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Everyman

3.49 of 5 stars 3.49 · rating details · 7,136 ratings · 811 reviews

Philip Roth's new novel is a candidly intimate yet universal story of loss, regret, and stoicism. The best-selling author of The Plot Against America now turns his attention from "one family's harrowing encounter with history" (New York Times) to one man's lifelong skirmish with mortality.

The fate of Roth's everyman is traced from his first shocking confrontation with deat...more

Hardcover, 182 pages

Published May 9th 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published January 1st 2006)

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Jun 01, 2012 RandomAnthony rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Yesterday I read Everyman. The novel's not long, maybe 180 small pages, and I wasn't doing anything exciting other than shopping at Costco and dodging a water balloon fight (despite my protestations of “I'm not playing! I'm not playing!”). The book intrigued me because 1) Mary, one of the local librarians, put it on her “recommended” shelf (I mean for real, in the library, not on GR), 2) at least two of my friends hated it, and 3) I needed something short because I finished a novel Saturday and...more Yesterday I read Everyman. The novel's not long, maybe 180 small pages, and I wasn't doing anything exciting other than shopping at Costco and dodging a water balloon fight (despite my protestations of “I'm not playing! I'm not playing!”). The book intrigued me because 1) Mary, one of the local librarians, put it on her “recommended” shelf (I mean for real, in the library, not on GR), 2) at least two of my friends hated it, and 3) I needed something short because I finished a novel Saturday and had another coming through the inter-library loan system early this week. I didn't hate Everyman. But I thought it was more yucky than good.

Okay, non sequitur I hope will make sense. Do you read Esquire magazine? I do. I'm not sure why. I think I read Esquire because the subscription costs five bucks a year. Anyway, Esquire provides hilariously weird and out of touch advice for men. The writers often try to talk all tough and knowing when they recommend which of three four hundred dollar shirts you must have in your closet. And how to order drinks in bars. And how to talk with kids about sex. And celebrity profiles in which male movie stars are held up as icons of masculinity. I don't know who these people are who follow Esquire's advice about shoes and women and money, but they're way more loaded than me and crazy insecure.

The guy in Everyman, I think, was into Esquire. That's fine. Knock yourself out. But Roth's primary sin is the implication, in my perception, that his characters are somehow representative of American males. Now, I guess I only know a couple 70 year olds, but I doubt many are so broken up about not getting a shot at young women that they try to pick up passing joggers. I also don't believe people talk with each other like the characters in Everyman. They go from zero to sixty on the philosophy scale in three inches of dialogue or less. The medical talk was probably the novel's most interesting element. The braindead bravado and self-pity got boring quickly. I resent the idea that Everyman is representative of, uh, every man. Or even most of them. Or a few. Most of us don't buy the belts and toys and advice recommended in Esquire. It's not that the ideas are all bad. We're just not from Esquire world. It's a goofy planet, somewhere in the same solar system as Everyman. Go at your own risk. I'll give Roth another shot, and I kind of remember liking American Pastoral, but I hope his other work is better. (less)

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Sep 20, 2007 Matt Kosinski rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Optimists, pre-teens, chick-lit fans

I was a little nervous about reading Everyman. I didn't know if I wanted to subject myself to a book I knew was going to be such a downer, nor was I in a hurry to be reminded that I'm going to die one day and that growing old will be a terrifying experience.

But now that I've finished it, I don't think it'll keep me up at night like I had thought it would. This book is less about the horror of facing your inevitable death, and more about the hell you can create for yourself in old age if you live...more

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Aug 30, 2012 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: Bennard

Shelves: drama, family-drama, philosophical, novella

If I have it my way, I would have included the book in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Why? This book teaches, or reminds, us on what really matters in life. This prepares us on what to do when it is time to face the music: of getting old, of facing death. I know that sounds like a cliché, but Roth seemed to have poured his heart out in this book. Roth was 71 when he was writing this and the sequence of his life, e.g., series of sickness and divorces, is said to parallel the life of...more If I have it my way, I would have included the book in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Why? This book teaches, or reminds, us on what really matters in life. This prepares us on what to do when it is time to face the music: of getting old, of facing death. I know that sounds like a cliché, but Roth seemed to have poured his heart out in this book. Roth was 71 when he was writing this and the sequence of his life, e.g., series of sickness and divorces, is said to parallel the life of the unnamed narrator in this book. So, while reading the book, I felt I was reading Roth’s narrating as himself. And boy, he is in pain!

