Rating: 
Summary: To be read with a pen, a dictionary, and patience!
Review: Slightly less than mid-way through Mr. Sammler's Planet, Sammler is described as having thing about "unprofitable moments of clarity." To me, herein lies the novel's value. It is packed with clear, striking, and , yes, profitable observations of our contemperary world. Of his many pregnant observations, he looks at the strange confluence of sex, militancy, and the "will to offend". We witness an episode where students rudely reject his views given in a lecture about his experiences in London (this could have been a terrific short story) and the narrator asks, "Who raised the diaper flag?" This is not a lament for lost Victorian values, but a look at the consequences of discarding our sexual mores. These consequences are ugliness, not liberation.
However, while this and other observations may be dead-on and intellectually stimulating, there is no real aesthetic pleasure in reading them. There is no memorable character, and the plot is forgettable, if not a nuisance. My moments of frustration with this book were not in its internal monologues (to steal other reviewers' approprate phrase), but in the tedious and weak plot that carries them. It makes me think of a clothes-line where beautiful articles of clothing hang, connecting by a thin, rusty wire. Despite the book's many observations, they rest could be discarded, and thus it could be read as a collection of aphorisms. Grab your highlighter!
Saul Bellow is a hyper-intellectual and makes no apologies in writing difficult books, and this book is certainly difficult. I gave "Mr. Sammler's Planet" 3 stars not because of its difficultly, which I can respect (no one should dumb-down their books), but because there is no joy in it, and barring the phrases I've underlined, don't care to read it again. Ultimately, this book plays with the theme of a lost coherence between the generations of a family, and with our own intellectual and spiritual traditions. I wish the story rose to the occasion in the way that philosophy did.
Rating: 
Summary: European History in New York and on the Moon, i.e. BELLOW!
Review: There is never just one conversation or story in a novel by Saul Bellow, but Mr. Sammler's lifespan and intellectual range make this novel particularly dense. Did I say dense? I meant light- oh, you know. What we have here is social commentary, classical philosophy, global history and sex in the city. At one level, that is.
Mr. Sammler lost an eye in the Holocaust, but he appears to be the only one in New York City in the '60's, with the exception of the black pickpocket, who is of the sighted world. He is a gentle, quiet man, that is, if one is not, as we are, hearing his thoughts as we do. (Consistent with all Bellow's novels) Mr. Sammler must watch as no one else, it seems the disfiguring effects of the assimilation process upon his family. In turn, his daughter Shula becomes a crazy bag lady, Dadist, Zionist and sometime Christian. His niece a sex addict, is described as a "sensual woman without remission." There is the orthodox cousin who is the doctor and the source of all the financial security, his son, however is the antithetical and also incomplete gambler. There are times when Sammler looks at the moon and thinks longingly of little tents there.
It is, in a sense, the sixties. But it is also the England of Wells and Orwell, it is Jerusalem with the Knights Templar. The Sinai desert and in Algeria, where De Gaulle is termed the 'neo-Charlagmagne.' We are gloriously jettisoned through literature, philosophy, (in this volume a fair amount of Keirkegaard,) and with all nods to Wells, we are time travellers, from Brest Litvosk to Kresge's.
Artur Sammler grew up in Britain in an educated and somewhat elevated Jewish familiy. His mother gave him a copy of a Schopenhauer with the comment that he called the Jews optimists. Bellow responds, "living near the crater of Vesuvious, I guess Jews need to be optimists."Do I ever get all of Bellow? Certainly not, but that does not dilute the pleasure one bit. This indictment of the sixties seems in some ways, more dated than novels of his that are even older. But that is likely a result of my own selective amnesia for the era, which Bellow excoriates boldly, and if I remember correctly, was vilified for. "Hoo boy!" I've read this book three times and will read it again, I am sure. Each time, I underline new things. Here are some of the latest; "Is God the gossip of the boring?" Speaking of Sammler, aka Bellow, we are told, it is true, he is a "cheerful maniac."
What a mind, what a story, what a world!
Rating: 
Summary: A book that seemed plotless and dull
Review: This book by Saul Bellow is a very strange and confusing book. All of us who read it in my book group thought this book was well written but the subject matter that it covered was useless. We could have spent our reading time reading material that was much more usefull than this book. We stongly suggest that this book be avoided.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This book is an important and fascinating study of the human will. What drives us to act? When action is taken, what determines how and why we act as we do? Mr. Sammler's Planet is a compelling story that attacks these questions head on. I reccommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: Still Bellow but post- Herzog
Review: This book is Bellow in its thought- thick narrative, in its hero whose mind and perception are a central part of the story. But is a Bellow more negative and more beaten down than in his previous work Herzog. In Herzog the main character however breaking down was younger, and more connected to some kind of love and hope in life. Here Sammler the survivor is struggling in a more closed and negative world. And his cultural and social comments tend to reflect a greater despair over the urban civilization in decay the New York of the sixties . The more beaten down and broken world of Sammler, an the more difficult personal past make this work in its tone and feeling heavy and difficult to bear. We do not necessarily need the optimism of Augie March or of Henderson to feel Bellow is at his best( In fact my judgment is the best is the more balanced while apparently more cracked Herzog) but here the harsh and negative overwhelm or drown all.
Bellow, but not the best Bellow there is.
Rating:
Summary: Why should I care?
