Quantity:

Express Checkout with PayPhrase

What's this? | Create PayPhrase

More Buying Choices

88 used & new from $2.51

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Share with Friends

See all product images
See 1 customer image

Share your own customer images

Search inside another edition of this book

Tell the Publisher! I�d like to read this book on Kindle Don�t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

Seize the Day (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Introduction) "When it came to concealing his troubles, Tommy Wilhelm was not less capable than the next fellow..." (more)
Key Phrases: pretender soul, brokerage office, New York, Maurice Venice, Doctor Tamkin (more...)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (69 customer reviews)

List Price:	$14.00
Price:	$10.08 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save:	$3.92 (28%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Tuesday, November 10? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

37 new from $7.38 44 used from $2.51 7 collectible from $10.00

Formats		Amazon Price	New from	Used from
School & Library Binding $25.75 Temporarily out of stock. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item. Published May 26, 2003	School & Library Binding, May 26, 2003	$25.75	$25.75	--
	See # more hardcovers
	Show fewer hardcovers
Paperback $10.08 In Stock. Published May 26, 2003	Paperback, May 26, 2003	$10.08	$7.38	$2.51
	See # more paperbacks
	Show fewer paperbacks

Frequently Bought Together

Price For All Three: $33.17

Show availability and shipping details

This item: Seize the Day (Penguin Classics) by Saul Bellow
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Pnin (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics) by Vladimir Nabokov
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Pnin (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)

by Vladimir Nabokov

4.1 out of 5 stars (54) $12.24

Loving; Living; Party Going (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

by Henry Green

4.3 out of 5 stars (23) $12.24

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: A Novel (P.S.)

by Muriel Spark

3.9 out of 5 stars (75) $9.35

Goodbye, Columbus : And Five Short Stories (Vintage International)

by Philip Roth

4.1 out of 5 stars (55) $10.17

Humboldt's Gift (Penguin Classics)

by Saul Bellow

3.9 out of 5 stars (45) $10.88

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

GBF Discussion; Guide online

Introduction by Cynthia Ozick.

About the Author

SAUL BELLOW's dazzling career as a novelist has been marked with numerous literary prizes, including the 1976 Nobel Prize, and the Gold Medal for the Novel. His other books include The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, More Die of Heartbreak, Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories, Mr. Sammler's Planet, Seize The Day and The Victim. Saul Bellow died in 2005. Cynthia Ozick (b.1928 ) is an American writer whose works are about Jewish American life. Ozick Her most recent novel, Heir to the Glimmering World (2004), has received much praise in the literary press. She was on the shortlist for the 2005 Man Booker International Prize --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics (May 27, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0142437611
ISBN-13: 978-0142437612
Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (69 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #34,597 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories: (What's this?)
#1 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( O ) > Ozick, Cynthia
#2 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( B ) > Bellow, Saul

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Authors

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Cynthia Ozick

Saul Bellow

Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)
Browse and search another edition of this book.

First Sentence:
When it came to concealing his troubles, Tommy Wilhelm was not less capable than the next fellow. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
pretender soul, brokerage office

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Maurice Venice, Doctor Tamkin, Rojax Corporation, Tommy Wilhelm, Wall Street, Hotel Gloriana, Los Angeles, Riverside Drive, Teddy Roosevelt

New!
Concordance | Text Stats

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

100 books cite this book:

New Essays on Seize the Day (The American Novel) by Michael P. Kramer on 63 pages
Saul Bellow Against the Grain (Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction) by Ellen Pifer on 8 pages
The Norman Podhoretz Reader: A Selection of His Writings from the 1950s through the 1990s by Norman Podhoretz on 7 pages
The Holocaust of Texts: Genocide, Literature, and Personification by Amy Hungerford on 6 pages
Alfred Kazin's America: Critical and Personal Writings by Alfred Kazin on 5 pages

See all 100 books citing this book

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	90% buy the item featured on this page: Seize the Day (Penguin Classics) 4.2 out of 5 stars (69) $10.08
	3% buy Herzog (Penguin Classics) 3.7 out of 5 stars (70) $10.20
	3% buy Humboldt's Gift (Penguin Classics) 3.9 out of 5 stars (45) $10.88
	2% buy The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics) 4.0 out of 5 stars (64) $10.88

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

literature nobel prize winners(7)

20th century american fiction(5)

saul bellow(5)

pulitzer - fiction(4)

national book award(3)

nobel prize in literature(3)

classic literature(2)

1001 books to read before you die(1)

american originals(1)

failure(1)

imago dei fiction(1)

See all 16 tags...

