Mr. Artur Sammler is above all a man who has lasted, from the civilized pleasures of England in the twenties and thirties through the war and death camps in Poland. Moving now through the chaotic and dangerous streets of New York's upper West Side, Mr. Sammler is attentive to everything, appalled by nothing. He brings the same disinterested curiosity to the activities of a black pickpocket on an uptown bus, the details of his niece Angela's sex life, and his daughter's lunacy, as to the extraordinary theories of one Dr. V. Govinda Lal on the use we are to make of the moon now that we have reached it.

Under the comedy and sadness, the shocking force of much of the action, and the superb character-drawing of this brilliantly written novel runs a strain of speculation, both daring and serene, on the future of life on this planet, Mr. Sammler's planet, and any other planets for which we may be destined.