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Everyman
Escrito por Philip Roth
Narrado por George Guidall
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The bestselling author of "The Plot Against America" now turns his attention to one man's lifelong confrontation with mortality in this fiercely intimate yet universal story of loss, regret, and stoicism.
Acciones del libro
Comenzar a escucharInformación sobre el libro
Everyman
Escrito por Philip Roth
Narrado por George Guidall
Descripción
The bestselling author of "The Plot Against America" now turns his attention to one man's lifelong confrontation with mortality in this fiercely intimate yet universal story of loss, regret, and stoicism.
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A rare book, starting with a funeral, by an author that seems to develop more and more mystery to me. Every novel is so different and this one is truly special. The protagonist is dead. But you should just read it. And reflect yourself. Are we better? Are we more honest? Are we ... alive? And doing the good thing? A rare book indeed.
I picked this book from my shelf knowing that Roth had died a few days earlier and ashamed of not having read any of his books yet, despite having a few shelved for years. I didn't know then that I was about to read the musings of an aging man, reflecting on his life and the death of those around him, the fragility of his health, his many regrets, and the loneliness that he sunk in during his last years. This aging man, then I learned, resembled much of Roth himself -who had written the book at age 73- and, while it would be too early for me to judge without having read his many other works, it appears to me that the author wanted a chance for redemption with this book. One could empathize with male writers if only for the clarity and mastery with which they can ask for forgiveness in their late works, but then again, those who do not have the gift of the written word and suffered their neglect and selfishness do not have that much of a chance for empathy.
Late in the 15th century, an anonymous playwright penned a Christian morality tale in which an average man is confronted by Death for a final reckoning. The story’s ostensible moral is rather straightforward: In the quest for eternal salvation, all men must ultimately stand alone with their good deeds to define them. More than five centuries later, Philip Roth gives us Everyman, his modernized version of the same tale. Roth’s account begins in a decrepit cemetery with the sparsely attended funeral of an unnamed Jewish man whose life story is then revealed throughout the rest of the novel. And what a sad story it turns out to be. Aside from some pleasant memories from a boyhood spent working in his father’s jewelry store and taking family vacations to the Jersey shore, there is little in the protagonist’s existence that can be considered joyful. A serial philanderer throughout adulthood, he has been divorced three times from women to whom he cannot remain faithful and he has walked away from three young children from two of those marriages. Although successful as an advertising executive, the job brings him little fulfillment as he longs to pursue the art career he abandoned early on. He even becomes estranged from the older brother he idolized in youth, envying his sibling’s robust health will he endures a series of medical hardships. At the end of his life, this Everyman is truly alone, but very much as a result of the choices he himself made.I did not find a lot that I enjoyed while reading Everyman. To be sure, there are parts of the book that are moving and beautifully written; this is a Philip Roth novel, after all. However, rather than being an updated morality tale, the story is really a lengthy lamentation on the miseries of growing old and seeing one’s health deteriorate along the way. I suppose that part of the story is universal—death (hopefully in old age) is indeed an appointment we all will keep—but very little else about the protagonist’s existence resonated with me or resembled anyone of any faith, gender, or color that I know. I suspect that this was a very personal story for the author, perhaps even autobiographical at times. Sadly, though, that did not turn the self-indulgent ruminations and late-in-the-game regrets of an unpleasant character into an engaging experience for this reader.
This was the first of Roth's books that I ever read. The only thing that I will say is that reading this book lead to an obsession with Roth that I'm still not getting over and which may be contagious...
