Mr. Artur Sammler is, above all, a man who has lasted, from the civilized pleasures of English life in the 1920s and 30s through the war and death camps in Poland. Moving now through the chaotic and dangerous streets of New York’s Upper West Side, Mr. Sammler is attentive to everything, and appalled by nothing. He brings the same dispassionate curiosity to the activities of a black pickpocket on an uptown bus, the details of his niece Angela’s sex life, and his daughter’s lunacy as he does to the extraordinary theories of one Dr. V. Govinda Lal on the use we are to make of the moon now that we have reached it.
Beneath this novel’s comedy, sadness, shocking action, and superb character-drawing there runs a strain of speculation, both daring and serene, on the future of life on this planet—Mr. Sammler’s planet—and any other planets for which we may be destined.
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"Typically perplexing Bellow fare. His neurotic conduit here is Artur Sammler, an aging Holocaust survivor living in New York City. Mr. Sammler is wise, acute, and painfully observant of the twisted humanity that surrounds him in the great city. Plot-wise the story is typically thin; a black effete pickpocket flashes Mr. Sammler, a close friend is slowly dying in the hospital, and he has to deal with recovering a professor's manuscript about H.G. Wells that his daughter had stolen for his sake. However, the book is intensely internal and neurotic. The overall theme of the book is of society spoiling our planet, and the whistful desire to shoot from a rocket somewhere else in the galaxy, clean and untouched, and begin again. Bellow writes prose that is oftentimes turgid and almost unreadable, but there are of course moments here and there of astounding beauty. Sammler's final conversation with Professor Dal in particular, where Sammler is finally able to articulate his thoughts, is equal parts dense, dogmatic, and absolutely shimmering. Read it for yourself, but prepare yourself for a challenging trip."
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Scott (4 out of 5 stars)