Seize the Day

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Cover of the Penguin Classics edition of Seize the Day.
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Cover of the Penguin Classics edition of Seize the Day.
"Seize the Day" is also the title of a single off of Avenged Sevenfold's City of Evil.

Seize the Day, first published in 1956, is considered (by, for example, prominent critic James Wood) one of the great literary works by Saul Bellow. Seize the Day was Bellow's fourth novel (or perhaps novella, given its short length). It was written in the 1950s, a formative period in the creation of the middle class in the United States.

[edit] Plot introduction

The story centers around a day in the life of Wilhelm Adler (aka Tommy Wilhelm), a failed actor in his forties. Wilhelm is unemployed, impecunious, separated from his wife (who refuses to agree to a divorce), and estranged from his children and his father. He is also stuck with the same immaturity and lack of insight which has brought him to failure. In "Seize the Day" Wilhelm experiences a day of reckoning as he is forced to examine his life and to finally accept the "burden of self".

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Robin Williams starred in a 1986 film adaptation of Seize the Day.


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