Allison read and liked brian's review of The Humbling:

"about one simon axler, a world renowned stage actor who is humbled by the fact that he's lost his gift. he doesn't know how to play a scene, his timing is off, the words come out sounding false, he cannot get out of his mind and lose himself in the r...more about one simon axler, a world renowned stage actor who is humbled by the fact that he's lost his gift. he doesn't know how to play a scene, his timing is off, the words come out sounding false, he cannot get out of his mind and lose himself in the role. so he lays around his house in the woods and contemplates suicide. 'all the world's a stage'/identity/and-other-important-themes aside, what is interesting here (and what, i suspect, certain reviewers will write about upon the release of this book) is how 'meta' roth is getting. he's always been pretty biographical, sure, but i, for one, feel roth, like simon axler, has lost his touch. is the humbling a cry for help? a literary suicide letter? approached in that light, the book is certainly made more interesting.

well, i love the old coot. as flawed as parts might be (particularly the third volume), his USA trilogy is, for my money, as astonishing and revealing about the latter half of the american century as dos passos's trilogy was for the first. but old rothie has seemed on auto-pilot for a while. he lives alone in a house in the woods and frequently (contemplates suicide?) speaks of the death of the novel and its growing irrelevance. then why write? is it all he knows how to do? whatever. (apologies for drawing too many parallels between author and character and the reductive and annoying pop-psychologizing but it's kind of impossible to resist on this one)

the humbling isn't without merit or interest -- and had it been part of a collection of longish stories i think it would've fared better. but on its own the deficiencies and one-notedness are too glaring. reader beware. (less) "