Escaping convicts? Coming up to the dog line, Eaglehawk Neck, Tasman Peninsula, January 2011. Just the two finished in what has been a hectic week for me, but what a two! Seize the Day is the first Saul Bellow novel that I’d ever read. It will not be the last. An intense little book, it centres on a day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a frustrated fellow who is suffering from what we now might call a ‘mid-life crisis’. Written in 1957, it is a rather prescient observation of the emergent egocentric neurosis that seemed to overtake many in the industrialised world in the following decades. It’s a great study of character and crisis, with one of the more beautifully-constructed endings that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. There’s no real sympathetic character in this book, but in the end it doesn’t really matter. We get our moment of catharsis. Very highly recommended. Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower has been called her masterpiece by some critics (others have been less kind