The story opens during the narrator’s burial day. In attendance are his few loved ones. Judging from the number of the people witnessing his coffin being lowered to the ground and listening to the thoughts of the people who he might have loved or might have loved him, one can right away deduce that his was not a well-lived life. He died at 71 yet he agonized finally living this world with his what-if’s, what I could have done better, what went wrong, etc.

I dog-eared some of the pages with some of the thought-provoking lines that I encountered and they are enough to summarize the message of this book without spewing spoilers:

”There’s no remaking reality,” she told him. “Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes.” p.5

This line is uttered by the narrator’s daughter Nancyby his second marriage. She is the only two – the other being his older brother Howie who seems to have loved the narrator, her father, sincerely. I loved Nancy because I hope or I know to some extent that my own daughter would be like her when I become really old and gray.

”You wicked bastards! You sulky fuckers! You condemning little shits! Would everything be different, he asked himself, if I’d been different and done things differently? Would it all be less lonely than it is now? Of course it would! But this is what I did! I am seventy-one. This is the man I have made. This is what I did to get here, and there’s nothing more to be said!”pp. 97-98

While Nancy is sprinkling the dirt (soil) unto her father's coffin, Roth presents the back story of the narrator, told in the narrator’s (corpse) point-of-view. So, the narrator speaks to the reader in monologue akin to Hamlet spewing his innermost thoughts mostly in anger, pain, regret and utter loneliness. There are many lines like this and so the narration could really be depressing. Don’t read this book if you want a happy read!

”Old age is a battle, dear, if not with this (drug), then with that (weariness). It’s an unrelenting battle and just that when you’re at your weakest and least to call up your old fight.”pp. 143-144

The words in parenthesis are my interpretation based on the previous statements in this hospital scene when the narrator’s health condition is turning from worse to worst. This metaphor of battle for old age is introduced in the portion but will be reversed by Roth later in the next quote like a two-step ascending crescendo in a dark funereal orchestra.

”Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre.”p. 156

Probably the most quoted part of this book’s narrative. It is a reality that old age leads us to death. Prior to that, it makes us ugly: wrinkles, expanding waistline, stooping posture, white hairs, shrinking, fluffier face, swollen joints, pigmented and dull skin, etc. However, for me, focusing on these is forgetting that: Old age is a bliss too. If you played your cards well when you are young and strong, chances are you are financially-secured when you become old and frail: no more children’s education to support, debt-free so you can sleep all you want, you can get up in the morning really late, you can read all the books you want, you can see all the movies you fancy seeing and you can do nasty things to young people and they would ignore or forgive you quite easily compared when you were younger and so people were less forgiving.

However, this last phrase nicely recaps all the quotes above. During the last years of our life on earth or when we breath our last, this is all that I think matters:

”Look back and atone for what you can atone for, and make the best of what you have left.”p. 171

Even if we do our best, as human beings, we cannot avoid hurting people. So, we say sorry. So we learn from our mistakes. Yet, we always stumble. We always fall. But we raise up again and again. As life goes on and on.

And yet, why wait for the time that we are dying? We are all born to die. So, everyman should always try to live each day as it if is his last.(less)

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Jun 22, 2007 Joe rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyman and Everywoman

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. One of Roth's funnier books. Kidding. I cannot tell you how depressed I was after finishing this short novel. The title was the kicker too; hauntingly reminds the reader of every human mortality and the tediousness of studying morality plays in high school.

This is a book about the betrayel of the body and is a morbid reminder that while you are the king of your consciousness, your body is something that can be wholly other, a ticking time bomb that one day that will end your short existence. Li...more

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Mar 19, 2008 John rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"What I learned from this book": Philip Roth hates life but he also really really doesn't want to die. He's literati's crowned-king miserablist, saying "old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre."

Especially for those who give up fighting. I've tried a few Roth books on the basis of his reputation, but remain mystified -- I think the awards people keep handing him trophies simply from muscle memory. The writing is drab, the characters one-note, and the dialogue often strained and silly (Ever...more

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Oct 11, 2010 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

The second book that I've read this week (the other being McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City") where the main character doesn't have a designated name. A tell-tale sign that I am reading literature with a capital "L," or at least literature with allegorical significance, as this slim Roth entry truly has, being named after the 15th Century English play I was forced to read in Graduate school.

