Sabbath's Theater
by Philip Roth
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 747)
Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
enemies & the easily impressed
This is the sixth book I've read by Philip Roth, and yet I still have no idea why "people" (e.g., the National Book Award people) like him. One is always warned against drawing (direct) conclusions about the author based on his writing, but the body of his work, in my knee-jerk reaction at least, alludes to an arrogant, misogynistic, and somewhat conservative man (as in: "Ah, weren't those the good old days when men used to be able to pat their secretaries' tushes at whim without ...more
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Read in December, 2007
Tough to know just what to make of this one. Themes, plot contours, even whole story elements are reminiscent of The Human Stain (the latter written in 2000, but set in the mid-nineties, when this book was written and set). However, it's a farce to that book's tragedy. Instead of tracing a man's downfall at the hands of a judgmental society in which racism and political correctness are two sides of the same poison coin--and in which writing itself stands in an awkward and uncertain relation to t...more
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Read in January, 2004
I can respect other folks' positive reviews of SABBATH's THEATER. I'm normally a big Roth fan, too---I really got a lot out of AMERICAN PASTORAL, THE HUMAN STAIN, and THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA. SABBATH for me just didn't do the trick, however. Part of my issue with it, I think, is that Roth hasn't really worried about form or plot in ages---his novels unfold now as dramatic monologues, episodic and without any real drive. As a result, there's a distance between the reader and the action that can ...more
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Read in October, 2005
recommends it for:
People who find literary sexual jokes funny, aging puppeteers
The number one complaint against anything that Philip Roth writes is his treatment of women. I would just like to say that Roth's men aren't exactly shining examples of human virtue. Is Roth a Man-sogynist? The truth is that Roth's characters can be grotesque and still garner readerly sympathy. I just want to put that one out there-I am not disputing that his books are not somewhat placed in a "male gaze" and that his textual treatment of women can be hard to take, but Roth is not Bret...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
Tolerant adults with strong minds
In my opinion, this is the finest work of American fiction in the last 25 years.
Mickey Sabbath goes further than any other of Roth's characters. Each time Roth comes to an intersection in this novel, each time he has to decide whether to stop, slow down or accelerate, Roth goes faster.
This novel is a work of genius, perhaps the only novel of Roth's - from one cover to another - about which that can be said.
The best novels are those that entertain on multiple levels and after multipl...more
Mickey Sabbath goes further than any other of Roth's characters. Each time Roth comes to an intersection in this novel, each time he has to decide whether to stop, slow down or accelerate, Roth goes faster.
This novel is a work of genius, perhaps the only novel of Roth's - from one cover to another - about which that can be said.
The best novels are those that entertain on multiple levels and after multipl...more
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Read in January, 2001
An amazing, densely narrated novel. The expression of characters uninhibited (or mostly uninhibited) by conventional morality is fully realized in the characterizations of Drenka and Sabbath. Of course Sabbath is also haunted as he navigates memory lane. And the novel is just crammed with his life, which bursts out and propels the novel forward, practically in spite of the variety of narrative strategies that Roth uses. The scene at the graveyard where Barrett masturbates on Drenka’s grave whi...more
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Read in January, 2008
Just finished this. Might help me for a paper I have to write in class. What to say about this book? Mickey Sabbath, the last hold out from the baby-boom generation that believed, religiously, that eroticism was the highest form of liberation, but in the end, was only a false god to mask early childhood pain and loss. Roth seems to trill, in terms of his prose, a litte excessively (like Benny Goodman, who figures in the novel, in Sabbath's memories)but I for one appreciated the excessiveness, ev...more
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I really struggled with this one, and really don't know how to rate it. It was obscene to the point of being perverse (intentionally, of course) in a way that made me want to laugh at times but then throw it across the room at others. For better or worse, this is a novel that gets under your skin. I was relieved to be done with it, but still think about it weeks later--so maybe it deserves five stars for that reason alone. I'd say that this is a book that tests your own comfort levels and puts y...more
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Read in May, 2008
This was the most difficult to get into and appreciate of the Philip Roth books I've read so far. While respecting his rich and detailed descriptive style and his challenging and engaging dialogue, it was really hard for me to like a book where the main character is as over-sexual, blatantly perverted and borderline clinically cukoo as Roth's Mikey Sabbath. The craft of the character is insightful (perhaps too much so), but he had me cringing all too many times. But the book did raise some int...more
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Read in May, 2007
I'm not going to bore you with the same old criticisms of Philip Roth. His work most certainly errs on the side of the misogynistic, this novel in particular. I found the first half of the novel largely insufferable--long episodic passages followed by longer passages of ironic carnality--yet the prose is titillating in its salaciousness. Roth does, however, make up for the largely wasted beginning of the novel with some truly revelatory material near the end, most particularly in the last 100 p...more
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Read in May, 2008
I'm half way in and well, it's very sexual and not in a bizarre Vonnegut way or a sweet Lawrence way. It's my first Roth and I sorta expected more. The story is brutish and a touch Camus in sentimentality...ha ha. "Sabbath" isn't a book I'd probably recommend to some of my more feminine friends.
