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Elegia

by Philip Roth, Jordi Fibla (Translator)

3.45 · rating details · 4,764 ratings · 658 reviews

Una novela sobre la perdida, el arrepentimiento y el estoicismo.

La nueva novela de Philip Roth es una historia profundamente íntima sobre la pérdida, el arrepentimiento y el estoicismo. El autor de La conjura contra América desvía ahora su atención de “el angustioso reencuentro de una familia con su historia” (New York Times) a la lucha crónica de un hombre con la moralida...more

Paperback, 160 pages

Published February 6th 2007 by Random House Mondadori (first published 2005)

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Sep 20, 2007

Matt Kosinski rated it

· review of another edition

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...more

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Jun 22, 2007

Joe rated it

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Recommends it for: Everyman and Everywoman

Shelves: fiction, american

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 e...more

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Mar 19, 2008

John rated it

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"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

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Oct 11, 2010

Scott rated it

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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...moreThe 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

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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 techni...more

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Dec 01, 2008

M-ray DeFreese rated it

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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

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Nov 07, 2008

Daniel rated it

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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 ...more

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Jul 24, 2008

Danielle rated it

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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 t...more

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Nov 07, 2007

Russell rated it

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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

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«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

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Nov 05, 2007

Alissa Nelson rated it

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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

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May 28, 2007

Holly rated it

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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 a...more

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Sep 17, 2007

Evan rated it

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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

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Jul 22, 2007

Silpa rated it

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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

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Oct 02, 2008

Suzy rated it

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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

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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

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Apr 11, 2009

Corey rated it

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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

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Nov 18, 2010

Gloriagloom rated it

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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 ...moreegregio 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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May 13, 2009

Tim added it · review of another edition

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 robichaud rated it

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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
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

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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

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Jan 16, 2012

manyhighways rated it

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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

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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

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Sep 06, 2011

Sandra Lawson rated it

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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 ...morePerhaps 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 back to a medieval morality play where the living are summoned to death, or it can simply be an analogy for the lives of all of mankind.

Although the outcome is obvious, this tactic doesn't stop the reader from wanting to know more. (In Romeo and Juliet's prologue, Shakespeare lays out the bare bones of the play, but nobody walks out until the play is over.) The protagonist of Everyman looks back over his life and recalls his childhood and parents, before we learn about his loves, marriages, affairs and philanderings, his children, career and retirement. Different passages send him on various journeys of remembrance and we gradually learn, as he also realises, that he hasn't been a terribly nice person. Various operations in hospital contribute to his declining health until he reaches the point where he appears to be happy to embrace death, or to let it welcome him.

Two sentences made a strong impact on me: 'Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.' This appears to sum up his failing health, although we know that his older, more successful and healthier brother, Howie, would obviously think differently. The second occasion is when the protagonist appears to be moving closer towards death and impulsively decides to visit the cemetery where his parents are buried. 'They were just bones, bones in a box, but their bones were his bones ... The flesh melts away but the bones endure.' It is obvious that he is a secular Jew, religion plays no place in his life, and he doesn't believe in an afterlife, but the realisation that he is still connected to his parents is an epiphanic and painful one. 'He couldn't go. The tenderness was out of control. As was the longing for everyone to be living. And to have it all over again.'

I closed the book, but the story has left me with an ache. Roth has a knack of setting out the human condition and pointing out that things could be different. It's up to us to follow the right path and make the necessary choices. A funeral can (and should) be a celebration of an individual's life and the final page of Everyman is that in a way. We've learned how the protagonist lived his life and found out why the mourners at his funeral acted as they all did.(less)

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Aug 28, 2011

Kirstie rated it

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Recommends it for: Young unfaithful men, old men who are dying

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...moreThis 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 intention was that I should grieve over a man who wasted his life never having a fulfilling relationship, never being a good father, never able to be faithful to any of his wives, Philip Roth had another thing coming to him. I don't feel sorry for this man. If the lesson here instead was to a young man reading to explain to him...Danger!!! This is NOT what you want to become..don't go down this same road..well, I think it might be useful for someone like that (in other words, the young philandering type) to read this. Still, that would also assume that the young unfaithful male is an intellectual and would choose to spend his time reading this novel. I would guess this doesn't apply to your typical unfaithful young male but I suppose the one that it does apply to would more likely be changed by it.

