Mr. Sammler's Planet
Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual, and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a “registrar of madness,” a refined and civilized being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future (moon landings, endless possibilities). His Cyclopean...
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Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual, and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a “registrar of madness,” a refined and civilized being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future (moon landings, endless possibilities). His Cyclopean gaze reflects on the degradations of city life while looking deep into the sufferings of the human soul. “Sorry for all and sore at heart,” he observes how greater luxury and leisure have only led to more human suffering. To Mr. Sammler—who by the end of this ferociously unsentimental novel has found the compassionate consciousness necessary to bridge the gap between himself and his fellow beings—a good life is one in which a person does what is “required of him.” To know and to meet the “terms of the contract” was as true a life as one could live. At its heart, this novel is quintessential Bellow: moral, urbane, sublimely humane. Winner of the National Book Award
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780142437834 (0142437832)
ASIN: 142437832
Publish date: January 6th 2004
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Pages no: 288
Edition language: English
Sammler is an important book. Stylistically, it is rich, inventive, original, flawed (of course it is ‘flawed’, it is Bellow…!), full of heart, great lava flows of mood and motion…. Intellectually, it is original, often brilliant, insightful, reactionary, sad, tragic, revolutionary, hopeful.. it is ...
BkC6) Fun, fun, fun to read. Not the story, mind, but the storytelling!Have to take issue with myself here. This isn't quite as fluffy as this one-liner makes it sound.Rating: 3.75* of fiveThe Book Report: Mr. Artur Sammler survived the Holocaust, but isn't sure he'll survive 1960s New York. Once wi...