Everyman

Philip Roth - Everyman

Betyg: 4

Overall, I liked it, though it's not a very agreeable book; it follows the idea of "The Life And Death Of A Male Body" a little too closely for comfort, and really creeps me out at times. The idea that our entire physical existence - which, according to Roth and myself, is all the existence there is - is basically wormfood waiting to happen and that our bodies, marvels of physical ability when we're young, inevitably decay and fail us long before we die, unless we die violently or from disease. That's something we know, but don't necessarily want to dwell on.

The start of the book is a bit on the clinical side, as Scheherazade noted above; it gets better, and the last third features quite a few really moving passages. But this is the third Roth book I've read after "American Pastoral" and "The Plot Against America", and I actually think it's the least phenomenal. I like it, but... I dislike what it does to me. Also, it seems a bit on the sketchy side sometimes. But it's a good and very thoughtworthy book.

"It's because life's most disturbing intensity is death. It's because death is so unjust. It's because once one has tasted life, death does not even seem natural. I had thought - secretly I was certain - that life goes on and on." (Philip Roth)

"He not busy being born is busy dying." (Bob Dylan)