Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Jul 01, 2009

Evan rated it:

"Curiously, the darkness seemed to have something to do with Harriet, Ron's intended, and I thought for a time that it was simply the reality of Harriet's arrival that had dramatized the passing of time: we had been talking about it and now suddenly it was here — just as Brenda's departure would be here before we knew it." -Goodbye, Columbus

How often do I think of the passing of time in this way, as Roth describes it in this poignant, wistful and utterly beautiful book. " More...

4 comments like (10 people liked it)

May 29, 2011

Iris rated it:

What's yr take on P-Roth? During the hubbub around the recent awarding of a Man Booker prize to Philip Roth, I was moved to revisit him by reading this novella, published when he was 26. "Goodbye, Columbus" was sensitive and fine, complicating my reaction to his prize. I initially sided with Carmen Calil, the Booker judge who abandoned the committee when the two-to-one vote favored Roth. Like Calil, I just can't take a writer seriously if he cannot and will not consider the lives of no More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2008

Mac rated it:

This is his first book. Screw him.

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 21, 2008

Grant rated it:

a book of stories and one novella. the novella is the title piece, "goodbye, columbus" and i think the reason i did not give the book 5 stars is that the novella was not as strong as the stories. that said, it is funny. it is good writing. the characters and situation are relateable. but the stories are where roth shines in my opinion. the first two, "the conversion of the jews" and "defender of the faith" i'd read before, but like any good story, they are both More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 08, 2008

Peter added it

If Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s is the New York novella about flirting with the city’s upper crust, then Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus is the suburban story for the rest of us.

A coming-of-age story about a summer romance, it plumbs tensions from class, generational, religious, and educational differences, and it does so in a way that is instinctive and visceral. While not the most self-aware, sensitive, or rational, the story’s characters—Neil Klugman, a twenty-three yea More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2008

Kathy rated it:

I wasn't really sure where "Goodbye, Columbus" (the title piece of the collection) was going at first and didn't like any of the characters, but Roth has a special way of making seemingly inconsequential things become transformative and meaningful. I still vehemently disliked the characters at the end, but was somehow touched by them.

Many of the other stories in this collection are similar in this way. The people in the stories themselves aren't significant or even someti More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Ben rated it:

Philip Roth would not shake the literary establishment of America until his fourth published book, Portnoy's Complaint, ten years after the publication of this, his first book in 1959. Goodbye, Columbus is one novella and five short stories - and for a first work, it is powerful stuff. Roth's genius should have been seen from the beginning...

Goodbye, Columbus, the title story, is deceptively simple. A boy from side of town meets a girl from another - we all know this story, and we a More...

0 comments like

Oct 03, 2011

Ajay rated it:

What do we generally get when we read a Philip Roth novel? Lecherous old men (Mickey Sabbath), men who seem to be misogynistic , men constantly on the threshold of boiling point ready to burst (Ira Ringold), men are colossus in their own way, magnificent in both success and failure (Swede Levov in American Pastoral is an example of the latter). They are morally ambivalent, selfish, trampling down other people's emotions, strong, stubborn, but never ever craving for sympathy, at least outwardly. More...

0 comments like

Jul 18, 2009

Rhonda rated it:

When I first read Roth's Portnoy's Complaint in college, I confess that I was socially unable to truly understand it. I wasn't Jewish, I didn't grow up in New Yawk and, lastly, I didn't understand why one wouldn't, apparently like most of the University of Miami population, just go elsewhere. Still the title story is by far my favorite of Roth's stories, one which talks about both social insecurities and mistrust. Unlike others, I saw this as a natural outgrowth of the world, but that's anoth More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jun 14, 2011

Danielle rated it:

As always, I am very impressed by Roth's writing. His style is incredible, beautiful, and readable, and his plots at the very least compelling. However, as with most of the books of his I have read, the role of sex in his novels is always a little ... sad, which always gives me mixed feelings about the work. Wonderful for me because he writes often about Jewish people and Jewish communities, which I am not well acquainted with.

"Eli, The Fanatic" was the last short story in th More...