Maybe this isn't one for the Roth novice. There are some beautifully written passages (eloquent not in...more The second book that I've read this week (the other being McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City") where the main character doesn't have a designated name. A tell-tale sign that I am reading literature with a capital "L," or at least literature with allegorical significance, as this slim Roth entry truly has, being named after the 15th Century English play I was forced to read in Graduate school.

Maybe this isn't one for the Roth novice. There are some beautifully written passages (eloquent not in demanding wordiness, but instead in their simplicity), and the novel's obstinate obsession with illness and death is admirable, but the specifics of the narrative are painfully cliched. Many might lament that Roth is simply retreading his own themes and characters; I would argue he is retreading themes and character exhausted by the last 100 years of literary history.

The Edenic memories of youth (where, in one scene right out of Judy Blume and every other coming-of-age story you have ever read, he tries to convince himself that his hernia has magically healed itself the night before his scheduled operation). Senior citizens who congregate only to talk about their recent health scares and their love for their grandchildren. The aging leach who leaves his wife for a 24 year old Danish model who lets him do wonderful things with one of her holes. (Okay, maybe that last one is a little less cliched, especially in a work by a 73 year old novelist).

All of these snapshots from the man's life (the book's 182 short pages leaving room for little more) don't add up to much in the way of narrative. And the argument that Roth is knowingly dealing with archetypal experience does not make a banal narrative any more tolerable. Why I am giving the book a minor pass is because I found the second half to be quite emotionally affecting, even haunting when illness and burial procedures are detailed in a detached, almost clinical, fashion, and the lead character's serial hospitalizations for heart problems made me think about my own father's almost identical experience. (Everyman indeed!) Roth's Everyman may be another one of his self-centered, almost contemptible, creations, but as he reminds us, "prolonged illness's deadliest trap [is] the contortion of one's character." As one who has been around a loved one who has looked death in the face, I can attest this is one cliche that rings painfully true.(less)

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Jan 14, 2008 Irwan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: finished

A beautiful, sometimes gentle, some other times brutal, account for the late phase of a man's life. It is about attitude towards old-age and death. The hero starts with a fearful denial, clinging to his past glories and failures, and ends with a peaceful acceptance towards the inevitable. Some sentences caught my attention like: "Old age is not a battle; old age is a massacre". The most unforgettable moment was the dialogue with the black gravedigger who explained in details the technique to dig...more

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Dec 01, 2008 M-ray DeFreese rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

You can finish this book in under two hours.
You will anxiously burn through the pages waiting for something meaningful to happen.
It never will.

That's kind of, I think, the point.

Even so it will break your heart and you will not be able to sleep all night and you will call your grandma and tell her you love her and you will spend the next week slow-breathing yourself out of an ever-on-the-verge-of-overwhelming-your-sensibilities panic attack.

At this point you may wish you'd never read it.
You...more

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Nov 07, 2008 Daniel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-edition, 2008

For its first half, "Everyman" reads a bit like a condensed version of an earlier Philip Roth novel, something that could be titled "The Anatomy Lesson: Only the Medical Parts." "Everyman"'s initial focus on its protagonist's health problems, almost to the exclusion of everything else, recalls the earlier book's concentration on Nathan Zuckerman's illness.

"The Anatomy Lesson," however, had a much wider scope than "Everyman" initially seems to. About two-thirds the way in, though, "Everyman" beco...more

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Jul 24, 2008 Danielle rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I kinda wish I hadn't finished this book, but first, the plusses: 1) As a young adult, it really gave me a new perspective on the length of a life and what really matters now and in the future. 2) The writing was refreshing: unpretentious, yet engaging.
On the downside, I just didn't want to hear that much about his various sexual relationships and regrets. Also, let's face it, getting old and dying is depressing, so it's not all that much fun to read about. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyo...more

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Nov 07, 2007 Russell rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People who are already afraid of dying.

