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Seize the Day
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Seize the Day

novella by Bellow
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Article History

Seize the Day, novella by American author Saul Bellow, published in 1956. This short novel examines one day in the unhappy life of Tommy Wilhelm, who has fallen from marginal middle-management respectability to unemployment, divorce, and despair. Like many of Bellow’s other novels, Seize the Day exhibits an ambivalent attitude toward worldly success, and it follows its sensitive, gullible protagonist’s quest for meaning in a chaotic and hostile world.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.