0 comments like

Jun 30, 2010

Lobstergirl rated it:

I needed to read this because it's Roth's urtext, and because I seem to be reading through Roth intermittently but steadily. I didn't exactly enjoy it, though it's certainly well written. It has that youthful angsty atmosphere that permeates many debut romans à clef (like The Bell Jar, The Rachel Papers, The Catcher in the Rye) and it introduces sexual dilemmas which I'm guessing were quite cutting edge in 1959. The five short stories following the novella are severely Jewish (yeshivas and th More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 29, 2010

Katherine rated it:

"...we were heading through the Lincoln Tunnel, which seemed longer and funnier than ever, like Hell with tiled walls" (70).
“The band was upending its last truckload of nostalgia” (75).
“…I brought up a cheery look from some fraudulent auricle of my heart” (78).
“He’d lost most of his consonants by this time and was doing the best he could with long, wet vowels” (79).
“It was a gusty, clouded November afternoon and it did not seem as though there ever was or could More...

0 comments like

Jan 19, 2009

Kyle rated it:

I had a strange moment, after finishing the title novella, "Goodbye, Columbus", where I realized that I have essentially read the same story three times in a row in a few of the last books I've read. "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh", "On Chesil Beach", and now "Goodbye, Columbus". Boy and girl meet, fall in love, have a passionate, if juvenile, affair over a brief period which, due to the circumstances of their stations or immaturity, ends in a confrontation More...

1 comment like

Jun 27, 2010

Matthew rated it:

Roth's National Book Award-winning first book Goodbye, Columbus (plus 5 short stories) was something that I'd been waiting to read for some time now, and finally a month or so ago I ordered it online. While Goodbye, Columbus is only a novella(about 130 pages) dealing with social class and sexuality in 1950s New Jersey, it is accompanied by 5 short stories which all deal mostly with Judaism in the 20th century, filling out the book to be about 300 pages.

As with anything published by R More...

0 comments like

Feb 14, 2011

Isaac rated it:

Goodbye, Columbus made me think of writing in a different light. For Roth it was not his cumulative writing ability that was made evident in Goodbye, Columbus, but his ability to adapt while staying true to his stories and styles. After being absolutely captivated by the lovely, awkward, thought provoking, and somewhat depressing love story that was Goodbye, Columbus, I was confused and then enlightened by the all too familiar angst of Jewish Education in The Conversion of the Jews. This was fol More...

0 comments like

Mar 15, 2009

Patrick rated it:

Goodbye, Columbus

So I am reading Goodbye, Columbus and I think it is an okay book not as amazing as American Pastoral but fairly good. I think for the time it was written which was the late 50's I could see this being a controversial book with the role of premarital sex and contraceptives play in a relationship.

I think the story is at its best in the ending when Brenda's parents discovered her having premarital sex with her boyfriend which was so scandalous that Brenda More...

0 comments like

Sep 27, 2011

Aaron rated it:

That Goodbye, Columbus is Philip Roth's debut is pretty mindblowing. The book collects the novella, Goodbye, Columbus and five short stories that showcase Roth's excellent form and knack for subtle and clever storytelling, even as early as his mid-20s. While the actual novella is a very good, slow paced, comical, summer love story that I'm sure inspired Woody Allen, it is not the best story here. All the short stories were even more impressive, especially "The Conversion of the Jews", More...

0 comments like

Jan 17, 2011

Anthony rated it:

In Philip Roth’s book, Goodbye, Columbus, the author comments rather wittily on the doomed-from-the-start relationship between Neil Klugman and Brenda Patimkin. Like the author, Neil is from Newark, New Jersey. Brenda, on the other hand, lives with her family in Short Hills, an affluent area in the suburbs. When Doris Klugman invites her cousin Neil to the Green Lane Country Club for a swim, Neil meets Brenda at the pool, where he is asked to hold her glasses, while she takes a swim. Neil is a More...

0 comments like

Jan 17, 2009

Michael rated it:

Everyone thinks Philip Roth, the American mid-century's Saul Bellow, wrote the same book over and over again throughout his career. Most people think that archetypal book is Portnoy's Complaint. I disagree. If each of his books were Portnoy's Complaint material, I would march myself right to my local bookseller and purchase every one of them. I read recently, in a curmudgeonly blog entry, disdaining overrated writers, that Goodbye, Columbus was the only good thing Roth produced, that he bega More...

