David Kepesh is white-haired and over sixty, an eminent TV culture critic and star lecturer at a New York college, when he meets Consuela Castillo,...
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Jun 25, 2008
Paul
rated it: 
Philip Roth is a sexist pig. Who can argue about that? When he drags his mind off his wilting member for a week or so he produces Operation Shylock which is a minor masterpiece. But that was just a vacation. For years now he just rewrites the same story where some old geezer (himself) fantasises about shagging some young bird and then - just like life - gets to shag her. Bah. What a pig.
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Oct 29, 2008
R.
rated it: 
Some great lines in this book about the absurdity of the human condition; how we're all frail and fuck up our freedom because that's the only room at the end of the green mile we're all marched down: the lethal injections of marriage, of family - yours, but mostly hers - and etc.
Some forget the option to run. And briskly.
And, thusly, some make it over the wall. But most are the wall. By the way, which one is Pink?
Some horror elements: Kepesh performs a mos More...
Some forget the option to run. And briskly.
And, thusly, some make it over the wall. But most are the wall. By the way, which one is Pink?
Some horror elements: Kepesh performs a mos More...
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Jan 05, 2009
Zinta
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Scanning this book as my other half poured over it with disarming fascination, I had to peek into what had so mesmerized him. After all, I hadn't read a Roth novel since my early 20's, already at that young age having determined that there was nothing here but adolescent angst. And this dying animal? Ah, but I had been right to not bother all these years and with all the in between novels. The story was quite the same one. This time the difference was only one of age. A Roth version of Lolita, a
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Mar 19, 2009
Evan
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I wish I could say that it is just as entertaining reading the puritan backlash Roth engenders among a large number of Goodreads' reviewers as it is to read Roth himself. But, alas, I cannot say that.
So, all right, this is not the masterpiece that, say, "Portnoy's Complaint" is, but I also can't deny that Roth speaks to me on every page. And that's because the man refuses to lie about human sexuality and motivation. What he says makes a lot of people uncomfortable. In many More...
So, all right, this is not the masterpiece that, say, "Portnoy's Complaint" is, but I also can't deny that Roth speaks to me on every page. And that's because the man refuses to lie about human sexuality and motivation. What he says makes a lot of people uncomfortable. In many More...
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Apr 19, 2009
Patricia
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Run, Consuela, Run.
As fast as you can. You are 24, he is 62. You have you whole life ahead of you. You have been reared by a large and caring family. He has made a career of living only for his own pleasure....ignoring his son.....and preying on his female students.
Run, Consuela, Run.
You will become invisible to him when you are 48.....you will become invisible to him when your body becomes the least bit flawed. He could be your grandfather, his son More...
As fast as you can. You are 24, he is 62. You have you whole life ahead of you. You have been reared by a large and caring family. He has made a career of living only for his own pleasure....ignoring his son.....and preying on his female students.
Run, Consuela, Run.
You will become invisible to him when you are 48.....you will become invisible to him when your body becomes the least bit flawed. He could be your grandfather, his son More...
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Jan 26, 2012
Ariadna73
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This book is written in the second person. There is this man, this professor that has a very defined strategy to hunt young women. He has the intellectual capacity and the ability to conquer them, he uses them for a while, and then he ends the relationship before the girls can say goodbye to him, and can even figure out what happened. He does that year after year, picking up his next pray from his class' students, every time more successfully than the time before, until he meets this extremely g
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Mar 01, 2009
Jamie
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Aug 09, 2011
I went to the library intending to get Portnoy's Complaint, but since that was checked out, I came home with this instead. Hmm ... maybe not the best introduction to Roth? It's a short book, but already by 50 pages in and having some idea of where the rest of the story would go, I decided this book just wasn't for me. It's not that it's overly pornographic (I mean, have you seen the kind of trash I read?). It's not even the incredible ick factor of a young woman's affair with a man old enough to
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Sep 19, 2010
Jeremy Allan
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A few years ago I had not read a page of Philip Roth. Then I saw the film adaptation of The Dying Animal, renamed Elegy (staring Ben Kingsley as Kepesh & Penelope Cruz as Consuela). To say I was taken by the film would be insufficient. What I can say is that immediately upon seeing the credits begin to roll, I thought to myself, "I must read Roth." And so I began soon after with the Zuckerman trilogy. It took me a while to lay my hands on a copy of The Dying Animal, though. Books
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Aug 28, 2010
Agnes
rated it:
Right after I finished this book I watched Elegy, which is a movie based on the book. I'd say you could skip the book and go straight to the DVD.
It's not that I didn't enjoy it. I just don't know that I would have enjoyed it if I didn't know as much about Roth's background as I do. Because you see, it was based directly on a situation in his life.
That situation is basically that he's an old man but he still loves the young ladies. He is a professor at a major university, More...
It's not that I didn't enjoy it. I just don't know that I would have enjoyed it if I didn't know as much about Roth's background as I do. Because you see, it was based directly on a situation in his life.