As with any book that is well written, the message came across and had an impact on me, but I didn't love it. The main character struggles throughout his life with an overwhelming fear of death. As such almost all of his thoughts and actions are tainted by his fears and he is constantly trying to recapture the youth that has left his grasp. This leads to doubt and regret and self-loathing and all kinds of other shit that I have no patience or respect for. Maybe I'll be able to relate as I grow o...more

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Mar 28, 2008 Kitty-Wu rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

«Aquí, donde los hombres se sientan y oyen sus mutuos quejidos;
donde la parálisis agita algunas, tristes, últimas canas,
donde la juventud palidece, adelgaza como un espectro, y muere;
donde tan solo pensar es estar lleno de tristeza […]»
John KEATS, "Oda a un Ruiseñor"

---------

Elegía empieza con un entierro, para proseguir reconstruyendo la vida del difunto, primero en boca de los asistentes al entierro, para seguir en primera persona. Acompañamos al difunto a lo largo de su vida, por sus momentos...more

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Nov 05, 2007 Alissa Nelson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Something about Everyman struck home for me in ways that a lot of Roth's other books have not. Perhaps it is the fact that the cemetery that centers his narrative is a ringer for my mother's family cemetery. Maybe it is the everyman's medical complaints, which I see paralleling my father's. I certainly acknowledge that this is part of the point, that he is supposed to be a universal figure, that we are supposed to identify with him.

Roth hasn't lost his edge, but in a lot of ways I see him mello...more

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May 28, 2007 Holly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2007

Why, oh why, did I pick this up at the library? I knew it would be utterly depressing, and it was. Utterly. But I loved The Plot Against America, and I couldn't resist Everyman's compact size for throwing into my lunch bag for reading on the train to work. (Indeed, my book choices are frequently informed by ease of carrying onto the metrolink.) In brief, the story begins at a funeral of the "everyman" main character, then Roth recounts the life that was, focusing in particular on old age, which...more

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Sep 17, 2007 Evan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a lesson on the pointlessness of life from an aging atheist's point of view. It reads like an atheistic morality tale, as the title would suggest.

I felt like the prose oversimplified and and in many ways trivialized some fairly important issues related to aging and dying. It's principal character lacks any real courage and is beyond being sympatetic because of his human frailties.

I found this book to be a whiny attempt to justify a fairly shallow existence.

The only redeeming quali...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Rosalba rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Me ne vado: le stesse parole che lo avevano svegliato, togliendogli il respiro e gettandolo nel panico, pronunciate da un uomo ancora vivo che abbracciava un cadavere.

http://youtu.be/oK_FirENOVA

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Jul 22, 2007 Silpa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At first I was a little disappointed by this book. It tells the story of an average man with painstaking focus on how every moment of his life is related to his death. The story is deliberately slow in order to enhance the mood of desperation and highlight the theme of the inevitability of death. However, despite this, I was surprised by my desire to read on inspite of the lack of a very compelling plot. The way he constructs the emotions of his main character is what keeps the reader hooked. He...more

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Oct 02, 2008 Suzy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A good author does not a good novel make. Especially if the protagonist evoked nothing in me except burning contempt. Yes, the writing is deft and lovely. But the deftness and loveliness is wasted on such inferior clay! Why Roth should waste such texture and colour on a philandering, lying, self-pitying sad little man is really quite beyond me. It sickens my heart to look at the title and even briefly entertain the notion that this excuse of a human being might be the 'everyman'. Perhaps this is...more

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Aug 22, 2007 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

For such a slim book to be packed with such an emotional punch, is due in large part to Roth's mastery of the English language. He has always been able to craft a beautiful sentence. Even when the subject matter is dark and heavy - as is the case with Everyman - there is a certain unassuming beauty to the way that Roth tells a story.

To be clear, this is not a feel-good book. It deals with man's (the everyman of the title) struggle with his own mortality. While never a light topic, it is a worth...more

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Apr 11, 2009 Corey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book was read in one day. Everyman makes you think about the choices people make when it comes to family and the regrets people might have later on. The Main Character chose to follow his sexual desires and thus most of the book is his later on in life living lonely and having deep regrets for his choices. Everyone wonders what will be said at their funeral and it got me to questioning what would be said at mine and being 37 what I can change in the future so more people do not have to come...more

