''Mr. Sammler's Planet'' is a 1970

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

by the American author

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...

. It won the

National Book Award for Fiction The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987, the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, bu ...

in 1971."National Book Awards – 1971"
NBF. Retrieved 2012-03-03. (With essay by Craig Morgan Teicher from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)

Plot synopsis

Mr. Artur Sammler, a

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

survivor, intellectual and occasional lecturer at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1960s

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, is a "registrar of madness", a refined and civilized being caught among people crazy with the promises of the future Moon landings, endless possibilities. "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 the 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.

Literary significance and criticism

Some critics have pigeonholed the novel as a response to the Holocaust or as a Jeremiad against 1960s social moresand it is true that Sammler is horrified by those mores because, as

Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (; March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short-story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophical ...

pointed out, he views them as "the betrayal by the crazy species of the civilized ideal"whilst others have noted that the novel revolves, as does ''Herzog'', around Sammler's conflicts between intellect and intuition, between acting in the world and standing aside to observe it. In a slowly building epiphany at the novel's end, Sammler finds a balance.

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels ''Black ...

wrote that she admired "the conclusion of ''Mr. Sammler's Planet'', which is so powerful that it forces us to immediately reread the entire novel, because we have been ''altered in the process of reading it'' and are now, at its conclusion, ready to begin reading it". At the conclusion, Sammler speaks to God. Referring either to the existence of objective moral truths or to the existence of God Himself, he says "For that is the truth of it — that we all know, God, that we know, that we know, we know, we know". In a lecture a few years later, asked to explain those lines, Bellow said "You read the New Testament and the assumption Jesus makes continually is that people know the difference immediately between good and evil... And that is in part what faith means. It doesn't even require discussion. It means that there is an implicit knowledge — very ancient if not eternal — which human beings really share and that if they based their relationships on that knowledge existence could be transformed".as quoted i
Pifer, ''op.cit.'', p.7
/ref>

References

External links

at the Nobel Prize website
Saul Bellow Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Sammler's Planet 1970 American novels Novels by Saul Bellow Novels set in New York City Works originally published in The Atlantic (magazine) National Book Award for Fiction–winning works Viking Press books