Mr. Sammler's Planet

Mr. Artur Sammler, Holocaust survivor, intellectual, and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a registrar of madness,” a refined and civilized being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future (moon landings, endless possibilities). His Cyclopean gaze reflects on the degradations of city life while looking deep into the sufferings of the human soul. Sorry for all and sore at heart,” he observes how greater luxury and leisure have only led to more human suffering. To Mr. Sammler—who by the end of this ferociously unsentimental novel has found the compassionate consciousness necessary to bridge the gap between himself and his fellow beings—a good life is one in which a person does what is required of him.” To know and to meet the terms of the contract” was as true a life as one could live. At its heart, this novel is quintessential Bellow: moral, urbane, sublimely humane.

Saul Bellow is the author of twelve novels and numerous novellas and stories. He has received three National Book Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Book Award Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American letters.

Stanley Crouch-'s books include Notes of a Hanging Judge, The All-American Skin Game (Nominated for the National Book Award), and a novel, Don-'t the Moon Look Lonesome. He has received the Whiting Writer-'s Award and a MacArthur Foundation -ôgenius-ö award.