Mr. Sammler’s Planet (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
At a glance:
- Author: Saul Bellow
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: Mid-twentieth century
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Values
- Locales: New York, NY
Places Discussed
*New York City. Like many of Bellow’s protagonists, Sammler functions chiefly as an eye and a brain, and audiences see New York through his eyes. The city is, to use a phrase of Saul Bellow’s that he got from Wyndham Lewis, a “moronic inferno,” a metropolis ridden with detritus, broken objects and wrecked people, reduced to the level of a Third World capital. Its parks are full of dog excrement, and their flowers are soiled with pollution almost immediately after blooming. The X’s painted on the windowpanes of a building marked for demolition loom in...
[The entire page is 1028 words long]
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