"Life, when it was like that, all questions and answers, from the summit of the intellect to the most inaccessible depth, was truly a state of singular, filthy unhappiness."

The entire turmoil of 1970s New York, mixed with the confusion of Sammler's family events, whose memories go back to the Nazi gunshot that disfigured him.

A magnificent novel, which knows how to be pitiless and ironic, constructs its characters impeccably and describes perfectly - as stated on the fourth cover of the 1971 edition I have in my hand - a new King Lear in the face of the sunset of the West.

This novel takes the reader on a journey through a complex web of emotions and experiences. The vivid descriptions of the city and the characters bring the story to life. The author's use of irony adds a layer of depth and complexity to the narrative. It is a thought-provoking work that explores themes such as identity, memory, and the human condition. Overall, it is a must-read for anyone interested in literature that delves deep into the human psyche.

I am guilty of believing, and perhaps still believing, that individuality mainly lies in curating checklists of quirks and feelings. I could only be what I declared myself to be, and this declaration had to be repeated like a mantra to hold. In attempting to move away from playing the part of myself that I articulate through external influences, my thoughts have become significantly shapeless. I want to ask all the questions and find all the answers, and I want to do so mainly guided by my own introspection combined with my reading, and remain to some extent outside of popular opinion or consensus, however possible or impossible that may be.

"Mr. Sammler's Planet" is a novel with odious elements that I can identify but not entirely condemn. I want to know right from wrong and deliver passionate judgment on wrongs when I uncover them, but the complexity of modernity and reality highlights the ignorance and hypocrisy of critique without coherent argumentation behind it. It's easy to complain about the wrongs of the world when reading the news, but less easy to take valid offense at literature. There is a contained, purposeful meaning in the latter that moralizing complaints can't account for.

What do I really mean if I say this book is racist and sexist, which I believe it is? If I'm arguing that the book should not be read and use those statements as a justification, that would be fine, but I'm not arguing that. This is a great book, one that is extremely thought-provoking and well-written besides, and it is not one I can imagine without the portrayals of the racialized, mute Negro pickpocket, or without the neurotic over-sexed women constantly torturing Sammler with details of their sex lives. I cannot understand Bellow's crassness as the product of his time, because he's certainly railing against his time. So I'm not sure what to conclude from observing parts of a novel I object to that contribute to a whole I admire. Expressing moral admonition towards seemingly every other cultural object is popular regardless of broad political alignment, but I often feel trepidation regarding intent. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me to pass over and willfully ignore that which exists outside of some unspoken moral consensus. It is more difficult to effectively argue against something if, when it appears in veiled or minor forms, it is stamped out at the root. I find online debate unproductive and tiresome, so I don't care to broaden my mind through that avenue - I have to read and talk to people directly.

It feels misguided to express that dull liberal platitude of keeping one's mind open to all perspectives, for currently my mind feels mostly empty as a vessel always for another's ideas, and having little certainty itself. Yet I have to continue expressing that openness, for how else can I learn what I believe than through clashing with what I reject? I have to be skeptical of an author's authoritative voice, like Bellow's, when they can casually make me doubt what I perceived to be facts of daily life. Finding out where I stand is an ongoing process.

I truly had a great fondness for this particular item.

I possessed an edition of it, and interestingly, the cover had no pictures on it.

It was a hardback, which gave it a certain durability and a more substantial feel in my hands.

I vividly remember that I think it was green in color.

To me, green was the best edition. There was just something about that shade of green that appealed to me on a deep level.

Maybe it was the sense of calm and tranquility that it seemed to exude.

Or perhaps it was the way it stood out among the other editions.

Whatever the reason, this green hardback edition without pictures on the cover held a special place in my heart.

I would often pick it up and flip through its pages, enjoying the feel of the book and the words within.

It was a cherished possession that I will always remember.

Third or fourth reading. Published in 1970, when New York was on the brink of bankruptcy, I was struck by how the pessimism in the early sections, which Sammler, a Holocaust survivor, has every right to feel, so closely echoed the present. At that time, New York was in a shambles. There was no money to paint the bridges or pay the sanitation workers. Crime was rampant, and the infrastructure was crumbling. It was the era of the Sexual Revolution, and although there was no HIV yet, today the degradation seems more moral than physical. The rot was only temporarily alleviated and then spread to the global stage. We always have the task of getting out from under this. Reading Sammler makes one reflect on how perennial the problem is.

