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Title: Mr. Sammler's Planet (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by Saul Bellow, Stanley Crouch ISBN: 014018936X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.81
Rating: 5
Summary: The view from a survivor
Comment: Mr. Sammler is a Polish Jew who escaped death at the hands of the Nazis at the cost of sight in one eye.
He is a survivor. He now lives in New York City in the 1960's, supported by his nephew who is but a few years younger.
Sammler, a intellectual with that gentlemanly old world manner, is now trying to come to terms with the culture he sees in NYC at the time, including how most of relatives have taken to it, the Holocaust and WWII in general. And, what the meaning of being a survivor is, both for himself and for the world he now finds himself in.
But just as his physical vision, thanks to the Nazis, is but half and distorted, so is his sight and vision into his soul. (Anyway, that's my metaphorical take on the bad eye.) He is emotionally removed.
As for Bellow's writing, it was great! This was my first Bellow book and I read it only because friends I highly respect so recommended him. I was flabbergasted that the writing was so good. Not at all heavy but yet trenchant in content and to the point. The scene where Sammler gives his talk is classic. His inability to understand the 60's culture and those in it, including his relations, yet having to deal with them, is often simultaneously riotous and deadly serious.
It's easy to see why this book won the National Book Award.
Note: Kosinski's _The Painted Bird_ has a complementary and sometimes similar subject matter. Imo, each books adds greater depth and meaning to the other.
Rating: 5
Summary: deep and fascinating
Comment: This review is to refute some of the negative customer reviews. Anyone who is reading only for plot is reading on a very superficial level. I had never read Bellow and didnt know what to expect. After a few pages, I wasnt sure I wanted to continue, but I'm glad I did. I felt this book was, among other things, like opening a time capsule from the late 1960s. I did not at all feel the author was preaching his own views or that the characters were not developed. The author delves deep into the mind of a well-educated man who is a Holocaust survivor, living in New York when the city was decidedly at a low point and confronted with hippie-era social and political attitudes. I don't know if this story is autobiographical, but it is not plotless, dull or stupid. I urge potential readers to ignore those comments.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superb! One of Bellow's best
Comment: This was my introduction to Saul Bellow and I probably shouldn't have started with this one, because all the others probably pale in comparsion to this. They have to. Anyone this good would have to be some inhuman writing machine. Wow.
Sammler is a human being like the rest of us tackling questions that we all have given passing thought to at least once in our lives. He may come to a firm conclusion about them, but he gives it his best shot, even as he deals with his family, including his dying nephew.
The best part about this novel are the stream of consciousness narratives that show us the ebb and flow of Sammler's thoughts, where most of his thinking takes place. Here are the best scenes in the novel, and Bellow does it with ease, showing that he is influenced by Joyce but not mastered by him, taking his techinques and refining them to the next level.
Anyone interested in reading about the sixties should try this book, or just anyone who has ever stood and watched something happen and wonder why they didn't do anything, and wonder why. So does Artur Sammler.
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Title: Collected Stories by Saul Bellow, James Wood, Janis Bellow ISBN: 0142001643 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Herzog (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Saul Bellow ISBN: 0140189432 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Seize the Day (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick ISBN: 0140189378 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Humboldt's Gift (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Saul Bellow ISBN: 0140189440 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Adventures of Augie March (Everyman's Library) by Saul Bellow, Martin Amis ISBN: 0679444602 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 1995 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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