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Nov 18, 2010 Gloriagloom rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: americani

egregio Roth, P.,
questo non doveva farmelo.
Come Lei certamente non saprà, io, sono un Suo devoto lettore. Anzi, una delle innumerevoli categorie in cui suddivido il mondo è quella tra che legge Roth, P. e chi non lo legge, e ancora di più, tra chi legge Roth, P. e chi Legge Roth, P.. Credo di possedere tutto quello che Lei ha scritto in svariate copie, edizioni e lingue. Se avessi ancora l’età per appendere poster al muro non avrei dubbi nello scegliere tra la Sua faccia, jennifer lopez, eminem...more egregio Roth, P.,
questo non doveva farmelo.
Come Lei certamente non saprà, io, sono un Suo devoto lettore. Anzi, una delle innumerevoli categorie in cui suddivido il mondo è quella tra che legge Roth, P. e chi non lo legge, e ancora di più, tra chi legge Roth, P. e chi Legge Roth, P.. Credo di possedere tutto quello che Lei ha scritto in svariate copie, edizioni e lingue. Se avessi ancora l’età per appendere poster al muro non avrei dubbi nello scegliere tra la Sua faccia, jennifer lopez, eminem o pierferdinando casini.
Insomma, a farla breve, il 30 gennaio, data pubblicizzata per l’uscita del suo libro, mi sono recato presso una libreria e ne ho strappato di mano una copia a un commesso che stava tirando su una torre pencolante col Suo ultimo Capolavoro. Per me è un rito acquistare un Suo libro il giorno stesso dell’uscita. E’ un gesto che riservo a pochi. Ho letto il Suo coso nero nell’ultimo w.e., tutta una tirata, com’è duopo con i suoi libri, e già all’inizio qualcosa non mi tornava, un personaggio senza nome, che, deduco dal titolo, dovrebbe essere tutti noi, quindi mi son detto “qua si va nel metaforico” , e a me, come Lei non saprà, il metaforico perplime, sono un incompetente nel campo metaforico e a dirla tutta trovo le metafore una grande rottura di scatole, che uno deve starle a capire, e poi il romanzo è già in se una metafora, così diventa una metametafora; dovrebbero mettere un bollino rosso su alcuni libri: “attenzione questo libro contiene metafore”. Dopo poche pagine mi sono tranquillizzato, la metafora non c’è, si parla di morte punto e basta. E a me i romanzi col morto non dispiacciono. Anche i film col morto. E le canzoni col morto. Solo che Lei qui mi dice che a morire dovrei essere io. E questo mi piace un po’ meno. E come lo dice. Arrivato dalle parti dell’operazione alla cistifellea ho pensato:”ma come, Le abbiamo fatto vincere premi pulitzer, national book awards, e non so quante altre carrettate di riconoscimenti, Le abbiamo fatto scrivere alcuni dei più importanti libri degli ultimi decenni come la pastorale americana o il lamento di portnoy per ritrovarci alfine tra le mani questo oggettino stitico che ci rimbrotta che tutti dobbiamo morire? faccio prima a scendere al bar qua sotto e un avventore qualunque, capato a caso, sa dirmi “tanto hai da morì!”” Arrivato dalle parti dell’intervento a cuore aperto ho pensato invece” vado a fare pipì tanto non mi perdo niente”, quando poi sono giunto agli strologamenti dell’everyman col becchino mi son sentito esclamare “Mr. Roth, questo è un mezzuccio di bassa lega, una trovatina da guitto, roba che può tornare buona al massimo per l’inserto letterario del sabato di repubblica”. Quando finalmente l’everyman è schiattato ho concluso ”Facciamo finta di niente, facciamo finta che questo libro non l’abbia mai letto, che Lei sia ancora il più grande scrittore degli ultimi trent’anni”. Il libro l’ho buttato nel cassonetto per il riciclo della carta, che magari porta pure sfiga a tenerlo in casa, e visto che tutti si deve morire libro più, libro meno….
con annoiata stima, Suo gloriagloom(less)

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Jan 04, 2009 Pris robichaud rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Everyman- Summoning The Living To Death, 4 Mar 2007

In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances. The name derives from a 16th century English morality play called Everyman"
Wikipedia

Superb, Perfect, Impassioned, Masterpiece, these are the words used to describe Philip Roth's book, 'Everyman'. A small, 182 page books, read in one sitt...more
Everyman- Summoning The Living To Death, 4 Mar 2007

In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances. The name derives from a 16th century English morality play called Everyman"
Wikipedia

Superb, Perfect, Impassioned, Masterpiece, these are the words used to describe Philip Roth's book, 'Everyman'. A small, 182 page books, read in one sitting for me because I could not bear to put it down. The first page grabbed me, and I had to know, had to know it all. This is a book of loss, regret, a lifetime of love, energy, work, illness, surgery, growing old, moving on, taking each day as it comes and family, most of all family. We don't know the story teller's name, father, dad, husband, child, granddad, colleague, lover; we learn all about these people as one man. A compelling story told from his funeral back to the beginning of the first surgery. Then the years of health and good fortune. Back to surgery and illness and in-between death. Death of parents, then of colleagues and then friends. A novel that is about death and how it comes to be and what occurs before. There is a portion of the book near the end where the storyteller talks to a gravedigger and learns all about grave digging, and we are listening in and learn alot. This gravedigger is special, and he digs by hand shovel. His graves are perfect. This man gives his all to his job. We are the recipients of a perfectly dug grave.
A life in full, some regrets, lots of happiness and sadness and wanting and finally death. It comes to us all, you know.