That situation is basically that he's an old man but he still loves the young ladies. He is a professor at a major university, More...
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Mar 27, 2010
Jeremy
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Jan 06, 2010
Jesse
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I cheated on my copy of Lolita and by downing Philip Roth's book over the weekend. If I was looking to get away from the tawdry sexuality of Lolita I could have done a world better, I think the age gap between the lovers in this one actually beats that between Humbert Humbert and his darling Lo. Wasn't my idea, I had an hour long BART ride ahead of me and I had fogotten the Nabokov so I asked my friend Evy for a book. She through this at me and I agreed because it was short, I knew I had to a
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Nov 22, 2009
Bob
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There are several related themes here - the one that feels like Roth simply spinning out his sexual fantasies is perhaps the least appealing. Is it unfair to say that is all he has ever written about, but when his persona was a masturbating teenager it was funnier than when he is a 62-year-old literary figure sleeping with his 20-something students? The second theme is aging, disease and death, written about movingly but all tangled up with sexual fantasies, and finally, the aforementioned narra
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Aug 06, 2009
Olivia
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The Dying Animal might as well have been me reading this book. The story picks up with the interesting truths of human sexuality, little revelations about aging and confronting death, and yet the combination here of sex and death still manages to fall flat. A young Cuban love interest, a randy old professor: so much to be explored right? An interracial relationship that crosses age too. In theory this stuff should be compelling. Roth however doesn't manage to get past discussing ass-shapes a
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Jun 15, 2009
Jeff
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Aug 12, 2011
Kyla
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I keep finding myself couched with older, male narrators, and enjoying it more than I would expect. (See The Good Soldier.) It's my first time with Roth, you know. Okay, enough. It took a day to push through this short, short novel, and it's a testament to the strength of the narration and the blatant refusal to cover up some lovely meditations on intimacy, sexuality, and mortality. I enjoyed it, with no thanks to this essay, Why I'm Happy I Became a Prostitute, which allowed me to be led to and
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Nov 01, 2010
Benji
rated it:
Halfway done, cant wait to read more -- this is one of those books that exactly speaks to me in the present moment where I am in life.
Now, reading this at the same time as I read Kundera -- man, it puts Kundera to shame, big time. The same stuff, often te same words, but very different voices and treatments -- legitimate consequences, for one thing. There's an ennui in Kundera, coming from the Old Continent, that doesnt exist in Roth. Even when they refer back to the 60s, somehow More...
Now, reading this at the same time as I read Kundera -- man, it puts Kundera to shame, big time. The same stuff, often te same words, but very different voices and treatments -- legitimate consequences, for one thing. There's an ennui in Kundera, coming from the Old Continent, that doesnt exist in Roth. Even when they refer back to the 60s, somehow More...
Oct 31, 2009
حتی اگر بخواهی منطقی به قضیه نگاه کنی وقتی مثل"دیوید"شصت سال را گذرانده ای و یک بار دیگر فرصت عاشق شدن پیدا کرده ای درستش این است که دودستی این فرصت شاید آخر را بچسبی .ولی خب "دیوید" می ترسد،همه ما ترسیده ایم حتی وقتی خیلی جوان بوده ایم.ترس از رنج کشیدن ترس کمی نیست،ترس از کنار گذاشته شدن.. و آنوقت ترجیح می دهی که به زندگی خالی ات ادامه دهی و فراموش کنی لحظه هایی را که می توانستی با عشق زندگی کنی.بعد ممکن است یک سال بعد باخبر شوی کسی که از ترس رها شدن کنار گذاشته بودی فرصت
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Apr 01, 2010
Steve
rated it:
I read it in one day. The usual from Roth: articulate, provocative, and lots of psychological analysis, "the unavoidable comedy of being anyone at all." (p. 72)
Roth brings back David Kepesh, a character from his least ambitious period, the 1970's, who [though this passage is Kepesh talking about his friend George:] "feels pure only in his transgressions." (p. 75) Kepesh was the guy who turned into a gigantic breast after thinking about them all day for 20 years. More...
Roth brings back David Kepesh, a character from his least ambitious period, the 1970's, who [though this passage is Kepesh talking about his friend George:] "feels pure only in his transgressions." (p. 75) Kepesh was the guy who turned into a gigantic breast after thinking about them all day for 20 years. More...
Nov 29, 2009
Claire
rated it: 
This book is Sex and Death. It centers around a 60-something lothario, a cultural critic and lecherous professor. Parts of this chapterless, fairly unorganized confessional/lecture angered and annoyed me. But was it edgy and honest or veiled condescending misogyny? Parts confused me. Parts upset me. Reading this was an unpleasant experience, but that doesn't mean it's not a book with important things to say. Ironically, it seemed to be something that demanded careful attention and contemplation,
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Jul 09, 2010
Dj
rated it:
David Kepesh is portrayed as an unapologetic brainy sophisticate and borderline sexual predator, a survivor of the 1960's who is a living advocate for a free-love ethic. His art is sex, not love: “Why but for the pleasure do I choose to live as I do, imposing as few constraints on my independence as possible?”