What initially appears to be dated fiction is actually just one period-specific cycle in the long history of human suffering. Consider Aeschylus, Edward Gibbon, and others. Let's call it the American chapter. Collapse twice? It's just one in an ongoing and unending series of collapses. See Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and Acemoğlu and Robinson's Why Nations Fail.

Sammler, a gentleman, is appalled by the Sexual Revolution, especially as he sees it in his niece Angela. His musings are of great interest, and his is essentially a critique of the youth culture. Before the war, he managed to reach London, where he met the Bloomsbury gang and befriended H.G. Wells. Sammler is not a hater but a curious man who crawled out of a Nazi mass grave in Poland. His varied experiences and vast reading give him a unique perspective on America's age of excess.

However, the book's failure to allow women to enjoy sex feels constricting. The men guilt-trip the women, and it's not even Sammler as much as the Gruner family members themselves. Sadly, this was the age, and Bellow dutifully evokes it. If you like the book with its vivid scenes and philosophical sections, you'll enjoy the discussion when Sammler meets Dr. Govinda Lal. Poor Sammler, so alone with his fascinating mind, finally meets an intellectual peer. They talk at length about humankind's journey into space and other profound topics. Bellow is a master, and I think his vast oeuvre is without a dud. Please read him.

I firmly believe that it is nearly impossible to exaggerate just how remarkable a writer Bellow was. His writing is incredibly dense, not only in the utilization of language but also in the conveyance of ideas and emotions, as well as the completeness of character portrayal.

Artur Sammler is a man who perceives everything yet fails to make connections. He is doubly an outsider - a Polish Jew who integrated into English society during the interwar period, rubbing shoulders with intellectual circles such as HG Wells and the Bloomsbury group, but now residing in New York where both his European and English identities make him feel like an alien. In reality, it is his inability to connect that keeps him isolated. He hides behind smoked glasses, worn to conceal a damaged eye, observing and examining with clinical detachment the insanity of his various relatives and the chaos of the great metropolis surrounding him. Understandably so; the eye was destroyed by the rifle butt of a Nazi soldier when Sammler and his wife were caught up in WWII while visiting Poland, where he managed to escape a mass grave that she did not. It is no wonder that he avoids the subway.

Through Sammler's eyes, which are as old as the 20th century, New York appears to symbolize a world on the brink of disintegration. “Like many people who had seen the world collapse once, Mr Sammler entertained the possibility that it might collapse twice.” He observes the behaviors of those around him with an anthropological detachment, professing to pass no judgment. His crazy daughter who hides her beauty beneath wigs and ill-chosen clothes and seeks refuge in Catholicism and theft. His great niece, rebelling against a privileged upbringing by wholeheartedly embracing the sexual liberation of the sixties; her brother filled with wild ideas for making his own fortune while fixated on uncovering the illicit wealth he believes his dying father has hidden in their house. His daughter's estranged husband, peddling tacky Hebrew art.

Sammler's dying nephew, a wealthy retired doctor who helped him come to the US and has supported him, seems to be the only person he is truly connected to. And as he attempts to return to the hospital to speak to the sick man one last time, the ties that bind him to the family and the wider world seem to impede Sammler, yet also enable him to achieve a certain degree of self-awareness and balance.

This is a truly wonderful book that merits re-reading.

Mr. Sammler's planet is, of course, the Earth, a place that risks becoming increasingly inhospitable. According to some (like Dr. Govinda Lal who follows in the footsteps of H.G. Wells), it may soon be abandoned for the moon.

Mr. Sammler's planet is America, and in particular, it is New York after miraculously escaping Auschwitz and Nazi barbarism and then that of anti-Semitism in liberated Poland. But even in this new planet, the signs of the decline of civilization are becoming more and more evident. It is a world that is losing its meaning, a world doomed to ruin, which Sammler struggles to interpret, without wanting to judge it for that.