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

69 Reviews

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (69 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic of American literature, June 23, 2005

By	Lesley Freitas (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I picked up "Seize The Day" when, one afternoon, I realized I'd never read anything by Saul Bellow. Throughout high school and college, none of his books had ever been assigned to me, and though I knew his name, it never resonated with me the way the names Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, or Steinbeck had. After reading "Seize the Day," I am rather angry at my high school teachers and college professors--and myself!--for keeping me from this author for so long.

"Seize The Day" tells the story of one day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a middle-aged failed actor who now lives in the same New York hotel as his father. Tommy is separated from his wife, and rarely sees his children; furthermore, he has been unemployed for several months, and faces losing the last of his money in an ill-conceived stock market venture. It is with all of this in mind that Tommy finally comes to a day of realization and reckoning, when he realizes his isolation and his failure.

The theme of man's isolation is strong throughout the book, yet it is not what struck me most about Tommy's situation. I read "Seize The Day" immediately after finishing "The Fountainhead," and perhaps that skewed my focus a bit. What I found most interesting about Tommy is his inability to judge himself. He is aware of his failures, but cannot take the final step and truly confront them; he must ask those around him, particularly his father, both for a kind word and for a way to understand himself. I have to wonder if Tommy's isolation would be less of a burden if he weren't also isolated from himself--a thought which struck me to the core.

If you are like me, and have read dozens of American classics without touching a Saul Bellow book, read "Seize The Day" as soon as possible. Bellow's style of writing and his way of getting inside of Tommy's mind is recognizably American, yet incredibly distinctive; I would venture that you can't fully understand American literature until you've read Saul Bellow.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seize the Day not an option for some, November 27, 1999

By	A. Bayes "a grad student" (Tempe, Arizona) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Seize the Day (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) (Paperback)

In one of Bellow's best works, Seize the Day tackles many of the hardships faced in the capitalistic society of America. The main character, Wilhelm, has failed miserably at virtually everything he has ever attempted. This failure is a derivation from the fact that his father has never been able to show him love. Thus, Wilhelm accepts love from anyone who is offering, and constantly gets taken advantage of by those he trusts. Hidden within the text, is the issue of the Holocaust, and how the world must reflect and look at the sins of the past in order to progress into the future. Ironically, "Seizing the Day" is not the answer for Wilhelm, or the world. From this novella, we must realize that in order to move on with our lives, we must reflect upon and accept our sins and mistakes of the past. Very powerful and moving, this novella should force every reader to think about the direction of their lives, and the importance of love and compassion.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

29 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A short novel, representative of Bellow's work, November 23, 2005

By	Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME) (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

"Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow" is what Horace wrote at the end of his first book of Odes a couple of thousand years ago. And ever since, youth has been urged to make hay while the sun shines since the bird of time is on the wing--to toss in a couple more homilies. But what Saul Bellow has in mind here is entirely ironic since his sad protagonist, Tommy Wilhelm Adler has never seized the day at all, much to his unfeeling father's disgust.

This then is a tale of failure (one of Bellow's recurring themes) and the shame and self-loathing that failure may bring; and yet there is a sense, or at least a hint--not of redemption of course--but of acceptance and understanding at the end of this short existential novel by the Nobel Prize winner.

The way that Bellow's drowning, existential man experiences the funeral as this novel ends is the way we should all experience a funeral, that is, with the certain knowledge that the man lying dead in the coffin is, or will be, us.

And we should cry copious tears and a great shudder should seize us and we should sob as before God with the full realization that our day too will come, and sooner than we think--which is what big, blond-haired, handsome Jewish "Wilkie" Adler does. And in that realization we know that he has seen the truth and we along with him. An existential truth of course.

The structure of the novel, like James Joyce's Ulysses, begins and ends in the same day. Through flashbacks from Adler's nagging consciousness, the failures and disappointments of his life are recalled. When he was just a young man he foolishly thought because of his good looks and the assurance of a bogus talent scout that he might become a Hollywood star; and so he spurned college and instead went to the boulevard of broken dreams as it runs toward Santa Monica.

And so began the failure and dissolution of his life. As Bellow tells it, Wilhelm has slipped and fallen into something like a watery abyss. He can't catch his breath. He is drowning. He reaches out to his father, who turns away from him. He reaches out to Dr. Tamkin, the mysterious stranger, the clever fox of a man who swindles him and then disappears into the crowd of the great metropolis. He reaches out to his wife, who will also not extend a helping hand. Meanwhile, the waters about him have grown, and he is lost.

We are all lost, more or less, except those who delude themselves, who have their various schemes and delusions to distract them, is what Bellow seems to be saying. Those of us who have not seized the day, a day that is fleeting and subtle, indefinite and hard to grasp, become so much water-logged driftwood.

