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Everyman By Philip Roth ( Vintage )
Release Date: 2007-04-10
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $13.00
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Product Description
Philip Roth's new novel is a candidly intimate yet universal story of loss, regret, and stoicism. The bestselling author of The Plot Against America now turns his attention from "one family's harrowing encounter with history" (New York Times) to one man's lifelong skirmish with mortality.
The fate of Roth's everyman is traced from his first shocking confrontation with death on the idyllic beaches of his childhood summers, through the family trials and professional achievements of his vigorous adulthood, and into his old age, when he is rended by observing the deterioration of his contemporaries and stalked by his own physical woes.
The terrain of this powerful novel is the human body. Its subject is the common experience that terrifies us all.
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fantastic ( 12345djp54321 )
roth rules. that dude can write a mean sentence. i'll save you from the praise you can read in the other 118 reviews for this title and i'll get straight to my issue, which is fully technical: THE WORDS ARE TOO LOUD. seriously, my edition of this book is in 12-point type which is great for the sight impaired but awful for the rest of us. gimme the squint-inducing haruki murakami-style 8-point joint any day. yeah, this is picking nits but the gargantuan font size rendered this fabulous book almost totally unreadable. woulda been a shame.
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 Excellent Writing, Though Lacking in Breadth of Vision
The New York Times trashed this book, as do a number of the reviewers. On the other hand, the reviews are generally positive, and the book won some awards -- and Roth is highly rated. Why the ambivalence?
Well, from a technical perspective, Roth is at the top of his game. He can tell a story. He tells this one with a minimum of dialogue. And when he does use dialogue, it is excellent. He should probably have used more dialogue in this because the book tends to come off as superficial.
All of which explains the controversy over Roth: is he a leading writer of the age or is there little substance here?
I tend to think there is substance here and found the book striking in dealing with the ultimate issue of coming to terms with mortality. Roth also is excellent in showing the special angst this issue has for men in an increasingly narcissistic age. Roth does not hate his main character, nor should the reader; indeed, there is considerable cause for empathy here. But Roth does not approve of the choices made by his un-named "everyman" protagonist, nor will the reader.
The protagonist's brother and second wife are both very sympathetic characters who offer a foil to "everyman". They are each distinguished by their positive attitude and energy and by their ability to have trust and faith. But each is sketched in only the broadest of broad brush strokes, which perhaps explains the lingering disappointment that a reader has after finishing the book.
Roth is no Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky in his ability to portray a positive way to deal with the ultimate questions of life. Nor does he offer some non-religious, secular kind of faith that other writers have offered -- like Faulkner, Hemingway, or Fitzgerald.
In the end, I'm on the fence when it comes to Roth. He's got great skills, but does not quite seem to have the breadth of vision necessary to write the great American novel.
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 Possibly the most over-rated writer in America ( wordsworthgreenwich )
Why do so many people pour forth pure and even apparently sincere adoration for this writer? He wins top literary awards. He sells millions of books. He writes short bleak, even hopeless books without stylistic invention about the lives and deaths of horrible, whining, shallow, narcisistic protagonists living in ugly places. Yes, every man lives and dies. We grow old. The body breaks down. We die. Give the man a PEN/Faulkner Award and a Pulitzer Prize. I can't imagine why so many critics find so much in Roth's faithless, tedious and banal writing. His omnipotent God is his own reason, which he worships and adores infinitely. He cannot admit that his own reason cannot possibly begin to understand the mysteries of this vast universe. So we hear his endless rants and complaints about his isolation, when in truth his moral choices have alienated him from people who, otherwise, might love him. How is this not poetic justice? Why is this self-occupied point of view so worthy of so much acclaim? How is Roth an everyman? Does he speak for you in this novel? God, I hope not. His perspective sheds so little light on my human condition. He writes about the ugliness of life like Booker Coetezee and Princeton Professor Joyce Carol Oates that they have become the 21st Century School of Ugliness. Is the beauty and breathless mystery of life even remotely within his limited grasp? Does he not understand how faith trumps reason almost every time? Roth seems intelligent enough. Does he think that his naive messianic faith in his reason's infallibility and sanctity will lead him stumbling somehow upon some semblance of happiness or even sanity? I am weary of the 21st Century School of Ugliness posing like a hooker in downtown Newark as rich, gritty reality and, therefore, truth. Inspire me. Don't lead me down another self-evident dead-end because your intellect can't take you beyond the shallow waters of ego-centrism. Show me some depth and profundity and wisdom or even some cause for hope for humanity. Show me you can really think. Show me you understand there is a world of beauty beyond your shallow existence that you have even begun to fathom. How could this possibly be among the most honored writing that we have to show for our great civilization? Generations to come will look back on this moribund writing and pity us that somehow we couldn't do any better.
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 Death Comes ( johnm-z )
Reading through many of the already posted reviews, it seems many people missed something in reading this book. It is in fact a book about living and ceasing to live. Yet there is something far deeper in these pages. The temptations of sexuality, battles of personal health and mortality, and maintaining relationships collide in this book as in life. The unnamed main character, like many of us, struggles to appreciate the beauty of the journey.
The main character has endured failed marriages and enviable affairs resulting in a strained relationship with his own children. His relationship with with his daughter Nancy is pivotal to the plot. Only toward the end of his journey does he see a genuine need for atonement. Flashing between the past and present, Roth exhibits the character's health issues in childhood, adulthood, and in present old age. Told in non-chronological fashion that alternates between the past and present, the placement of the passages is skillful. It serves to demonstrate the growing sense of fear and regret that comes to a head at the book's conclusion.
As a fan of Roth, I find myself either loving or strongly disliking his individual books. This book is certainly among his best and deserves the recognition that it has received.
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Intense emotional insights into regret and aging ( bobhank )
This book moved me deeply. I listened to it 3 years ago, and i never forgot it. I just had an aunt pass away, and i listened to it again. This book has a powerful effect on me. The book is narrated by 'Everyman', and the thoughts, regrets and anger the narrator communicates are ones i have felt as well. Roth really put together a tight story here. I appreciated the way the narrator is not objective, and unwittingly rationalizes his own behavior as understandable while condemning others for the same actions.
I listened to the book, with George Guidall narrating, and i highly recommend it. Mr. Guidall's narration was superb, accurately capturing the many emotions described.
The idea here is similar to Beckett's 'Krapp's Last Tape'. Both works are moving.
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