1 comment like

Jul 03, 2008

Alexandra rated it:

Tenderly rendered. Goodbye, Columbus is a bit exasperating, as I take issue with these young whiny East-coast Jewish male protagonists (Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, I'm looking at you) who can't handle the women they're with and so bail on them like the big cry babies they are, but the short stories--especially and forever Eli, The Fanatic--are worth talking about.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2007

Jennie rated it:

I have to say Philip Roth is a difficult author for me because I love his writing, but I never particularly enjoy his stories. While reading this story I found it engrossing but at the end I felt like I had missed something. My professor claimed this was a piece of literature that "should never be forgotten" and I still haven't figured out why it was so memorable for him.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 07, 2010

dennis rated it:

Somewhere here on Goodreads I think some reviewer commented generally on how much they dislike Roth's characters yet nonetheless acknowledge the fineness of his writing. I think there's something in that. While I neither begrudge nor very much identify with the characters in these short tales, there is something absolutely wonderful about the ease with which the voice of each of these stories take you to a place that is surprisingly new and different than the one to be found at the beginning. Wh More...

0 comments like

Nov 25, 2009

Jamie rated it:

So, after Stephen King talked about always having an audio book in progress even as he is reading other books, I decided to give it a try. I do not have the ability to listen to such material while I work, but I loaded Philip Roth's GOODBYE COLUMBUS collection onto my iPod and listened to it while I went to and fro, here and there.

I am a fan of Roth, and have read a handful of material from the various periods of his career. His earliest material, which this represents, has a y More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 29, 2008

Clinton rated it:

Don't know why I went back to Roth after despising American Pastoral (surprised and disappointed that I did). But I liked this, Roth's first published work.

The novella, "Goodbye, Columbus," is good, and I found the protagonist as sympathetic as any average thinking man in his 20s (contrary to what you'll read on many other reader reviews). Especially poignant and memorable is the scene where the origin of the title. It's incongruous and awkward and moving all at once. More...

0 comments like

Jul 16, 2011

Emily rated it:

Neil Klugman, I know you. How, you say? Oh yes!! (sweet nostalgia), you were that UN soldier I met in the Dominican Republic on spring break 5 yrs. ago....unsure of your direction, your family, yourself, your religion, your politics, your relationship status-- but you sure had a nice head of hair. All those curls like a man-goldilocks and that wicked, wicked smile. A smile of a thousand assurances that spring break might (perhaps) last forever. The crab shack we found on the beach where we d More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 13, 2010

Justin rated it:

Wish I'd read this before I read 'The Human Stain' or the first Zuckerman novels, boy do I. None of the works in this book are flawless; unless you like prose on the order of "our dripping wet skin sizzled as we reclined luxuriatingly on the sunbaked plastic covers of the perfectly reclining chairs," you'll roll your eyes occasionally. But unlike other Roth works, he has here a) a theme other than himself or sex; b) the intention to think through rather than pronounce upon said theme. More...

0 comments like

May 07, 2011

Edwin rated it:

My first Roth, and I really enjoyed it overall.

"Goodbye, Columbus" was funny and poignant. Ah, to be young and in love. I loved the way Roth captured that humorous, occasionally passive-aggressive back-and-forth that takes place between couples. His portrayal of the dynamics of a relationship between two intelligent young people was honest and true.

"The Conversion of the Jews" reminded me of my wife, and all the stories she has told me about asking tough q More...

0 comments like

Oct 15, 2010

Mandella rated it:

I liked the short stories in this volume better than the novella, Goodbye, Columbus, but I enjoyed it all. It was a bit difficult for me to get past the dated sexual and relational mores of the time period, but that is a me thing that really has no bearing on the quality of the stories and the writing. For whatever reason, I find the Jewish stereotypes fascinating, and especially in "The Defender of the Faith," I was really drawn into the conflict of duty to God, to faith, to country, More...

0 comments like

Dec 31, 2009

Steve rated it:

The opening novella, "Goodbye, Columbus," is a great (young) love story. And now, 50 years later, it works as a wonderful time capsule for what it was like in the late 1950s. Roth deftly touches on issues like sex, racism, Jewishness, class, etc., while always keeping his eye on the ball and moving the story along. The remaining stories in the collection I'm so-so on. None are bad, but none really rise to the level of "Goodbye, Columbus." Still, you can see in all of these More...

0 comments like

Jan 31, 2012

Anna rated it:

I usually like coming of age stories, such as Goodbye, Columbus, and this one was pretty good, but for some reason, I didn't really end up caring about the characters, so that was why it wasn't really good. I continued on to read his other short stories and my favorite ones are The Conversion of the Jews because it took me back to a time when you can't help but stand up to your authority figures and it felt good. I also enjoyed Epstein as it reminded me a bit of Death of a Salesman (a favorite), More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)