Books like Seize the Day

'Nature only knows one thing, and that’s the present. Present, present, eternal present, like a big, huge, giant wave – colossal, bright and beautiful, full of life and death, climbing into the sky, standing in the seas. You must go along with the actual, the Here-and-Now, the glory -’Following the success of his lengthy, 1953 National Book Award Winning novel The Adventures of Augie March, Nobel laureate Saul Bellow returned in 1956 with the very slender Seize the Day. Called ‘the most Russian novella written in America’ by critic James Wood ¹, one of Seize ‘s greatest successes is the enormous accumulation of ideas, social, spiritual and psychological commentary, and pure literary vitamins packed into this snack of a novel that rivals the depth of novels three to four times it’s length, not to mention the enrapturing prose that pulls this story along. Much like the Russian literary giants of whom Bellow highly regarded, Seize is intensely psychological as Bellow takes a page from Wilhelm Reich (whose first name is also that of Seize’s protagonist) with regards to character analysis and social commentary. This novel is ripe for classroom discussion and analysis, with carefully crafted metaphors and motifs that seem effortlessly blended into the narrative, similar to the way Dr. Tamkin builds his character mask through ‘hints, made dully as asides, grew by repetition into sensational claims.’ Bursting with insight and frosted in delicious prose, Bellow breaks down the socio-economic conditions of the 50’s,and their implications of the common man through an ostensive examination of Wilhelm Reich’s psychoanalytic theories.Much like Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, Seize the Day follows a Jewish protagonist, through the course of one day while simultaneously painting the larger portrait of the character’s life history. However, Seize the Day stands on it’s own taking the reader through an entirely different approach and resolution as a psychoanalysis of Tommy Wilhelm (formerly Wilhelm ‘Wilky’ Adler before adopting his stage name²). A bit of background on Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychoanalyst and contemporary of Sigmund Freud, is extremely beneficial towards understanding Bellow’s novel, as Reich’s theories and practices constitute the framework for the novel. \ \ \ Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957)\ In short, Reich’s psychoanalysis - beyond the standard Freudian constructs of figurative castration, Oedipal complex, etc. centered on a belief that ‘ neurosis is rooted in physical, sexual, and socio-economic conditions, and in particular in a lack of what he called "orgastic potency”’. The ‘orgastic potency’ refers to a theory that an orgasm is a healthy release of libido and creative powers fueled through love, which can become blocked by social conditions and other outside forces, thus creating an ‘orgastic impotency’ which directly causes neurosis and heath disorders (Reich believed Freud’s jaw cancer was unrelated to his tobacco use and was instead attributed to Freud ‘biting down’ of his [Freud’s] problems). This was the primary focus for character analysis, and lead to his practice of Vegetotherapy. Vegeotherapy was a form of psychotherapy consisting of the patient removing their ‘body armor’ – both figuratively and literally as the patient would conduct the therapy nude, and simulate extreme stress and emotions with the aim of responding to them and releasing all the built up emotional blockage (to achieve an emotional orgasm) ³.Following the ideas of Reich, Bellow probes the ‘neurosis’ of Wilhelm by setting him in financial ruin (socio-economic conditions), an estranged marriage brought on by his love affairs and belief that his wife is attempting to choke him off (castration), and at odds with his father (Oedipal complex – the more awkward aspects of this complex are only lightly touched upon, as when Wilhelm reflects upon his mothers death he feels a ‘great pull at the very center of his soul,’ yet ‘never identified what struck within him’). Wilhelm looks back on his past as a laundry list of failures, but shows hope for recovery by always believing that he can get a new start. This ‘new start’, in this case putting the last of his money into commodities with Dr. Tamkin on Tamkin’s ‘can’t fail’ get-rich-quick promises, seem less and less possible now that he is graying and in his 40s, and Bellow does not hesitate from depicting Wilhelm in a rather unflattering light as a slob, sloucher, pill-popper in denial, and rather whiney. Wilhelm does look at his past as a series of event leading him to his sad state, yet he does in part own up to his mistakes and does not shy away from accepting that it was his choices that brought him to those events. This ownership of his faults may be the only glimmer of potential recovery that Wilhelm displays from the start.The financial ruin of Wilhelm is a major focus of the novel, and should be addressed before proceeding into a discussion of the metaphorical vegeotherapy that Bellow conducts upon his protagonist. Reich was a outspoken Marxist and many of these anti-capitalistic beliefs take shape through both Tamkin and Wilhelm. ‘A man like you,’ Tamkin addresses Wilhelm in one of his many speeches, ‘humble for life, who wants to feel and live, has trouble – not wanting to exchange an ounce of soul for a pound of social power – he’ll never make it without help in a world like this.’ Both men see money as a vicious tool for keeping others down. It is the driving force of New York, according to them, and the world, and is always used as a weapon. Wilhelm feels castrated by his wife’s refusal to grant him a divorce and by her still living off his money, which she demands in increasing quantities. Wilhelm believes his own suffering is inflated due to the downward spiral of poverty and having others always riding on his back dragging him down. ‘A rich man may be free on an income of a million net. A poor man may be free because nobody cares what he does. But a fellow in my position has to sweat it out until he drops dead.’ He views the whole system as utterly threatening and damning. It is even discussed as a method for enslavement and cruelty throughout history in one of the many instances of evoking the Jewish plight and consciousness (It is clear why Roth cites Bellow as an important influence. Bellow manages to weave a religious motif through biblical imagery and brief touches on the Jewish culture that occasionally give a parable-like vibe to the novel). ‘People come to the market to kill,’ says Tamkin, ‘They say, ‘I’m going to make a killing.’ It’s not accidental. Only they haven’t got the genuine courage to kill, and they erect a symbol of it.’ Money is seen as an extension of the animalistic urges in man, seeing money as a force of destruction that blocks the creative forces of love. These animal instincts, an important aspect of Reich’s psychoanalysis, are described by Tamkin when he discusses that a man whom ‘marries sorrow’ will figuratively ‘howl’ from his window at night to express his pain of the world. Wilhelm briefly thinks upon his grandfather calling him by his Yiddish name, Velvel, a name meaning wolf, in another excellent example of Bellow tying the Jewish consciousness into this piece. Wilhelm’s vegeotherapy is essentially the entire days events. Every waking moment is either the pains of an old wound or a new stressor that builds and builds on him. The systematically recalls all his failures, all his fears, and dwells on all his faults as the day progresses until he is balled up in a knot of anxiety. Then, one by one, he sheds his bodily armor, casting off everyone he knows in a fit of emotional outpouring and indignant anger. Bellow plays with his water motif in a very interesting way here. Throughout the book are frequent allusions to water, many of them directed at Wilhelm’s apparent aversion to it (he uses an electric razor that doesn’t require him wetting his face, he doesn’t wash his hands, etc.). Wilhelm is often described as drowning in his problems. Tamkin is ridiculed by Dr. Adler for having a supposed invention of a underwater suit that would allow people to be protected underwater in case of nuclear attack, which makes for a wonderful metaphor for Wilhelm’s seeking shelter in Tamkin’s stock-market schemes to saving him from drowning in his financial woes. Despite the fears of water, Wilhelm’s orgasm is a flood of tears, and violent output of water as the curtain falls upon the novel. This watery orgasm poses an interesting analysis on the novel. Perhaps it is what we fear most, that which is the hardest, that we should actually take stock in. In other words, taking the easy way out to avoid the hard way is what causes problems. Wilhelm always ran to the next-big-thing, off to Hollywood or to the bed of a new woman, which brought him to his knees in life. Tamkin offered an easy way out, but should he really be trusted. Bellow creates an incredible trickster figure in Tamkin, ironically having him be a psychologist in a novel focusing on psychoanalysis. Tamkin is often described as speaking ‘hypnotically’, and Wilhelm often wonders if this is some sort of spell he is under from the flow of his words. ’Bringing people into the Here-and-Now. The real universe. That’s the present moment. The past is no good to us. The future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real – the here-and-now. Seize the day.’The short, punctuated pattern of speech creates a trancelike rhythm. He is like the snake in Eden tempting with an apple of knowledge promising better things. Bellow keeps the temptation sweeter by having Tamkin also express truth and Bellows ultimate message and moral – to love one another. The truth is tangled with the lies and deceit, just like real life where we must sort through all the messages we receive and decode the thread we should follow to salvation, personal success and stability, and which glimmering threads really lead us to damnation and ruin.For such a thin book, Bellow fills it chock full of literary glory. Seize the Day is like a quick left jab, but when it catches you on the chin you realize it is like a full forced right hook of a fist from any lesser writer. There is simply so much occurring on various levels in this novel and it is truly astonishing. Bellow leaves the reader with an empowering look at life, to seize the moments when they come and make the best of them, and to take ownership of our failures because ‘you can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.’ Seize the day, and seize this book.3.75/5‘all of a sudden, unsought, a general love for all these imperfect and lurid-looking people burst out in Wilhelm’s breast. He loved them. One and all, he passionately loved them. They were his brothers and sisters. He was imperfect and disfigured himself, but what difference did that make if he was united with them by this blaze of love?’¹ Besides often raving about Bellow (see sub), in Wood’s How Fiction Works, he speaks at length about a tiny paragraph and opens a sea of meaning from a small aside thrown in by Bellow. As the passage from Wood inspired me to read the novel, I’d like to include it here in full:Another example of the novelist writing over his character occurs (briefly) in Saul Bellow's Seize the Day. Tommy Wilhelm, the out-of-work salesman down on his luck, neither much of an aesthete nor an intellectual, is anxiously watching the board at a Manhattan commodity exchange. Next to him, an old hand named Mr. Rappaport is smoking a cigar. "A long perfect ash formed on the end of the cigar, the white ghost of the leaf with all its veins and its fainter pungency. It was ignored, in its beauty, by the old man. For it was beautiful. Wilhelm he ignored as well." It is a gorgeous, musical phrase, and characteristic of both Bellow and modern fictional narrative. The fiction slows down to draw our attention to a potentially neglected surface or texture—an example of a "descriptive pause," familiar to us when a novel halts its action and the author says, in effect, "Now I am going to tell you about the town of N., which was nestled in the Carpathian foothills," or "Jerome's house was a large dark castle, set in fifty thousand acres of rich grazing land." But at the same time it is a detail apparently seen not by the author—or not only by the author—but by a character. And this is what Bellow wobbles on; he admits an anxiety endemic to modern narrative, and which modern narrative tends to elide. The ash is noticed, and then Bellow comments: "It was ignored, in its beauty, by the old man. For it was beautiful. Wilhelm he ignored as well."Seize the pay is written in a very close third-person narration, a free indirect style that sees most of the action from Tommy's viewpoint. Bellow seems here to imply that Tommy notices the ash, because it was beautiful, and that Tommy, also ignored by the old man, is also in some way beautiful. But the fact that Bellow tells us this is surely a concession to our implied objection: How and why would Tommy notice this ash, and notice it so well, inthese fine words? To which Bellow replies, anxiously, in effect: "Well, you might have thought Tommy incapable of such finery, but he really did notice this fact of beauty; and that is because he is somewhat beautiful himself."a. Wood’s considered Bellow to be ‘ one, to my mind the greatest of American prose stylists in the 20th century - and thus one of the greatest in American fiction’. Wood also insisted that the novel be included in Bellow’s own syllabus for his [Bellow’s] literature course at Boston University so the students could ‘get a sense of the stature of the man who was their professor. Bellow modestly absented himself for that particular class, so that the students could freely concentrate on the writing.’ (Excerpt from Wood’s articleThe High-Minded Joker, a reflection on the life of Saul Bellow published by The Guardian, on April 8, 2005, three days after Bellow’s death.)² The adoption of his stage name plays beautifully into Bellow’s depiction of the Oedipal complex, as well as exposing the dualities inherent in his protagonist with regards to his ‘body armor’ and true self. ‘He had cast off his father’s name, and with it his father’s opinion of him. It was, and he knew it was, his bid for liberty. Adler being in his mind the title of his species, Tommy the freedom of the person. But Wilky was his inescapable self.’ This also allows for the naming of Dr. Tamkin to represent a surrogate father for Tommy Wilhelm, a false, faulty father for a false faulty self. The use of names in the novel is textbook Lit101 analysis and used to it’s full potential.³ Reich was declared schizophrenic by Sandor Rado, thought to be bipolar by his own daughter and was a staunch believer that Earth was secretly at war with UFOs. Despite his apparent open insanity, Reich’s ‘orgone accumulators’ – a device built to achieve the emotional orgasm of vegeotherapy, was popularly used by many big-name people, such as Sean Connery, J.D. Salinger and Jack Kerouac.‘Everyone on this side of the grave is the same distance from death’