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Title: The Dying Animal by Philip Roth ISBN: 0-375-71412-X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 July, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (41 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Desire, Despair and Deliverance
Comment: Once again Roth surprises and delights readers with a novella of the later life of David Kepesh, the protagonist of two of his much earlier works, _The Breast_, and _The Professor of Desire_. Desire in Roth's characters certainly springs eternal; it is however less the concrete fleshly concerns about which Roth is superficially writing than it is about the abstract concern of his protagonist with love as both subject and object. Don't be fooled by the outward trappings of his fiction; Roth has spent his career weaving intricately patterned fiction and being misread by those who see only what is on the surface. This is a wonderful, hopeful book about personal salvation, and, we hope, is but one more reason why Philip Roth should be the next American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Rating: 4
Summary: Disturbing Yet Riveting
Comment: I have to say The Dying Animal broke no real new ground in the "Lolita" genre, and in typical Roth fashion, nothing really happens in the book, as he pretty much tells the story in first person past tense as if he were on a couch talking to a shrink. In short, he breaks every rule writers are advised to follow and the result is exactly what The New York Review of Books hails "A Disturbing Masterpiece." It is a perfect example of why I bypass the best seller table at any bookstore I patronize.
It is an ugly story about a pathetic character and yet, because of Roth's ability to tell a story, I found myself unable to look away, and when I closed the cover for the last time I found myself unable to refrain from thinking about the book and how it left me feeling, and it made for quite a discussion with my girlfriend, to whom I'd read aloud several passages and who'd scanned the book cover to cover herself. Is it any wonder Roth has won just about every writing award, including the Pulitzer?
Rating: 2
Summary: The Elderly Adolescent and His Angst
Comment: 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, an elderly man obsesses over a young woman who couldn't possibly care less, except for the intoxication of her power over the old wretch. Been there, read that. Has he nothing new to say?
Even as my partner and I swam into ever deeper waters of discussion, my presentation of the woman's perspective, his from the side of the aging man, I had to concede that Roth has the technical skills of good writing well in hand. It takes small talent to write action; it takes skill to write about nothing, and still he moves the reader along. This does indeed read like a confession, an emotional purging, and it is done well enough, but to earn a Pulitzer, there must not only be skill, but substance as well. No prize here.
If one other point is earned, I give it for title. So precise, so right, this title is a masterstroke in itself. Aside from that, spare me such men, spare me such novellas. I wish only such skill might have been used to tell more than one story, as Roth appears to have only one to tell.
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Title: The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth ISBN: 0679749004 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 15 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Human Stain : A Novel by Philip Roth ISBN: 0375726349 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Breast by Philip Roth ISBN: 0679749012 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 15 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: I Married a Communist by Philip Roth ISBN: 0375707212 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 26 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth ISBN: 0679772596 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 06 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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