Seize the Day

Title: Seize the Day

Author: Saul Bellow

Number of pages: 118

Started: 11 May 2008

Finished: 13 May 2008

Opening words:

"When it came to concealing his troubles, Tommy Wilhelm was not less capable than the next fellow. So at least he thought and there was a certain amount of evidence to back him up"

Plot 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.

Summary taken from Amazon.

What I thought:

Another book that I wasn’t very keen on. It had parts that I thought were well observed and there were some good moments in it, but on the whole it was not a book that I found very engaging or that I enjoyed very much.