Phil, Me and Everyman - I was at an 'in-between-books' impasse for a couple days, then picked up a book I'd found at a library sale last summer. The book is EVERYMAN, Philip Roth's 27th book, published in 2006. It's a grim little tome, with a black dust jacket, the one-word title framed by a thin red-line square, the author's name writ large in white block letters, and a black and white photo of a stern-faced Roth, arms crossed, on the back cover.I only vaguely remember reading the original EVERYMAN - a 15th century morality play - or some version of it back in graduate school. Its Christian theme of life and death and a final accounting of ones deeds in life to determine whether one deserves salvation - heaven - or not seems an odd thing for Philip Roth to be writing about. I mean, he is Jewish, after all, and, judging from his writing, he puts little stock in any kind of an afterlife. So I was not surprised to find this story a pretty dark one. The unnamed protagonist - Everyman, I presume - is retired to the Jersey shore from a successful career in advertising. He has been a philanderer and hedonist, married and divorced three times, and now, at 71, finds himself alone and in declining health, having survived numerous heart surgeries, with six stents inserted, as well as a defibrillator, and faces more of the same on the immediate horizon. His two sons from the first marriage have little to do with him. His daughter, from the second, is devoted to him, but, divorced with young twins, has problems of her own. Everyman, alone and sometimes agitated and afraid, reflects back on his life, summing up his many mistakes. He wonders how he's ended up this way, and how it's all gone by so quickly, still mourning the loss of his beloved parents, as well as his own youth and virility.I don't know if EVERYMAN was a bestseller, but I strongly suspect it would not have been a popular choice for book club discussions among the elderly. It's just too damn dark, too starkly honest about the winding down of life, too sad. But I love the writing of Philip Roth. I'm frustrated too that I've not managed to keep up with his prodigious output. (I felt the same way about Updike's stuff.) The first Roth book I read was PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT, which, at 25, I found howlingly funny. My first year of teaching, I even used it in a literature class, and this was in a pretty conservative, solidly blue-collar sort of community. What was I thinking? I still wonder, over forty years later, how it was that I was never summoned to the Department Chair's office over a complaint from an outraged parent. Nope. Never happened. But I do remember it was kinda hard to get a good class discussion going about Alex Portnoy. After PORTNOY I went on to read several of Roth's other early books. One of them, LETTING GO, remains a special favorite. Of his later books, I loved AMERICAN PASTORAL and THE HUMAN STAIN. But this book, EVERYMAN, despite its dark theme, touched me with its truths. I nodded in agreement when I read the following passage, about a trip Everyman makes to the beach community where he spent summers with his parents and brother. He has lost interest in his painting and doesn't know what to do with his time."... it was still his beach and at the center of the circles in which his mind revolved when he remembered the best of boyhood. But how much time could a man spend remembering the best of boyhood? What about enjoying the best of old age? Or was the best of old age just that - the longing for the best of boyhood ...[?]"An interesting question, no? Indeed, I spent five of the most enjoyable years of my own retirement doing that very thing - remembering, and not just my boyhood, but my whole life. And writing it all down, or trying to. Four memoirs in six years, and now nothing for the past five. And I wonder. What's next? Do I have more to write of my own life? Or do I keep on doing only this: writing about other people's books? It's a question I ponder on an almost daily basis, as I continue to read and read and read some more.Yes, I could relate to Everyman. At a particularly low point near the end, he has just visited his second wife, who has had a crippling stroke; then he made some difficult phone calls to friends who were terminally ill and to the wife of his former boss, newly widowed. And then, "what he wanted to do ... [was] to revive his own esprit by phoning and talking to his mother and father."His parents by this time are both long dead, of course, but I understood that urge, that 'want.' I've had it myself. I understood too the sadness of Everyman at no longer possessing "the productive man's male allure." And I nodded sadly yet again at his realization of what was probably left for him -"But now it appeared that like any number of the elderly, he was in the process of becoming less and less and would have to see his aimless days through to the end as no more than what he was - the aimless days and uncertain nights and the impotently putting up with the physical deterioration and the terminal sadness and the waiting and the waiting for nothing. This is how it works out, he thought, this is what you could not know."Yes, EVERYMAN is a pretty unrelentingly sad sort of book, full of grim, unwelcome truths about how things really often do turn out. If there really is a final reckoning, as the 15th century EVERYMAN play suggests, then Roth's Everyman would undoubtedly "have some 'splainin' to do" as Ricky Ricardo might say. But Philip Roth? Yeah, I know he's had a couple of wives, and all the scholars and experts say a lot of his work is highly autobiographical. But even so, I think I would LIKE this guy. I think it would be great to sit with him over a coffee and talk about things - about books and writers and writing, and, and well, about life in general.Roth was featured in a PBS special last year, and, if I remember correctly, he may have said he's done writing. That he is retiring. It's not something you hear very often from writers. Mostly they just keep on writing until, well, until they die. Updike did. A couple friends of mine, Curtis Harnack and Ed Hannibal, did. But then I remember that another author, mystery writer Lawrence Block, recently announced his retirement too. So what the hell, if Philip Roth wants to retire, then he should. But I hope he enjoys it more than his own poor Everyman did. I just wonder what he'll DO, ya know?So, anyway, if you should happen to read this, Phil, and you're bored, call me, okay? We could meet at McDonald's and get our senior coffees, and we could talk books. Seriously.
