Seize the Day is a novella by acclaimed American novelist Saul Bellow, published in 1958. It captured the attention and respect of critics and scholars and has since been recognized as one of the essential texts in the canon of one of the essential writers of fiction of the 20th century.
Although slimmer in volume than Bellow’s other recognized masterpieces—The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Henderson the Rain King, and Humboldt’s Gift—the subject and theme of Seize the Day qualify it as a companion piece to such major literary works as Death of a Salesman and The Great Gatsby. It follows the perpetual loser Tommy Wilhelm through the course of a single day as he grapples with his bad decisions and his failure to achieve the American dream.
When interviewed by the New Yorker in 2005, Bellow gave voice to his ambivalence about the novel: “I don’t like that book, ‘Seize the Day.’ I never think about it, I never take it up, I don’t touch it… I sympathize with Wilhelm but I don’t like him. Seated at the checkerboard, he has no scheme. The reader, however, is attracted to him because of his ‘sensibilities.’ His is, of course, a common type—he calls on others to ‘give’ or ‘encourage.’ His is the commonest of stories. But my task was to represent him, not to recommend him. In him we see the failures of ‘feeling’—the characteristic American slackness of virtues and the inanity of good counsel."
In 1986, a television adaptation of Seize the Day came out, starring Robin Williams as Tommy Wilhelm and Jerry Stiller as Dr. Tamkin.