Review: This book was probably the most hit-and-miss I have ever read. I really enjoyed the stream of consciousness internal monologues by the main character, and after having read this and other books by Bellow, I've decided Bellow is the most original thinker of 20th century English language writers, capable of the most profundity. However, this book had little to hold it up in between these moments. The plot was weak, the characters varied from interesting(the protagonist, most of the time) to obnoxious(his daughter and the Hindu doctor). Other reviewers have made the claim that looking for solely plot is superficial, and while I agree somewhat(but I also think this is their elitist way of intimidating those who didn't like the book into feeling uneducated and stupid), I agree only in the sense that great fiction should ideally have more than simple plot. But this book has almost no plot, nothing more than contrived situations in order to house the author's intelligent postulates. This is fiction, and story is what makes fiction thrum. If Bellow really wanted a context in which to pose these ideas, he should have just released a collection of essays, possibly interrupted with anecdotal short stories and brief allegories(I get that feeling reading most of his work.)
Rating: 
Summary: Bellow at his almost best
Review: This is my sixth Bellow novel. For first timers, I would highly recommend Henderson the Rain King over this work because Henderson is an easier, funnier, and more exuberant read--a great parody of the Hemmingway novel. That said, Mr. Sammler's Planet is classic Bellow. The protagonist, Mr. Sammler, is heroically flawed (as all of Bellow's protagonists are) and is caught at a point in his late life where numerous themes challenge his moral center: misogyny, pessimism, death, the human condition, the social contract, filial duty, the achievements of science, and modern western philosphy among other themes--and in any great Bellow work, there are so many themes! The narrative is simple: a close third person point of view brings us inside Mr. Sammler's head as he interprets and analyzes the events in his life: his dying nephew, a pick pocket who assualts him, greedy relatives, a missing manuscript, and his Holocaust experience. There are long philosophic digressions, sometimes humorous, sometimes didactic, that can frustrate, confuse, and enlighten the reader, all within the space of a single paragraph. This density of thought is one of the supreme challenges of Bellow, but as an ardent fan (who only "gets" a mere fraction of what he's talking about), the payoff is exponentially greater than the effort I put in. The only narrative flaw I find is in the dialogue between Sammler and Dr. Lal. It's structured in a Platonic form--reminiscent of the final chapter in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man--and the section seems forced and stilted compared to the rest of the novel. Bellow's prose is as strong as ever. We return to New York City in the late 1960s, much filthier and more violent than the setting of Seize the Day. His descriptions of people and places are vibrant, and his comic timing masterful. Ultimately, Mr. Sammler's climatic quest, like all of Bellow's protagonists, lies not in some external feat of physical valor but in a confrontation with the progtagonist's soul. Faced with the death of his nephew, Sammler must come to terms with his life as holocaust survivor, elitist intellectual, misogynist, and man. Saul Bellow is not for everyone... But if you are introspective, self critical, and enjoy philosophic and comic writing, than this would be an ideal 2nd or 3rd Bellow novel.
Rating:
Summary: Bellow at his almost best
Review: This is my sixth Bellow novel. For first timers, I would highly recommend Henderson the Rain King over this work because Henderson is an easier, funnier, and more exuberant read--a great parody of the Hemmingway novel. That said, Mr. Sammler's Planet is classic Bellow. The protagonist, Mr. Sammler, is heroically flawed (as all of Bellow's protagonists are) and is caught at a point in his late life where numerous themes challenge his moral center: misogyny, pessimism, death, the human condition, the social contract, filial duty, the achievements of science, and modern western philosphy among other themes--and in any great Bellow work, there are so many themes! The narrative is simple: a close third person point of view brings us inside Mr. Sammler's head as he interprets and analyzes the events in his life: his dying nephew, a pick pocket who assualts him, greedy relatives, a missing manuscript, and his Holocaust experience. There are long philosophic digressions, sometimes humorous, sometimes didactic, that can frustrate, confuse, and enlighten the reader, all within the space of a single paragraph. This density of thought is one of the supreme challenges of Bellow, but as an ardent fan (who only "gets" a mere fraction of what he's talking about), the payoff is exponentially greater than the effort I put in. The only narrative flaw I find is in the dialogue between Sammler and Dr. Lal. It's structured in a Platonic form--reminiscent of the final chapter in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man--and the section seems forced and stilted compared to the rest of the novel. Bellow's prose is as strong as ever. We return to New York City in the late 1960s, much filthier and more violent than the setting of Seize the Day. His descriptions of people and places are vibrant, and his comic timing masterful. Ultimately, Mr. Sammler's climatic quest, like all of Bellow's protagonists, lies not in some external feat of physical valor but in a confrontation with the progtagonist's soul. Faced with the death of his nephew, Sammler must come to terms with his life as holocaust survivor, elitist intellectual, misogynist, and man. Saul Bellow is not for everyone... But if you are introspective, self critical, and enjoy philosophic and comic writing, than this would be an ideal 2nd or 3rd Bellow novel.
Rating:
Summary: I was sure glad when I came to the end
Review: This is the sixth Bellow novel I've read, and the first one I've read since I finished Humboldt's Gift on July 8, 1981. Sammler is a nice guy, in contradistinction to most other central characters of Bellow's novels, but nevertheless I was awfully bored by this book. I guess I am just intellectually lazy, but I thought this was a stupid book. I only read it because I am reading the National Book award winners. I am glad I got this one read. I enjoyed William Gaddis's A Frolic of His Own better than this book, even tho this book is written very lterately, and uses proper punctuation.
Rating:
Summary: deep and fascinating
Review: This review is to refute some of the negative customer reviews. Anyone who is reading only for plot is reading on a very superficial level. I had never read Bellow and didnt know what to expect. After a few pages, I wasnt sure I wanted to continue, but I'm glad I did. I felt this book was, among other things, like opening a time capsule from the late 1960s. I did not at all feel the author was preaching his own views or that the characters were not developed. The author delves deep into the mind of a well-educated man who is a Holocaust survivor, living in New York when the city was decidedly at a low point and confronted with hippie-era social and political attitudes. I don't know if this story is autobiographical, but it is not plotless, dull or stupid. I urge potential readers to ignore those comments.
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