by Philip Roth
This surprising novel from Roth is like being at the surf line. The water, though in motion, has a calm, unbroken surface. Then suddenly something snags, or accumulates, or breaks its surface tension. It foams, bubbles, gushes, gnashes. If you're standing in it, you might be knocked down, dragged un...
This is my favorite Roth novel.
The only Roth I'd ever read was Portnoy, back when it came out (practically), and the Plot Against America - which didn't impress me at all. So I came to this book, which I listened to on audible, with a prejudice against Roth. I didn't like him, thought he was a fake, he didn't "look" like much of ...
Coleman Silk is a light-skinned African American who has been pretending he was white since his 20's. He becomes a professor at a small liberal arts college and moves his way up to the position of Dean of the school. But, he casually makes a comment about absent students being 'spooks' because he h...
Roth is so thorough! He delves deeply into characters other authors might pull in to play their part and then quickly dismiss, but he explores them only insofar as they contribute to the answers to the questions. Deep background and psyche.The Human Stain's questions are all about identity: the limi...
Someone, somewhere coined a phrase which I shall now steal, without remembering where I picked it up and thus being unable to give proper credit: this is a novel about the "Unbearable Dudeliness of Being." Philip Roth is a Very Serious Author which is why he can get away with writing novels that lin...
Gave up. I don't know, men and their untiring, world-siring sex drives just don't hook me. Lots of male mythologizing going on. No thanks.
This was the book that got me hooked on Roth
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