Lovely language - totally depressing story
Am Ende des Lebens ist jedermann von Gebrechlichkeit, körperlichem Verfall, Einsamkeit und schließlich dem Tod bedroht. Das ist (aus meiner Sicht) die Botschaft des Buches von Philip Roth. Das Buch beginnt mit der Beerdigung der namenlosen Hauptfigur und erzählt dann rückblickend Aspekte der Lebensgeschichte, die im Wesentlichen mit Körperlichkeit und Beziehungen zu tu haben, den beiden Aspekten, die im Alter relevant sind. Doch Beziehungen zu pflegen war der Hauptfigur nicht gegeben: Am Ende bricht sogar die Beziehung zum geliebten Bruder ab und die körperliche Attraktivität, um derentwillen zumindest kurze Liebesabenteuer möglich waren, schwindet. Ich mochte das Buch, auch wenn es eigentlich deprimierend sein müsste, hat es doch einen humorvollen Unterton. Außerdem gibt es die Botschaft, dass man zwar den Körper nicht im Griff hat, Beziehungen aber bis zu einem bestimmten Punkt doch pflegen könnte. Und das gibt doch wieder Hoffnung.
There is a firmness to the view of life in this book. A very earned wisdom, but I can't help but wonder if this everyman is too everymanish. Too much of a story that is already written within the gray areas of others. But it's a pretty tale, something altogether morbid, depressing and comforting.
This book is about an old man's life concentrating on loss, regret and stoicism. I found this book very bleak and depressing to be honest. It is very short and I think that if you are after something that is emotional then this book would be perfect as it is very emotion driven rather than plot. This feels strangely like a biography written from a third person perspective as it shows a man's life until death. Instead of telling the reader everything, it seems to only concentrate on the negative aspects of his life and this is why I felt I could only give this book 3 out of 5 stars.
Based on a number of nearly unanimous reviews, I began this book with a few expectations.
I expected the protagonist to be a self-obsessed emotional vampire; Roth's characters are often needy and broken, cyclically building up their lives, tearing them down, and wounding anyone foolish enough to mistake their emotional pawing for genuine love. The author met that expectation with room to spare.
But I also expected to have my heart broken. Most reviewers mention that this is a truly depressing book. It does indeed catalog the horrors of aging. You will not be spared any of the details. Illness and time do conspire to mentally and physically break down the protagonist, his friends, and his lovers. However, I didn't feel any of the loss I felt when reading Roth's The Dying Animal.
Here's what I think went wrong. Roth shovels the Everyman's life to you in great big heaps of unbalanced dirt. You learn everything there is to know about his transgressions and his pettiness. You follow every surgery he's had the pleasure to endure from childhood to the grave. But for some reason, you're spared all the best moments of his life. All the joy comes to you through the filter of a bitter old self-loathing man.
I'm going to do Roth the kindness of assuming Everyman was intentionally written to be so one-sided. Still, I don't feel at all depressed -- I'm indifferent. I never cared for the guy and the specifics of his life really do not apply to my own or the lives of those I love. The novel sounds one melancholy note and it's flat.
I expected the protagonist to be a self-obsessed emotional vampire; Roth's characters are often needy and broken, cyclically building up their lives, tearing them down, and wounding anyone foolish enough to mistake their emotional pawing for genuine love. The author met that expectation with room to spare.
But I also expected to have my heart broken. Most reviewers mention that this is a truly depressing book. It does indeed catalog the horrors of aging. You will not be spared any of the details. Illness and time do conspire to mentally and physically break down the protagonist, his friends, and his lovers. However, I didn't feel any of the loss I felt when reading Roth's The Dying Animal.
Here's what I think went wrong. Roth shovels the Everyman's life to you in great big heaps of unbalanced dirt. You learn everything there is to know about his transgressions and his pettiness. You follow every surgery he's had the pleasure to endure from childhood to the grave. But for some reason, you're spared all the best moments of his life. All the joy comes to you through the filter of a bitter old self-loathing man.
I'm going to do Roth the kindness of assuming Everyman was intentionally written to be so one-sided. Still, I don't feel at all depressed -- I'm indifferent. I never cared for the guy and the specifics of his life really do not apply to my own or the lives of those I love. The novel sounds one melancholy note and it's flat.
I re-read this book last week and enjoyed its dark meditations on maleness once again. "The life and death of a male body" is a phrase that comes up at least once, and rightly so. It reminds me of my father, and of his generation of successful east coast children of immigrant Jews. And, it is marvelous for its brevity and the way in which it captures the totality of a flawed human life, as reflected upon by the one who lived it. "Old age is not a battle; old age is a massacre" Roth wants us to know, and after you read this you will have been well warned.