Mr. Sammler's planet is his Jewish-New York family: that of his rich nephew Elya, a doctor and businessman perhaps with mafia connections, but now dying in the hospital. It was he who welcomed (and still de facto maintains) the old intellectual uncle and his strange daughter Shula, fleeing from devastated Europe. And it is that of Elya's children, spoiled, hedonistic and wayward, but who consider the old uncle as the voice of wisdom and confide in him and only in him (as if he were a kind of family judge-priest) their own secrets and weaknesses, which are unspeakable to others.

Elya is dying, the new America is dying, the whole planet is dying, but Uncle Sammler has already come into contact with death, has survived and feels predestined to survive still (or rather, "to endure", a little longer than the others) even "to all this chaos and its brutal buffooneries".

Because we all have a contract with God, even if few respect its conditions. That we all know in the depths of our hearts, if we want to recognize ourselves still as human beings, belonging to this planet.

Re-reading it, after many years, was worth it.

There aren’t any more Saul Bellows writing today and that’s a bummer. Saul Bellow was a renowned and highly influential American writer. His works were characterized by their profound insights into human nature, complex characters, and engaging narratives. His novels explored a wide range of themes, including identity, morality, and the search for meaning in life. Bellow’s writing style was unique, with a rich and vivid use of language that made his stories come alive. His contributions to literature have had a lasting impact, and his works continue to be studied and enjoyed by readers around the world. The fact that he is no longer writing is truly a loss for the literary world. We can only hope that his works will continue to inspire future generations of writers and readers alike.

Yikes, this has really not aged well at all.

I initially picked up this book based on Bellow's reputation and the rather loose paraphrase on the dustjacket about a cranky old Jewish man trying to keep up in a changing generation.

Certainly, there is some Olympian prose here, characterized by a vast sea of literary references and grand philosophical posturing. At times, it seems quite provocative, while at others, it just comes across as grandiose.

The quality of the arrogant white guy pontificating can often be overwhelmingly irksome, especially when the characters are drawn as heavy-handed allegories, as if trying to forcefully make a point about a certain kind of people.

Oh, and let's not forget the racism and misogyny. I might have been able to appreciate some aspects of the scientific vs. existential rumination in the book, but the one black character is portrayed as such an unbelievably voiceless and grotesque stereotypical non-person that no amount of Schopenhauer can excuse the blatant racism.

The misogyny is hardly any better, with only flighty, crazy, and seriously, bad-smelling women being depicted.

I still feel like I needed to have read some of Bellow, but this cranky old Jew has left me with an experience that is the opposite of Sammler - not appalled by the upcoming generation, but rather by the preceding one.

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 five

The Book Report: Mr. Artur Sammler, who survived the Holocaust, now finds himself in 1960s New York, unsure if he can survive this new environment. Once deprived of food, dignity, and hope, he now observes with bemusement as people who have all the material possessions the planet can offer wallow in misery and spiritual angst. Sammler, by nature an observer, struggles to overcome his own spiritual limitations. He doesn't know how to reach out to others or向上帝寻求联系 to make connections that could guide his fellow beings out of desperation or himself out of stasis.

But this is a novel, a National Book Award-winning novel at that. And so, he does manage to find a way. It is a gorgeously written piece.

My Review: This was less of a catharsis and more of an exegesis for me. Sammler's concept of a Good Life, in contrast to the Americans he sees living The Good Life around him, is based on knowing the terms of the contract. He asks himself: what's expected of me now that I'm here? What makes a life worthy and therefore worth living? This presupposes that there is an inherent moral compass and that it is oriented the same way for all people, along the Judeo-Christian axis.

Hmmm.

Well, I tell myself to go with it because it's the author's thesis, not mine. And so I do, and I find the resolution to Sammler's crisis very moving.

But, if I'm honest, it still irks me that there is a monopolar world of the spirit and nothing outside of it is allowed. Still, it's some wonderful writing!