On a personal level, I just couldn't relate too much to this and couldn't apply it to my life whatsoever. It's clear Roth is a great writer but I need to read something much different than this for me to connect with it emotionally.

Memorable quotes:

pg. 16 " ...the battle to remain an unassailable man had by then been lost by him, time having transformed his own body into a storehouse for man made contraptions designed to fend off collapse. Defusing thoughts of his own demise had never required more diligence and cunning."

pg 71 "...but now eluding death seemed to have become the central business of his life and bodily decay the entire story."

pg 95 "No one could say there wasn't enough sadness to go around or enough remorse to prompt the fugue of questions with which he attempted to defend the story of his life."

pg. 119-120 "We didn't sleep. She cried all night long."
"For four whole nights? That's a lot of crying for a twenty-four year old Dane.
I don't think even Hamlet cried that much."

pg. 156 "Old age isn't a battle. Old age is a massacre."(less)

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Jun 30, 2011

Stuart Vyse rated it

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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 Droege rated it

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Shelves: fiction, literary

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

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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...moreI 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 with all of my family members, I tell myself. I will strive to understand the greatest aspirations of my closest friends. I will love my work and I will work for love. I will always look at the passing countryside through the eyes of a painter. I will examine each social situation with the empathy and curiosity of a novelist. I will listen to every song as if were Mozart's last concert. I will make love with the enveloping desire that stretches our senses taut and leaves behind the less holy, savage world of honking cars and passing jumbo jets. I have seen death, I tell myself, and now I know how I want to live the rest of my life.

Months and years go on. For our sanity, we, the non-believers, repress even the slightest reflection of death and the road between right now and the eventual day when whoever remains will stand solemnly around our grave, the vessels to carry forth any influence or wisdom we may have imparted; perhaps even the very DNA — that mysterious computational code of life — that has been handed down from generation to generation since our zoological ancestors. Which is to say that we repress the overwhelming evidence of our constant biological decomposition.

This is a novel about biological decomposition. About our bodies breaking down even when our minds are not ready to; even when we are intelligent enough to know that there is, in fact, no distinction between mind and body. About the loneliness and regret that await us when we are able to take stock of every wrong decision, of every selfish act, of the detriment we've caused others, and thus ourselves. At 75-years-old, atonement ("reconciliation between God and man," says the OED), must seem absurd to the non-believer. Eventually I assume that we reach the age where we simply try not to think about such things and we wait for our time to come.

Everyman is the most metaphysically depressing book I have ever read. It only took two days to finish, yet every ten pages I asked myself, What is this all for? This highlighting of pages, this reading of newspapers, this traveling around the world, this working toward slightly more transparent governments. Why? I still have no answers; only that it is usually better to not ask such existential questions. Or, perhaps, the remedy is to come face to face once more with death. We are all emotional philosophers after all.(less)

· see review

May 04, 2011

Michael rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

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

· see review

Feb 11, 2011

Elsje rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-2007, maandboek-boekgrrls

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 ...moreOp 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 matig boeien, met name door hun uitgebreidheid. Maar de personen zelf, dus als ze meer dan hun kwalen zijn! Die kluisterden me aan het boek.