This was the first novel by Philip Roth that I've read (I know..I know) and this was recommended by my mom. I have gone back and forth on this one, whether it deserves a 3 or 4 star review. I think it has some meaningful and highly personal things to say about the loss of function and death of a human being at the end of life. The main problem I had with it (besides the fact that I felt it was a bit short running at 182 pages) is that I didn't like the man who was dying very much. If the intention was that I should grieve over a man who wasted his life never having a fulfilling relationship, never being a good father, never able to be faithful to any of his wives, Philip Roth had another thing coming to him. I don't feel sorry for this man. If the lesson here instead was to a young man reading to explain to him...Danger!!! This is NOT what you want to become..don't go down this same road..well, I think it might be useful for someone like that (in other words, the young philandering type) to read this. Still, that would also assume that the young unfaithful male is an intellectual and would choose to spend his time reading this novel. I would guess this doesn't apply to your typical unfaithful young male but I suppose the one that it does apply to would more likely be changed by it.
On a personal level, I just couldn't relate too much to this and couldn't apply it to my life whatsoever. It's clear Roth is a great writer but I need to read something much different than this for me to connect with it emotionally.
Memorable quotes:
pg. 16 " ...the battle to remain an unassailable man had by then been lost by him, time having transformed his own body into a storehouse for man made contraptions designed to fend off collapse. Defusing thoughts of his own demise had never required more diligence and cunning."
pg 71 "...but now eluding death seemed to have become the central business of his life and bodily decay the entire story."
pg 95 "No one could say there wasn't enough sadness to go around or enough remorse to prompt the fugue of questions with which he attempted to defend the story of his life."
pg. 119-120 "We didn't sleep. She cried all night long."
"For four whole nights? That's a lot of crying for a twenty-four year old Dane.
I don't think even Hamlet cried that much."
pg. 156 "Old age isn't a battle. Old age is a massacre."
On a personal level, I just couldn't relate too much to this and couldn't apply it to my life whatsoever. It's clear Roth is a great writer but I need to read something much different than this for me to connect with it emotionally.
Memorable quotes:
pg. 16 " ...the battle to remain an unassailable man had by then been lost by him, time having transformed his own body into a storehouse for man made contraptions designed to fend off collapse. Defusing thoughts of his own demise had never required more diligence and cunning."
pg 71 "...but now eluding death seemed to have become the central business of his life and bodily decay the entire story."
pg 95 "No one could say there wasn't enough sadness to go around or enough remorse to prompt the fugue of questions with which he attempted to defend the story of his life."
pg. 119-120 "We didn't sleep. She cried all night long."
"For four whole nights? That's a lot of crying for a twenty-four year old Dane.
I don't think even Hamlet cried that much."
pg. 156 "Old age isn't a battle. Old age is a massacre."
Everyman tells the story of one man’s life - his triumphs and failures of his personal relationships as well as his struggles with his health. While the main character is not painted as the “everyman” Roth shows that all lives are connected in our constant progression towards death. I was not particularly impressed with this book. There were definitely some great moments including the beginning and the end of the novel. However, I felt unable to sympathize with the main character. Roth always writes eloquently which made reading this novel enjoyable.
Great writing, albeit a bit boring. I guess to really appreciate this book one should be in the right mood, to be able to soak in every word and appreciate the philosophy and the art. It's a bit like Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, even though I enjoyed Mrs. Dalloway a lot more.
I enjoyed listening to Everyman on cd in the car however I tend to get distracted listening while driving. The downside of listening vs reading is that you miss out on the skillfulness of the writing of which Roth is a master. Everyman deals with a protagonist who is confronting his mortality as an old man plagued with ailing health. He looks back regretfully on a life that was formed by decisions that resulted in multiple marriages and alienation from family and friends. Everyman is a depressing slice of life.
A poignant and lonely story. Ivan Ilyavich is a philandering, New Jersy Ad Man.
I rarely give up on a book. Even when I'm only somewhat interested, I always push through to the end. But about halfway through disc 2 of this one, I decided it just wasn't for me. I didn't dislike the writing style itself, but the subject matter, or maybe the way in which it was presented, just wasn't appealing to me. I haven't read anything else of Roth's, but this reminded me somewhat of Ian McEwan, who is another author that people seem to love but whom I have a lot of trouble sticking with (I guess I'm thinking most specifically of "Saturday"). I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that if I can't truly appreciate a novel, it's not vital that I finish it. And thus, I won't.
Picked this one up off my shelf after the First Tuesday bookclub recently discussed 'Portnoys Complaint'. This is Roth's most recent novel and even though it is fine writing it is possibly one of the most depressing I have read. The story begins with the unnamed main character's funeral and then goes back over his life as a young Jewish boy who helps out at his fathers jewellery business , his marriages, affairs and relationships with ex wives, children and family. There is particular focus on his various illnesses and numerous surgeries which he explores in regard to aging, death and mortality. Roth is getting on in years and there is no doubt he is thinking deeply about his declining years and end of life.
