Everyman by Philip Roth
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Book Reviews of Everyman
Book Review: Sparce, but powerful
Summary: 4 Stars
It's a testament to Roth's mastery of storytelling that he can cover an entire lifetime in 182 sparse pages and leave readers feeling like they've just finished a much longer novel. The book begins with the man's funeral, then flashes back to his youth as the obedient son of a jeweler and watch-seller. After a stint in the Navy, the man finds success as an art director and then creative director at a large New York ad agency. He philanders his way through three marriages, fathering two estranged sons and one adoring daughter. But most of the novel is spent on the latter part of his life, as his failing health causes him to worry much and envy his healthier brother. The unnamed protagonist ponders the human condition, the deterioration of the body and death. As he faces his own mortality, he does so without religion, without purpose and without companionship. I don't know how much of this novel is autobiographical, but the protagonist's thoughts and fears and remorse seems very real. And although I'm not at the same stage of my life, I found much of this imperfect character's life likable and relatable. I feel like I haven't articulated very well why I like this book so much, but beyond what I've said, I'm not sure I know.Book Review: The Body Electric Shorts Out
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the perfect way to take your Roth if you dig him in short doses. Roth has written a Saul Bellow novella and it shows why Roth should stick with this format. I love this book - it says its piece and gets out. The passages about the boy and the ocean bring you to tears. So lovely, so full of life, so full of wistful knowledge that you can try to stay with a beautiful moment but you're losing it as it happens. Every time I plunge into the surf at Ocean City, I think about Roth's transcendent meditation on the loss of youth, the loss of courage and the foreboding shadows of oblivion on the face of the water. I paddle hard and strong into the surf, tears in my eyes. Lovely stuff.
N.B. As usual, his dialogue stinks but there's so little of it, you can skim over it and miss nothing.
Book Review: Every man is not Everyman
Summary: 4 Stars
Life no doubt is a battle but I think massacre comes only into play if you screw up the good parts of your life. Roth tends to place us at the finish line with the start of Everyman and looking backwards as if all people screw their lives up in the same manner. I enjoyed the book because it gave me newfound appreciation for my own life, which although not dynamic, has certainly not been a massacre. His obsession with the end seems to stop his journey and focus his whole happiness, or lack of, around the destination of which he is certain he has the answer for us all. I find the mystery of life is as interesting as his biased observations of Everyman. Fortunately most of us seem more comfortable in aging. Every man will live better than Roth's Everyman if he doesn't wait till the end to fix it.Book Review: Take It As It Comes
Summary: 4 Stars
Roth's "Everyman" is a manifest for the inevitable: death. Roth presents the reader with a multi-dimensional protagonist that elicits both sympathy and scorn, albeit in the end one can't resist feeling sympathetic since the character's death is, at once, ill-timed -- yet timely. The protagonist's maxim, "There's no remaking reality...Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes", embodies but one of the themes permeating this novel and, in addition, speaks to the reluctant resignation to death and the ills that precede it.Book Review: fantastic
Summary: 4 Stars
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.