With resemblances to Albert Camus' The Stranger and Arthur Miller's Willy Loman, Bellow's Wilhelm is the essence of the anti-hero, literature's dominate strain of the mid-twentieth century. Such men have no firm or deep beliefs. They exist for the day, like butterflies, tossed about by circumstance all the while wondering why, but without any ability to rise above their predicament, a predicament that is so ordinary, so banal, so patently unheroic to be that of Everyman.

And what is the answer? For Bellow and Camus and Miller, the answer is the finality of death. A man lives, goes about craving--"I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want"--and for what and because of what? Like the tentmaker, Omar Khayyam, we wander willy-nilly without a clue, and then become so much dust in the wind.

For life IS a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying in the end, nothing. All our labors are like those of Sisyphus pushing the stone up the hill only to watch it roll back down again.

We cannot help but feel in reading this novel both a sense of empathy for the man who has failed, but at the same time, we might feel like his father and want to give him a kick and say, "Wilkie, get a grip on yourself. Quit making the same mistakes over and over again."

But we know that for Wilhelm it is already too late. He cannot change his nature anymore than the leopard can change its spots. We sense the great hand of fate upon him, and we shudder. For in some respects--different respects of course--we could be him. And we straighten up our frame, we return to our duties and responsibilities, to our work and the rhythms of our lives secure in the knowledge that we are stronger that Wilhelm, that although the waves may toss us about, we will not sink. At least not yet.

In reading this for the first time now half a century after it was written, I am struck with how different the zeitgeist is today. We have wildly successful heroes and larger-than-life murderous villains, and nowhere is there the existential man.

This short work is a splendid representative of one of my favorite genres, the short, sharply focused American novel from the early or middle 20th century. Other--widely differing--examples are John O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra, Nathanael West's Miss Lonely Hearts, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, to name a few.

Comment Comments (2) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 69 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars a pleasure to start, a pain to finish
I really enjoyed the first half of this novella, but the second, dominated by the annoying Dr. Tamkin, was harder to like. Read more

Published 1 month ago by jabber

5.0 out of 5 stars Elegant and Precise
Saul Bellow needs little introduction. This slight book, however, is not his most well known. It may be the most accessible, a sip before diving into larger, more daunting... Read more

Published 3 months ago by Kerry Hubers

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, deep movie.
The acting is great. The story, by Saul Bellow, is not for one suffering
from depression. It is heavy! Good movie/book for a discussion group. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Barbara P. Berman

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great American Novella
Tommy Wilhelm, the protagonist of SEIZE THE DAY, has many problems. He is a mid-career salesman who is out of a job and desperate for money. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Ethan Cooper

5.0 out of 5 stars The loser in all of us...
While this book is technically a "novella", it packs a lot of punch for its 114 pages. If you're looking for a light, fun read, I'd suggest looking elsewhere. Read more

Published 14 months ago by David G. Brown

5.0 out of 5 stars A Short, Wonderous, Uncomfortable Book
I read this book several months, and I revisit it in my thoughts weekly. The character's of this book are not likable. Read more

Published 14 months ago by Sancti Spiritus

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT MOVIE MISERABLE TRANSFER TO DVD
Great Movie.Has to be one of the worst Transfers to DVD I have ever seen.Both Audio and Video are grusome.I have always thought this is Williams best work to date. Read more

Published 15 months ago by FUZZY SKULL

5.0 out of 5 stars More Brilliance from a Brilliant Author
Like some of the other reviewers I've only recently become aware of Saul Bellow and am incredibly impressed by the late writer's talent. Read more

Published 16 months ago by Bernard Chapin

5.0 out of 5 stars 'Time is envious and is running away from us. Seize the day.'
Saul Bellow (1915--2005) published Seize the Day in 1956. It was his fourth novel. In 128 pages, the novel tells the day-in-the-life story of a failed actor in his forties,... Read more

Published 17 months ago by G. Merritt

3.0 out of 5 stars Father vs. son
It hurt to read this book. Once a son, now a father, it is painful to see how poor this relationship can be. Who is correct here: father or son? What is clear here? Hatred.

Published 20 months ago by The Concise Critic:

› See all 69 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
literary fiction Help! Need a great can't go to sleep, put the book down, page turner !	13	19 hours ago
literary fiction Have You Written Literary Fiction - Come Tell Us About It.	839	19 hours ago
literary fiction "Old" books of literary fiction that deserve new readers	7	19 hours ago
literary fiction Where, When, And Why Did The Comedy In Beckett Expire?	0	22 hours ago
literary fiction New Interview with The Last Stage Author Jim Cherry	0	2 days ago
literary fiction What is literary fiction?	186	2 days ago
literary fiction Can any noir fiction be considered literary fiction?	27	2 days ago