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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Book Capable of Changing You., March 4, 1999
By A Customer
Both as an example of fine writing and as a book that leaves you thinking deep thoughts, this novel is outstanding. One of my rules for determining the "importance" of any book, movie, or other entertainment piece is whether or not it is capable of inspiring change in its audience. This novel is.Bellow achieves the perfect balance of interior monologue and narrative in Sammler, in which we see the world through the eyes of the erudite elderly man, who, though constrained by his own reserved demeanor, sees the world with his eyes, his mind, and his heart. At a loss, often, to express himself, Sammler filters the world through his intellect. And yet, the truths he knows are intuitive, and he realizes that value in life is found through making and acknowledging the human connection and bond, and living up to the spiritual and moral truths of the "human contract." This is a book about how important it is to love, to connect with other frail, imperfect, crazy humans, how to come to terms with the messiness of life, and make peace with the contradictions between intellect and religion/spirituality. Living in New York on the charity of relatives, Sammler struggles, and succeeds in, maintaining his dignity in spite of the seemingly depraved surroundings of the city and in spite of his precarious financial and physical conditions. Observing the world around him, Sammler poses many questions about the values that drive us, noting poignantly that bragging about one's vices has become virtue, and that honor, "virtuous impulses," have somehow become shameful. Yet, the book also has an engaging plot, one that serves the message of the book, and Sammler's many family relationships are amusing and touching at once. Yet Sammler is not the hero of the novel, and we see the hero, (if one can call him that, since he spends the book unconscious) through Sammler's eyes. In doing so, we understand the human achievements that Sammler aspires to, and that he calls us to. This book is worth the work of reading for anyone who doesn't mind dense but beautiful writing, who will read the same paragraph several times to get all the nuggets out, and who enjoys philosophy, sociology, and "cultural" snapshots. I will note that this novel, right in line with Bellows other novels, is a bit mysogynistic in its portrayal of women (there is not a woman to respect in this novel, they are either dirty and smelly, cold and slutty, crazy, or lovable but totally clueless). My other complaint is that Bellow, in this novel more than others, is a bit intellectually pretentious, throwing in obscure historical/philosphical references that do not move the novel forward, but that are the intellectual equivalent of "muscle flexing." But neither of these shortcomings detracts from the overall impact of the book. I read it once a year or so to remind myself of important truths as I walk the path of life. Sammler forgives his flawed relatives their faults for all the good they do, and so I too can forgive Bellow his, and take all the good this novel offers.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Civilized Moralist Among the Dilipadated Hypocrites, August 21, 2006
I can imagine few curses worse, historically speaking, than being born in Europe at the fin de sielce. Being born during this period afforded millions of individuals a front row seat, from the flowering youth into the onset of middle age's end, to this century's most colossal stupidities and unspeakable horrors. First industrialized warfare with its colossal waste during the First World War and then industrialized murder in the second. Artur Sammler, not thoroughly affected by the first war is, in every conceivable respect, a survivor of the second. Sammler exemplifies with his one eye, the other sacrificed to a Mauser rifle butt, what it means to see the world clearly, unmediated in its most extreme forms of viciousness and madness. He has lived life at its extremes.
There are many ways to read Mr. Sammler's Planet, and though it probably detracts from gaining some of the meaning of the work, I choose to read it as part historical document and part philosophical treatise. As a document of the 1960's and 70's, it is a lamentation by Bellow at seeing an environment of what he considers adolescent intellectual arrogance blossom up all around New York coupled with a hedonistic sexual revolution which, though not necessarily condemnable is certainly not commendable. Sammler's New York is a mad house of crime, vice, and utter-ridiculousness. For him, one who saw society fall apart at the seems with disastrous consequences for his life--Bellow's narrative reveals very early on that Sammler should in all actuality be dead--New York is very close to being a modernized Sodom or Gomorrah, but a long ways away from having fire and brimstone rained down upon it. It is only redeemed by being almost stupidly infantile.
The circles that Sammler travels in and his acquaintances are, and this is a great understatement, decidedly strange. The circle of survivors of World War II--camp survivors, veterans of the Red Army, or his daughter who was hidden in a Polish Catholic convent--are grotesqueries suffering from weird fetishes, capable of incredible violence, or simply incapable of being reasonable human beings. The young Americans who Sammler is forced to suffer could make lifetime studies for Freud, Jung, or Lacan. They are wild children borne of extravagance and wealth who have only redeeming qualities--two are hucksters, and one is described by her own father as a "sloppy c***." Sammler sees them as the product of a society that is going deeper and deeper into madness--all three are in fact being analyzed--and is incapable in its present state to live life in a way that accords with normal values. Since Sammler survived the greatest calamity of the twentieth century though, just watching the conduct of many of these people, many of whom is down right comical. Sammler's New York is a big stupid child that is unaware of itself.