"Roth himself has been outspoken, of late, about his preoccupation with death. In the Times profile he talked at length about the "gigantic shock" of finding himself at an age when his friends are dying, it would seem, en masse (in the book, he indeed describes old age as a "massacre"):
"This book came out of what all around me, which was something I never was expected-- that my friends would die," Mr. Roth said. "If you're lucky, your grandparents will die when you're, say, in college. Mine died when I was a schoolboy. If you're lucky, your parents will live until you're somewhere in your 50's; if you're very lucky, into your 60's. You won't ever die, and your children, certainly, will never die before you. That's the deal, that's the contract. But in this contract nothing is written about your friends, so when they start dying, it's a gigantic shock."[*]Daniel Mendelssohn

A novel to be marveled, to be read slowly and savored. A life in full, and then the death. This is what we are all about. Well told and every word has meaning. Bravo, Philip Roth. Highly Recommended.
prisrob 03-04-07
(less)

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Dec 19, 2008 Lars Guthrie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Roth’s everyman rejects religion yet his observation of nothingness, oblivion, death, is filled with a solemn awe as well as dread. His everyman is gone, but remains as memory in those who survive him. His liturgical enumeration of medical procedures as his body deteriorates parallels the procedure of prayer, and offers solace in iteration even as society’s treatment of illness turns shabby and impersonal. His insistence on acknowledging the plain ordinariness of life—“he had done what he did th...more

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May 19, 2013 Rachelle Urist rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dark, as are all four of his short, late novels. But the writing, as ever, is exquisite. His narrator broods over the indignities of age, over the past-time of combing through memories, over the degeneration of the body, the eclipse of vigor, activity, and hope. There are arresting lines, such as: "Unlike him, many [Starfish Beach residents*] were able not merely to construct whole conversations that revolved around their grandchildren but to find sufficient grounds for existence in the existenc...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Garrett Zecker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A slim, powerful volume that is Roth's unflagging portrait of the American man. From death to adolescence, and back again, it struggles to find the meaning within the complicated meaninglessness of manhood in a world that makes it so easy to contradict the moral and ethical fabric that seems etched on liberty's walls. If I were to sum up a major theme of the book, it comes in the form of a quote that appears in my copy on page 119, “what he saw was a stone, the heavy, sepulchral, stonelike weigh...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I picked this book to read I assumed that the protagonist would be an everyman, Joe Public. I was curious how an author could represent an ordinary Joe because as much as we throw around terms like these ordinariness is a hard thing to qualify. The unnamed protagonist is ordinary in that, like all men, he was born, he lived and he died—the book, in fact, opens with his funeral—but other than that his is an interesting (although not especially exciting) life, one punctuated by illness and in...more When I picked this book to read I assumed that the protagonist would be an everyman, Joe Public. I was curious how an author could represent an ordinary Joe because as much as we throw around terms like these ordinariness is a hard thing to qualify. The unnamed protagonist is ordinary in that, like all men, he was born, he lived and he died—the book, in fact, opens with his funeral—but other than that his is an interesting (although not especially exciting) life, one punctuated by illness and infidelity although there’s no record of him ever suffering from an STD; unfaithful he may have been but one wouldn’t classify him as a lothario. Although perfectly capable of turning on the charm even into his seventies he’s really a miserable git at heart and it’s little surprise that following the breakup of his third and final marriage he opts to move to the coast and keep his distance from all of his family bar his daughter who he somehow manages to maintain a healthy relationship with throughout his life.

Our protagonist is not an especially likeable man although I wouldn’t go as far as to call him a bad man. He’s selfish and jealous and his own worst enemy much of the time. He makes bad choices but lives with them albeit a little joylessly. As he ages he comes to fairly obvious conclusions about life but that’s fine because those are the ones we all come round to: children are a blessing, regret pays no bills, health trumps wealth, love wins out over sex if given half a chance but sex usually plays dirty so it’s not a fair fight.