Bij de boekgrrls werd al snel de parallellen tussen Elckerlijc en Everyman. Wat opviel was dat in Elckerlijck een man wordt uitgenodigd door de Dood. De man wil pas meegaan als hij gezelschap heeft. Everyman daarentegen kan juist geen maatje vinden. Alle mensen in zijn omgeving zijn òf al dood (zijn ouders), òf te druk (zijn broer), òf inmiddels door hemzelf verlaten (Phoebe), òf hebben hem juist verlaten (zijn laatste vrouw), òf anderen hebben hen nodig (Nancy). Het gekke is dat Roth de situatie uit Elckerlijc eigenlijk omdraait. Zolang de hoofdpersoon in gezelschap is gebeurt hem niets. Hij komt immers elke keer goed door de operaties heen? Die laatste operatie is de situatie anders: hij ondergaat die alleen. En juist dan wacht de dood dan niet langer en slaat toe.

Het leven dat hij leidt in het ouderendorp zou het toppunt van heerlijkheid moeten zijn, maar het is vooral een toppunt van eenzaamheid. Zijn vader heeft een jaar of 10 voor zijn dood zich diep in zijn geloof gestort. Maar voor onze man biedt dat geen troost, geen houvast, geen gemeenschap. Integendeel.
"Religion was a lie that he had recognized early in life, and he found all religions offensive, considered their superstitio0us folderol meaningless, childish, couldn't stand the complete unadultness - the baby talk and righteousness and the sheep, the avid believers. No hocus-pocus about death and God or obsolete fantasies of heaven for him. There was only our bodies, born to live and die on terms decided by the bodies that had lived and died before us."
Bijna een geloof tegen het geloof. En zo doet de hoofdpersoon in alles zijn best om er vooral niet bij te horen. Met die vreselijke eenzaamheid als zijn beloning.

Ik weet niet of ik mezelf tot de jongere generatie mag rekenen (ik ben 37), maar ik voelde geen ergernis over de hoofdpersoon (lastig toch dat die geen naam mag hebben, ik zoek telkens naar andere termen om duidelijk te maken over wie ik het heb :-) ), maar vooral mededogen. Maar aan de andere kant moet ik wel toegeven dat ik wellicht toch ook iets van ergernis voelde over het eindeloos tot in de kleinste details beschrijven van alle kwaaltjes en aandoeningen. I couldn´t care less! Is dat iets dat met mijn leeftijd te maken heeft of kunnen al die details me gewoon niet zoveel schelen? Ziek is ziek!

Ik herken het wel, mensen die over weinig anders kunnen praten dan hun kwaaltjes. Dat komt veel voor bij ouderen, maar mijn eerste vriendje, die ernstig ziek werd toen hij 16 was, kon op een gegeven moment ook nergens anders meer over praten. Voor mensen wiens wereldje eigenlijk niet groter is dan hun kwaal, is dat ook het enige gespreksonderwerp. Net als jonge moeders alleen maar over hun baby kunnen praten (sprak zij vanuit ervaring :-) ). Vreselijk irritant voor anderen om hen heen!
Roth beschrijft het op p. 80 als volgt: "All but two were older than he, and though they assembled each week in a mood of comradely good cheer, the conversation invariably turned to matters of sickness and health, their personal biographies having by this time become identical with their medical biographies and the swapping of medical data crowding out nearly everyting else."

Uitgebreid werd gediscussieerd over de perfectie van alle bijfiguren. We kwamen erop uit dat dat eigenlijk allegorieën zijn: die broer, Phoebe en Nancy waren ook wel erg perfect en engelachtig hoor, zoals de Deugd, Geselschap, Familie etc ook betaamt. Dat zou mij ook ergeren :o) En het Deense modelletje was natuurlijk de IJdelheid ten voeten uit.

Ik hoop toch eerlijk dat doodgaan niet per definitie eenzaam is. Natuurlijk doe je het alleen, maar eenzaam? Om een wellicht kromme vergelijking te maken: klaarkomen doe je ook alleen maar in goed gezelschap voelt dat toch zeker niet eenzaam :-))

Al met al, een mooi boek waar ik veel over heb nagedacht.(less)

· see review

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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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