Sammler is an extremely intellectual man, who during the two days in which in the narrative takes place lives what is rightfully called a life of the mind. Ideas are central to his existence, and he sees many of the problems with New York, which is extended into a microcosmical metaphor for the whole of America and the entire world. One of the reasons that Sammler so broods upon this is that the United States is about to launch humankind onto the moon, and seemingly bring about a new era of human civilization--i.e. transporting humanity with all its problems into frontiers unknown. Though space travel is only fleetingly mused about in the conversations that Sammler has with his highly intelligent and utterly sane friend, the Indian professor of Biophysics, V. Govinda Lal, any mention of it in the books publication year, 1970, would have invoked it. As one who looked death straight in the face and saw human bestiality at its most brutal, Sammler sees it, just as sees humanity with much skepticism. Sammler's planet is profoundly flawed and filled with people who seem incapable of even basic courtesy. His whole narrative begs the question: what business do they have in space?
One thing that I have always liked about Bellow's novels is central role that ideas play in his character's lives. Sammler is the best example of this that I have yet seen. Named for the great nineteenth century German thinker Arthur Schopenhauer and a great admirer of H.G. Wells, the self-described Polish-Oxonian anglophile is best described in the way that he himself described Wells: "simply a mass of intelligent views." Not only an intellectual though, he is also a severe critic the modern world. For him it is the values of his decidedly un-intellectual nephew and patron, Elya Gruber, which are most praiseworthy. He is a picture of generosity and familial loyalty even with his over-sexed daughter and huckster son--there is nothing about him that is not easily pardonable. Sammler knows though that Elya is atypical though. The world around him is frivolous, impatient and unwilling to look with even the slightest tolerance upon views that are not their own. He even goes so far as to extend the squalor of Spanish Harlem to Columbia University's intellectual demeanor. Both are squalid, but at least the first is only based economical impoverishment; the second's squalor is self-imposed stupidity and arrogance. Sammler sees the intellectual heroes of most of these young people, like Theodore Sorel, as celebrants of the kind of catastrophic violence that he just barely survived two decades before. This does not bode well for the future of human race.
The only major criticism that it seems possible to have of this work is that much of it seems the irascible lamentation of a man, namely Bellow not Sammler, who is disgusted with excesses of sixties cultural revolutions. A great deal of the narrative becomes bogged down in parodying theses excesses with the grotesque behavior of the characters which embody these extremes. When this occurs, the novel becomes almost a polemic against values that it views as contrary to civil society--i.e. Sammler employs the same level of intolerance he finds so abrasive he finds in those who look askance at his views. If that fault can be forgiven, and it is fairly easy fault to overlook even, the novel becomes exactly what it attempts be; an argument for decency, courtesy, and kindness. Values that are very difficult to oppose.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bellow at his almost best, May 1, 2003
This is my sixth Bellow novel. For first timers, I would highly recommend Henderson the Rain King over this work because Henderson is an easier, funnier, and more exuberant read--a great parody of the Hemmingway novel. That said, Mr. Sammler's Planet is classic Bellow. The protagonist, Mr. Sammler, is heroically flawed (as all of Bellow's protagonists are) and is caught at a point in his late life where numerous themes challenge his moral center: misogyny, pessimism, death, the human condition, the social contract, filial duty, the achievements of science, and modern western philosphy among other themes--and in any great Bellow work, there are so many themes! The narrative is simple: a close third person point of view brings us inside Mr. Sammler's head as he interprets and analyzes the events in his life: his dying nephew, a pick pocket who assualts him, greedy relatives, a missing manuscript, and his Holocaust experience. There are long philosophic digressions, sometimes humorous, sometimes didactic, that can frustrate, confuse, and enlighten the reader, all within the space of a single paragraph. This density of thought is one of the supreme challenges of Bellow, but as an ardent fan (who only "gets" a mere fraction of what he's talking about), the payoff is exponentially greater than the effort I put in. The only narrative flaw I find is in the dialogue between Sammler and Dr. Lal. It's structured in a Platonic form--reminiscent of the final chapter in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man--and the section seems forced and stilted compared to the rest of the novel. Bellow's prose is as strong as ever. We return to New York City in the late 1960s, much filthier and more violent than the setting of Seize the Day. His descriptions of people and places are vibrant, and his comic timing masterful. Ultimately, Mr. Sammler's climatic quest, like all of Bellow's protagonists, lies not in some external feat of physical valor but in a confrontation with the progtagonist's soul. Faced with the death of his nephew, Sammler must come to terms with his life as holocaust survivor, elitist intellectual, misogynist, and man. Saul Bellow is not for everyone... But if you are introspective, self critical, and enjoy philosophic and comic writing, than this would be an ideal 2nd or 3rd Bellow novel.
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