Apparently the book is remarkably spare for a Philip Roth novel. As it’s the first I’ve read I can’t comment. It was, for me, an enjoyable read and I loved the fact Roth wasn’t scared to let his sentences roll on down the page—I’m pretty sure there was one a page long—but that’s fine by me. Not a book to read with a screaming cockatiel in the room with you though; it does require a little concentration but it’s not a hard read and has some wonderful one-liners such as, "Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre."

I can see a youngster not enjoying (or getting) this book. And that’s fine. It’s going nowhere. Whether they read it or not there isn’t one of them that won’t have to face up to the issues it raises.
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Mar 29, 2013 Patrick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can't tell if I really loved this book or really hated it.

On the one hand, I'm not sure if summarizing a man's life by actually summarizing a man's life is the best way to... summarize a life. Most of this book was summary: of events, of emotions, of time.

On the other hand, some of the parts describing the old, being obsessed with the past, death, and illness, were frighteningly frank and true and beautiful.

But on the other hand, they were also... perhaps a little too easy? Is there anything s...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Sylvie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Initially I found this book to be rather bland - a simple narrative of the life events of a broken individual, drowned in an excessively negative outlook on the inevitable human condition that is death and the natural precursor to it, old age. Yet beneath this hardened outer crust I discovered something quite to the opposite effect. Seen in a different light, one may detect allusions to the idea of the eternal child that never abandons our soul. Though for many of us the flame of our youth loses...more Initially I found this book to be rather bland - a simple narrative of the life events of a broken individual, drowned in an excessively negative outlook on the inevitable human condition that is death and the natural precursor to it, old age. Yet beneath this hardened outer crust I discovered something quite to the opposite effect. Seen in a different light, one may detect allusions to the idea of the eternal child that never abandons our soul. Though for many of us the flame of our youth loses some of its intensity with every hardening experience we face in adulthood, it is never completely extinguished. No matter how old and decrepit we may become, our youthful core remains untouched and there will always be moments capable of transporting us back in time and allowing us to undergo a complete metamorphosis into the youthful being we once were. There could not be a better explanation of this curious concept than that provided by the genius of Milan Kundera in the opening lines of his "Immortality":

"She walked around the pool toward the exit. She passed the lifeguard, and after she had gone some three or four steps beyond him, she turned her head, smiled, and waved to him. At that instant I felt a pang in my heart! That smile and that gesture belonged to a twenty-year-old girl! Her arm rose with bewitching ease. It was as if she were playfully tossing a brightly colored ball to her lover. That smile and that gesture had charm and elegance, while the face and the body no longer had any charm. It was the charm of a gesture drowning in the charmlessness of the body. But the woman, though she must of course have realized that she was no longer beautiful, forgot that for the moment. There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless. In any case, the instant she turned, smiled, and waved to the young lifeguard (who couldn’t control himself and burst out laughing), she was unaware of her age. The essence of her charm, independent of time, revealed itself for a second in that gesture and dazzled me. I was strangely moved."(less)

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Dec 20, 2012 Carolyn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

It's become a popular pastime to hate Roth's books. Or to consider him irrelevant. Well - you're in the wrong place if that's what you're looking for. Sure, not EVERY book he writes is as amazing as his reputation. Are yours? But the raucous black comedy "Sabbath's Theater" is a desert island pick for me; the Zuckerman books could be textbooks on how to write autobiographically based introspection; his "late novels" often referred to as the American Trilogy ("American Pastoral," "I Married a Com...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

You might have difficulty reading this book. Not because of the writing, which is detailed and rich but not complex or lyrical, but because of the subject. The book is basically about a dying man looking back on his life, and more specifically, it focuses on death and all the dark fears relating to it many of have had or will have. The main character goes over his childhood and his youthful, vigorous and highly sexual life from the position of a man who has lost his spark and is forced to see hi...more

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About Philip Roth

Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained early literary fame with the 1959 collection Goodbye, Columbus (winner of 1960's National Book Award), cemented it with his 1969 bestseller Portnoy's Complaint, and has continued to write critically-acclaimed works, many of which feature his fictional alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman. The Zuckerman novels began with The Ghost Writer in 1979, and inc...more

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Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories

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