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Dec 17, 2009

Matt rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Joe rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 19, 2008

John rated it:

"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 dialogu More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2010

Scott rated it:

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 wr More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2008

Irwan rated it:

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 techni More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2008

M-ray rated it:

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 poi More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2008

Daniel rated it:

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 More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 24, 2008

Danielle rated it:

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 t More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2007

Russell rated it:

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...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2008

Kitty-Wu rated it:

«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"

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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. Acom More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 05, 2007

Alissa rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Holly rated it:

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 a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 17, 2007

Evan rated it:

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 existenc More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Silpa rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 02, 2008

Suzy rated it:

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...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Sara rated it:

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, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Corey rated it:

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 com More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 18, 2010

Gloriagloom rated it:

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...

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May 13, 2009

Tim added it

As I was reading Philip Roth's Everyman, the person sitting next to me noticed the plain black cover and said, "That looks depressing." I think it is more accurate to call it an existential meditation on death. But don't let even that somber description put you off. Mind you, the book isn't a blithe beach read but it is far better than you would think given the topic.[return][return]Everyman opens with the funeral of the never-named narrator. The book is essentially the narrator lo More...

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Jan 04, 2009

Pris rated it:

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 Rot More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2008

Lars rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

manyhighways rated it:

Everyman" is the second Philip Roth book I've read and, unfortunately, it confirmed my dislike of America's most decorated author. The first book of his that I read was 2004's "The Plot Against America," an alternate history of WWII-era America which features an anti-semitic Charles Lindbergh as president of the United States. With my interest in history, it was a book that I should have found interesting but didn't. So I when I saw the short "Everyman" at the library More...

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Sep 16, 2011

Audrey rated it:

What is with Philip Roth? Or rather, what is with his legion of fans, included in which are the committees of the National Book Award, the Penn/Faulkner Award, and the Pulitzer Prize? Okay, I suppose some of those folks know where-of they speak. They laud Mr Roth's power, his "shocking" rawness. Ho hum.

Philip Roth's writing reminds me of the guys in college (students and professors both) who saw nothing unbalanced in having a (nubile) young woman sit silently at their f More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 06, 2011

Sandra rated it:

Perhaps this novel struck a cord because I'm not getting any younger, although I'm not as old the novel's protagonist, who reaches the age of seventy-one. Roth takes a novel approach in this short story (novella?) which begins with the funeral of the tale's subject. Obviously this opening sequence leaves the reader in no doubt that there will be no happy ending, and this is reinforced by a quotation from Keats's 'Ode to a Nightingale', itself a melancholy poem. Furthermore Everyman can refer More...

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Aug 28, 2011

Kirstie rated it:

This was the first novel by Philip Roth that I've read (I know..I know) and this was recommended by my mom. I have gone back and forth on this one, whether it deserves a 3 or 4 star review. I think it has some meaningful and highly personal things to say about the loss of function and death of a human being at the end of life. The main problem I had with it (besides the fact that I felt it was a bit short running at 182 pages) is that I didn't like the man who was dying very much. If the int More...

1 comment like

Jun 30, 2011

Stuart rated it:

Whenever Philip Roth publishes a book, I ask myself "do I need to read this one?" He is, without question, one of the finest American writers of our time, and it has been a long time. He has a wonderful understanding of plot and character, and he can really turn a sentence. I've read many of his books over the years, and although recently and somewhat reluctantly I have turned away from him, I will probably always ask myself the same question as long as he is alive and still publishing More...

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May 23, 2011

Laura rated it:

Like so many other novels, Everyman begins with a funeral. In this case, it's the unnamed protagonist's funeral, and we get to witness the varying reactions to this man's death: his daughter, reduced to tears; his sons by his bitter first wife, emptied of all fondness or concern for him; his beloved older brother, grieved and bewildered by the irony of the older brother being in perfect health while his younger brother is dead; a private nurse, sad and remembering her affair with him many years More...

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May 10, 2011

David rated it:

I believe in the truism that we can only appreciate life when confronted with the irrevocable finality of death. I have never loved life more than in the immediate aftermath of when I was certain I would die. On those rare, few occasions everything changes. The concept of free will — acting without the constraints of fate or the anesthesia of passivity — becomes the primordial raison d'être, the bedrock upon which we decide our every daily action and reaction. I will improve my relationships wit More...

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May 04, 2011

Michael rated it:

A secular meditation on death, decline and loss, written from an utterly faithless point of view. I felt it was too coarse at times, almost sophomoric, which was a distraction. But maybe a book like this simply can't pull any punches.

I've read several reviews that seem hung up on the book's title, insisting that the main character is in no way similar to the typical American man. I think they're missing the point. He is not everyman because of his choices or his lifestyle. He is everyman because More...

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Feb 11, 2011

Elsje rated it:

Op 2 januari begon ik aan Everyman en schreef toen aan de boekgrrls: "Heb Everyman vanmorgen aangeschaft en ben inmiddels halverwege. Ik geniet, eh.. genoot, want nu ben ik midden in de medische verhandeling van alle vaataandoeningen waaraan onze hoofdpersoon geholpen wordt. Hopelijk houdt dat snel op en kan ik weer gaan genieten."

Het gekke is, dat dat wel een beetje is gebleven. De medische verhandelingen, met alle details van de kwaaltjes van deze en gene, konden me maar More...

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