3
Dec
2009
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
Oh books that have no real ending, why do you exist? Is it just to taunt and frustrate me? Did you, Saul Bellow, predict that I would read this, writing it as you did 30 years before my birth, and leave a stupid, jaded ending to what otherwise might have been just an O.K. novella?
Is the ending, where the protagonist finally breaks down and cries, perhaps finally excepting the “burden of himself” supposed to be cathartic? Am I supposed to have rooted for this character to go through this release and acceptance?
Am I, perhaps, supposed to have been his psychologist, and can now lean back and say, “ah, here is finally the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for.” Are you?
Frankly, I don’t believe that the protagonist has changed. I don’t believe that, after his crying, he will take action for himself, because I don’t see what action there is to take.
He’ll still be a directionless middle-aged man with Daddy issues.
He’ll still be broke.
He’ll still be estranged from his wife, who still won’t grant him a divorce.
Or, perhaps, Mr. Bellow, are you suggesting that, by taking responsibility for himself, after his episode, he will go back to his wife? Which will probably necessarily mean he goes groveling back to his former employers.
You have suggested nothing! Nothing! Except that this guy got duped and had a mental breakdown because of it.
If you like this book/author, you might like:
(my reviews in blue)
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Nine Stories by JD Salinger
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
Sunday Jews by Hortense Calisher
Bellow: A Biography by James Atlas
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Bad Jews and Other Stories by Gerald Shapiro
Other works by Saul Bellow:
More Die of Heartbreak
Ravelstein
Dangling Man
Something to Remember Me by: Three Tales
The Adventures of Augie March
Him With His Foot In His Mouth and Other Stories
Herzog
Henderson the Rain King
To Jerusalem and Back
Collected Stories
The Bellarosa Connection
It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future
The Actual
The Victim
The Dean’s December
Humboldt’s Gift
Mosby’s Memoirs and Other Stories
A Theft
Mr. Sammler’s Planet
I hate books that end with an unsatisfyingly ambiguous conclusion! Booo. I have never read any Bellow, but I’ll probably pick up a different one if I come across him…
I love books with no real ending. I’ve not read any Bellow but Henderson the Rain King, but it ended in much the same way. Maybe Bellow is more of an existential commentator than resolution seeker? I’m not too sure about him, so I can’t speak for sure. But there’s something psychologically impressive to me about stories with no defined ending. Sure, they’re frustrating, but that type of ending leaves so much open for interpretation that I cannot help but smile even as I want to scream.
But since Bellow bordered the Modernists and Postmodernists, maybe that’s the whole point. He was leading the way for people like Vonnegut to break the boundaries set by Woolfe and Faulkner and Joyce. It was just a different way of dealing with the resolution.
I think Saul Bellow is just torturing you …
Hmm I think I am 50/50 on this. Have you read American Psycho by Ellis? There is no real ending to that but it is probably one of my all time favorites. However I can think of quite a few stories where I would agree with you on this one. This is sad because I actually had this on a TBR list and now I am thinking of bumping it down.