A simple description of the book is that it is a depressing story about growing old and facing the end of one's life. Facing the litany of medical problems. Facing the regrets of our personal relationships and the painful process of looking back and examining one's life with the understanding that this is nearly it. What could have been done better? What is the best use of the little time that is left to make amends? I found the novel difficult to read for several reasons. The main reason being that protagonist is a fundamentally flawed man- as are many of Roth's characters- and hard to sympathize with despite the title of the book. He is filled with a great deal of pain and regret as he nears the end of his life but I could not help but feel it was deserved.
This was my first Roth book, and while it was well written, my GOD was it depressing. I'll definitely read more of his books, but I felt like I needed to read a self-help book to recover from this one. :)
Philip Roth is going to die and he's not happy about it. He's also not particularly fond of qualifying for an AARP membership nor of the physical degradations and loss of virility that accompany such an honor.
So tired of Roth, like I am tired of Woody Allen, tired of Saul Bellow. So tired of the New York Jewish scene, which was also my father's, and my grandfather's. When I read Roth, or watch Woody Allen, it feels like I am being loaded, again, with heavy, stained suitcases, and asked, again, to walk back, years into the past, into the sad, perfumed, self-regarding, romantic, culturally stifled world that I managed so many years ago to escape.
Although the perspective is definitely Western, Philip Roth hits the nail on the head with this book about aging and facing death. It evoked so much discomfort that I rushed through it. Hmmm............
Gorgeous sentence after gorgeous sentence--Roth’s prose is glorious and rich. The story involves the remembrances of one of Roth’s troubled atheistic Jewish Everymen. Not much new here: Roth tosses around guilt and remorse like a monkey throws shit: copiously and everywhere. And as such, when it hits, it’s horrific and terrifying. Roth delves into a lot of dark places. At times touching and maudlin, at others times just a bit too much of what you’d expect of Roth’s characters; Everyman nonetheless is worth a sustained afternoon of reading.
While not a great novel--its only slightly longer than a novella--it's a good read by an artist very comfortable with his craft. The tone rarely hits a false note, and the main character is more endearing that some of Roth's other protagonists.
A rather depressing but very engaging look at a man as he grows old. Really made me feel my own mortality as I read, even though I'm only 29!
This is the first book I have read by Philip Roth. I read a review and liked the basic theme of the story. This nameless man relives his life from his funeral back. His life is full of regrets, bad health, envy, failed marriages and broken family relationships. It's kind of a dark and sad book in the fact that life goes fast and not the way we hope for or planned. Ultimately it's how we choose to live and play the cards we are dealt. I very much enjoyed this book. It's a quick read but well worth it.
This is a slim volume and a quick read. A book about mortality (that's "death" to you and me). A book about the time when the "remote future" has become the present. Philip Roth's description of a day at the beach in the man's (he is never named) youth is perfect; a moment revisited in the last couple of pages when he arrives at his inevitable conclusion.Favourite line of the book: "Then he resumed where he'd left off, looking through the large sunny window of their boyhood years."Not too maudlin. Get's you thinking though. Worth a read, though maybe only if your "remote future" is not particularly near ...
Slim in pages but expansive in scope, Philip Roth's Everyman is a meditation on life viewed from it's endpoint. You can still see glimpses of the younger, vintage Roth (it wouldn't be a Roth novel with at least one sexual escapade intimately detailed), but the main thrust of the novel is one of sadness and contemplation, as the nameless protagonist review the life he led as his few remaining friends and relatives preside over his burial.If it sounds rather depressing that's because it is, but Roth is brilliant enough of a writer to tell the story in such a way that you're compelled to keep reading straight through. I started this last night with a cup of coffee and finished it this morning reading to my son while he ate some cheerios and I had another cup. There's no real plot to speak of: just a series of reminisces about past glories and failures, and regret at the things we've done and haven't done.Everyman is one of Roth's more accessible books, although I don't think it's so representative of his work that I would use it as a starting place.
Giving this book a rating was more difficult then I would like to imagine.It is the rather straight forward of a person trying, and failing, to come to terms with his own mortality. I can applaud the effort, as it is something all of us torture over at some point (hence, Everyman). But in terms of theme, the story is not contributing much to the genre.Credit can be given to to Roth for his writing. The short book was a page turner, and despite the chronology of the story being somewhat haphazard, I never felt lost in it.Good enough I guess.