Sammler is the living dead. No, let's not be scared, because although the story is spiritual, we won't bite his head off in the middle of the night. Mostly not because Sammler is right, and we precisely understand his satirical, profound philosophical inner monologues. I know I haven't said anything yet, it's still not clear. But neither is he. His thoughts lead back to the war between the persecutors and the persecuted, where not only the stars turned yellow in the sky. Meanwhile, he also holds us here, in the beautiful presence of hell, and with his absurd stories, we realize the meaninglessly ticking boredom of our everyday lives. And yet life is seething, also for him, but he is a survivor, or rather a leftover, for whom this earth is sometimes wide, sometimes narrow, but in no way round. It only rustles, buzzes, mourns and his unwritten thoughts fall or fly into the ether instead of shooting at the moon, depending on which fellow human approaches him so closely that he even starts to speak elegiacally with him. There is no order in this world. And who wants to bring order? Sammler's attempts are also hindered by his own self-contradiction. There should be an average life. Just to be as it has to be. But the earthling is horrified by his own pursuit of power, like Napoleon, who was a gangster, or Marx, who practiced his world-revolutionary aspirations clothed in the guise of history. And Sammler just sways, like someone who has only this left, whether he lives or not, standing at the bus stop and taking into account the divinely given possibilities of the human race. He looks. He understands. He bites. And no, he doesn't spit out, but swallows. Everything. Because secretly he desires to one day, with a big stretch, move away from this round planet so that just like that. There (where?), where the clocks are not set according to the sun, where they will use other first names. Meanwhile, preparing for a footbath, trembling on one leg, he imagines himself on the Nautilus, whistling the melodies of Bach and Handel. He is in the astronomical future, he has no need for day and night, for constant notary repetitions. Because he has nothing to do with this. He just survived, just remained. But this is not the fault of this.

"He knew that he had to answer and he did answer this life, which we cross absurdly and humiliatingly with buffoonery, he answered to the rules laid down in his contract. To those rules that every human being knows and understands in the deepest of his heart. Just as I know my own. Just as everyone knows. Because this is the truth: that we all know, my God, that we know, that we know, we know, we know."

As the sun set upon the sixties, there was a profound belief in progress.

People were filled with enthusiasm for the future and the potential of humanity as it seemed to be throwing off the chains of oppression and moral rigidity.

This was encapsulated in the technological miracle of the imminent moon landing, symbolizing the heights that mankind could reach.

However, even as this hope spread like a fever, crime, familial dissolution, and urban decay were settling upon the United States.

It was as if an unwelcome layer of grime was clinging to a nation charging forward on a playing field overhung with the apocalyptic threat of nuclear war.

Certain Americans, like Mr. Sammler, an elderly Jewish survivor of the death camps of World War II and a denizen of crumbling New York City, could only view this faith in progress with a jaundiced and cynical eye.

To him, it was a capitulation to the sensual, personal, and emotional at the expense of the morals, virtues, and sense of community that had enabled the country to achieve its present wonders.

Sexual potency and virile radicalism held sway over the younger generation, trumping rational erudition and dusty mores.

Mr. Sammler experienced this in a visceral way when confronted by the exposed prick of a brazen black street burglar and was shouted down at a lecture at Columbia University.

Against the meandering, selfish, and licentious ways of his daughter, great-nephew, and great-niece, Mr. Sammler held his sick nephew Elya in high esteem.

Elya was a man who believed in fidelity to family, doing one's duty, and sacrificing personal pleasures for the welfare of kin.

His innate kindness and generosity were qualities that Mr. Sammler found lacking even in himself.

Bellow is a meaty writer, dense and probing, and his works reflect a growing conservatism and doubt.

Mr. Sammler, formed from the same skeptical material, cannot concede the future's potentiality when surrounded by the concrete wastelands of New York.

Yet, within the chaos of the younger generation, he hopes for the seeds of a recovery of the familial adhesion and sense of duty that are the core of a strong society.

This lesser-known piece from Bellow is still a challenging read but well worth it.

Saul Bellow is, without a doubt, a great literary figure.

However, this particular book, perhaps written by an older Bellow as he neared the end of his life and was lamenting philosophically, was the most "boring" one I've come across in decades.

If, and it's a very big "if," the metaphysical pontification had been current or modern, accompanied by some interesting psychological insights and/or recent quantum extrapolation, then the seemingly endless inner dialog might have been worth enduring.

But unfortunately, it's all mid-70's drivel, dry and uninteresting.

The only things that happen are that a pickpocket exposes himself and his nephew dies.

I would highly recommend skipping this book and instead reading one of the countless other classics that Bellow has written.

Do yourself a favor and save your time and energy for something more engaging and worthwhile.