920s — or at least, portrayed the zeitgeist without frills or excuses, allowing us readers to come to our own conclusions.
I thought Seize the Day was an excellent, short, punchy snapshot of Tommy’s ruined life. It was also a modernist story; not really my kind of thing, but worth reading nevertheless as an introduction to Saul Bellow’s oeuvre. Still deciding whether to read his other books - maybe Herzog or Henderson the Rain King will be next.
(I just realized that I read this at a time when the world economy was in freefall. Interesting coincidence!)