In the following essay, Ranta addresses the roles of Gregorian and Jewish calendar time in the novella Seize the Day.

The linguistic lowpoint of Saul Bellow's brief novel Seize the Day—and one of its comic delights—is Dr. Tamkin's poem, deliciously entitled "Mechanism vs Functionalism: Ism vs Hism." The very paper on which Tamkin has typed his poem (it has "ruled borders in red ink") warns us to expect a student production, and Bellow exceeds expectation by delivering a classic non-poem by someone who thinks that rhyme and sing-song iambs, archaically decorated with i...