So now I'm 3/4 and now that his "romantic" partner has died, the character is more in his head...other one and therefore much more interesting/relate-able. There are times when I ...more
So now I'm 3/4 and now that his "romantic" partner has died, the character is more in his head...other one and therefore much more interesting/relate-able. There are times when I ...more
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Read in January, 2006
Another book people seem to love or hate that I love. Simple review is, it's Phillip Roth at his best/worst (all depends on your perspective). Beautifully unlikeable, lecherous character with a dying/dead soul. Phillip Roth somehow managed to make me feel sorry and empathetic for someone I found to be disgusting. I thought that was a pretty good trick. Also, Sabath's character is brilliantly developed and the book is fucking (carefully chosen word) hilarious. So if you don't mind being a b...more
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Read in January, 2006
Am I the only person that doesn't buy the genius of this man? What awful, uninteresting, uncompelling writing this was. I felt like I was watching some self-important jackass jerk himself off on paper for hundreds of pages, and that section in the middle where his structure disappeared seemed like some kind of college creative writing exercise.
I feel like Phillip Roth's success is a case of the emperor's new clothes, where everyone is tacitly guilty of having lauded this man to the critical ...more
I feel like Phillip Roth's success is a case of the emperor's new clothes, where everyone is tacitly guilty of having lauded this man to the critical ...more
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Read in July, 2003
recommends it for:
Lewd Men
Again, it's Phillip Roth.
Here we see the character of Mickey Sabbath as a lonely washed up, sixty-five-year-old, unrepentant lech in the guise of a puppeteer / theatre professor... He just lost his job at a small women's college in upstate New York and now he questions his life, the loves in his life, his family... About Schmidt this ain't...
You feel sorry for the guy because there is no way he will change... his life is pretty much a train wreck...
It was a tough character to get to...more
Here we see the character of Mickey Sabbath as a lonely washed up, sixty-five-year-old, unrepentant lech in the guise of a puppeteer / theatre professor... He just lost his job at a small women's college in upstate New York and now he questions his life, the loves in his life, his family... About Schmidt this ain't...
You feel sorry for the guy because there is no way he will change... his life is pretty much a train wreck...
It was a tough character to get to...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone
Oh, christ, what a hulking, craven, infernal, tragi-comic cyclops is 'Sabbaths Theater.' I have not laughed out loud as much and as often and as darkly since 'Molloy' a few thousand years ago.
Not for the faint of heart? Absolutely. Roth has fully unleashed himself here and seems to have written the thing in a state of unashamed hypo-mania. And, like the author of 'Molloy' [ a counter-shape in so many ways] he produces moments of exquisite tenderness inside in a landscape mad with crush...more
Not for the faint of heart? Absolutely. Roth has fully unleashed himself here and seems to have written the thing in a state of unashamed hypo-mania. And, like the author of 'Molloy' [ a counter-shape in so many ways] he produces moments of exquisite tenderness inside in a landscape mad with crush...more
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What can I say. I gave this book a fair shot. I got 82 pages in and didn’t care if I never heard about any of the characters again. This book reminded me of Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume minus the absurdity that made the overtly sexual overtones work in Perfume. I found Sabbath utterly pedantic with his bizarre fetishes that are conveyed with such a straight face that I found myself physically wincing periodically. I put the book down and immediately supplanted with with A Thousand Splen...more
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Read in August, 2007
I have been such a fan, lately, of Philip Roth. And, I am pretty disappointed by Sabbath's Theater. It seems like an imitation, a rant, so much pointless spewing. Sabbath just isn't very interesting to me. I'll finish the book, but I doubt it will redeem itself in the last forty pages. Since this is the last book I'm going to read for a while (I'm going to write in the time I usually read), I'm sad that my expectations are so dashed.
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Read in September, 2007
This was tough going. I found myself laughing out loud at times and also marveling at the descriptive language but too often I was bored. The story is mostly Mickey Sabbath's recollections and as richly detailed and depraved as they were I longed for more movement in the plot. That said, I've never read a book like it in terms of it's structure and the peculiarities of the characters.
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Read in January, 2002
I found this book to be--I don't know--MEAN. I'm not one who needs books to be like all innocent and nice, but Sabbath seems to just be mean because he's bored. And he's not even interestingly mean like Iago or Satan, but just like that dumb bully we all knew in fifth grade.
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this was the first one i read by roth, got it for like $5 in a bargain bin. i love it when great writers' books get tossed into bargain bins, because people would much rather have some chicken soup for the soul. anyway, it was the first of many roth books for me.
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.70 (553 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.69 (510 ratings) number of reviews: 73popular shelves
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