Yet he becomes seriously obsessed--attached--to a beautiful young women, the daughter of Cuban exiles, who for him is "a true work of art." While fixated on her bodil More...
Yet he becomes seriously obsessed--attached--to a beautiful young women, the daughter of Cuban exiles, who for him is "a true work of art." While fixated on her bodil More...
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Apr 14, 2010
Matthew
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You see that painting of a nude woman? That's an Amedeo Modigliani painting, a character in this book sends a post card with that nude printed on it. And I, like some naive coed horny for culture, am always impressed with Professor Roth's little references. If nothing else, they get me interested in something I didn't know about (Like Milton's essays on divorce?).
He also likes to sneak in passages on obscure portions of American history. Here we have Thomas Morton, the early Amer More...
He also likes to sneak in passages on obscure portions of American history. Here we have Thomas Morton, the early Amer More...
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May 09, 2009
Lauren
rated it:
I don't normally go back and read a book AFTER seeing the film ("Elegy" in this case), but the film was so well acted and so beautifully executed, that I was curious how much the film echoed to Philip Roth's book. Well, not very much at all apparently!
I also thought this would be a good opportunity for me to give Roth's writing another chance. I'm not sure I see the allure, this being the second of his books I've read. This particular read was very stream of consciousness, and a More...
I also thought this would be a good opportunity for me to give Roth's writing another chance. I'm not sure I see the allure, this being the second of his books I've read. This particular read was very stream of consciousness, and a More...
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Apr 17, 2009
Fatty
rated it:
saw the movie "elegy" before reading the book. i never intended to read it, but the movie was so tidy in ways that i felt roth could never bring himself to be. everything in the film is resolved before the end, whereas almost nothing is resolved in the novel, which i much prefer. there is such a richness to ambiguity, to doubt. often i read the sexuality of old men as an affront. this is, of course, unfair, but i can't help but feel that it comes across as condescending, and contrarily
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Dec 27, 2011
Gene
rated it:
Mixed feelings. I'll just put this quote up--something that resonated:
"People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open. She was a foreign body introduced into your wholeness. And for a year and a half you struggled to incorporate it. But you'll never be whole until you expel it. You either get rid of it or in More...
"People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open. She was a foreign body introduced into your wholeness. And for a year and a half you struggled to incorporate it. But you'll never be whole until you expel it. You either get rid of it or in More...
Aug 04, 2009
Louis
rated it:
I have never been a huge Philip Roth fan, probably because I was forced to read "Portnoy's Complaint" in a freshman college English class. This book drags out the old tropes about an aging man obsessed with sex who of course can bed any woman he wants of any age--the mystique of being a college professor. Aside from being a creepy power abuse, the book does deal sensitively with some mortality issues. The book was made into a movie starring Ben Kingsley named "Elegy", whic
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Aug 16, 2011
Katie
rated it:
Philip Roth has written a novel in which the main character worships sex like some men worship God. Captivating and interesting, I'm still not sure this story has any actual substance. We are taken into the life of a man living a cliche - the aging professor preying on his young students.
He scoffs at conventional morals - "age-old American story: save the young from sex. Yet it's always too late. Too late because they've already been born." Still, it is hard to take him se More...
He scoffs at conventional morals - "age-old American story: save the young from sex. Yet it's always too late. Too late because they've already been born." Still, it is hard to take him se More...
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Apr 22, 2011
LA
rated it:
You can tell a great deal about Roth when you pick up the paperback version of this book. His bio is not at the back of the book its in the front. This is a short book which you can read in one sitting. David Kepesh is a high-minded professor who sleeps around but as usually is the case with those who think they are out of reach with love he meets Consuela Castillo and nothing is much the same. His friend George O'Hearn is just as fascinating and sharp-tongued. It's a brilliant book about
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Aug 28, 2009
Caroline
rated it:
Reading this book directly after reading The Professor of Desire was an exercise in frustration. Why does Roth change Kepesh's biography in such a way as to make it incompatible with the one given in Professor? That book ends sometime in the mid-to-late 60s, at which point Kepesh is in his mid-thirties, already divorced from his childless first marriage, and his mother has passed away. Yet in The Dying Animal Kepesh has a 42 year old son (since the book is set in early 2000, we can assume he was
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Nov 05, 2009
April
rated it:
As the blurb says, "The Dying Animal" is about David Kepesh, an elderly professor who devotes his life to "emancipated manhood." This involves waking up to the sexual revolution of the 1960s (despite being of the wrong generation), leaving his wife and son and pursuing pleasure and independence at all costs. How well this works out for him is for the reader to decide.
David's way of life is threatened when he becomes obsessed with one particular woman. This rela More...
David's way of life is threatened when he becomes obsessed with one particular woman. This rela More...
