Rating: 
Summary: An entertaining and deep meditation on human sexuality
Review: This is a review of _The Dying Animal_ by Philip Roth (in the Vintage Books paperback edition).A friend recommended this novella to me, and I'm very glad she did. It really isn't going too far to describe it (as one published review did) as a "masterpiece." The narrator is "David Kepesh," a sexagenarian college professor and minor celebrity intellectual (he has a PBS show) who routinely sleeps with selected female students from his advanced seminar (wisely waiting until after the grades have been turned in -- although nowadays only a "David Kepesh" or a Philip Roth could get away with even this). Kepesh describes (to an unidentified interlocutor, who remains silent until the book's final page) the trajectory of his affair with a Cuban-American student, Consuela Castillo. Along the way, there are interesting (and relevant to the story) digressions on America's sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's, the colonial-era sexual and religious radical Thomas Morton, the surreal nature of the Y2K celebrations, etc. This is one of those lovely books that works on many different levels. First, it is a funny book. Those with delicate sensibilities will be offended by some of the humor, but it's hard not to laugh. This is also (unsurprisingly for a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist) a well written book: "That body is still new to her, she's still trying it out, thinking it through, a bit like a kid walking the streets with a loaded gun and deciding whether he's packing it to protect himself or to begin a life of crime" (p. 4). But what most engaged me was how Roth uses the novel to explore some of the thorny issues that surround human sexuality. Let's face it: sex is complicated. Power is part of what complicates it. And the power is inescapable: "You're going to rule out dominance? You're going to rule out yielding? The dominating is the flint, it strikes the spark, it sets it going" (p. 20). We begin the novel thinking that the professor has the position of power in this relationship. (Campus sexual harassment rules seem to take this for granted.) But it soon becomes clear that Kepesh is the more infatuated one. (Or is he? For in this novel, as in real life, everything is complex and uncertain.) Sex is further complicated by marriage, for which Kepesh has harsh words: "Look, heterosexual men going into marriage are like priests going into the Church: they take the vow of chastity, only seemingly without knowing it until three, four, five years down the line" (p. 67). Kepesh's response to this discovery in his own case was to divorce his wife. His son never forgave him for this, and to prove that he is a better man than his father, he has stayed in an unhappy marraige rather than walk out. The general philosophical perspective of the book is (in a very broad sense) Nietzschean. The narrator is an advocate of freeing oneself from convention and sentimental attachment. His son is a prime example of someone whose "morality" is simply a self-mortifying effort at feeling morally superior to others. However, part of Roth's genius as a novelist is that he does not succumb to the temptation to force his characters to toe an ideological line. In this novel (again, as in life), reality is always at least a little bit in friction with our philosophy. So, Kepesh finds himself wondering aloud, "I don't even know after a while what I'm desperate for. ... Her soul? Her youth? Her simple mind? Maybe it's worse than that -- maybe now that I'm nearing death, I also long secretly not to be free" (p. 106). This is a Platonic view of love. (Like Kepesh, I apologize for my academic tone, but "I'm a teacher -- didacticism is my destiny" [p. 112].) For Plato, love is painful, love destroys who we were -- but it is also the only thing that can make us whole, and can make us greater than we once were. So, on the last page of the story (don't worry -- I won't reveal details), Kepesh is faced with an existential choice: is freedom more important than anything, and worth abandoning or destroying anything that interferes with it (as Nietzsche thought)? Or is the pain of love a guide to where we must go, to become complete (as Plato said)? This is "the eternal problem of attachment" (p. 105), and the central theme of this wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: The wish to love - and to hang on to life
Review: This is a work that is needle-sharp and poignant - and almost frightening in places. I read it in one sitting and was deeply moved. There is great tenderness and an aching acceptance of people and their confusions and inevitable weaknesses (and power) in it. Its several digressions (from its loose plot) are trenchant and valuable - and come as something of a pleasant surprise. As in so many of Roth's books several erotic themes predominate: they are Roth's currency, and his way into his psyche, and into the hearts and minds of his interesting characters. (For example, Roth never confuses sex with food.) In this layered story Roth takes on sickness, aging, and impending death. He intimately explores people who refuse to go quietly, who rail and protest and want to hang on to life and all of its exquisite pleasures - which for Roth, are frequently erotic. Rothian eros is so much more than sexual acts, but rather is so often at the heart of the matter, and the vantage point from which his readers might begin to understand the world. A great book that is thoroughly worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: No Ambiguity
Review: This is my first experience with Mr. Roth's work. For those who like their Authors to shine bright lights on any space containing thoughts that may be uncomfortable, outrageous, and offensive to some, this is a writer you can count on. Nothing he wrote offended me, however I would not suggest reading this book during a meal. Others have dissected the more complex nuances of this work, and I will leave that area to those who were part of the 60's decade. I found the book extremely well done, with dialogue as good as any I have read. A 70-year-old professor that plays Schubert and then nostalgically muses about Jimmy Hendrix reversed guitar riffs, takes a bit of getting used to. His obsession with women is not shocking, however his ability to objectify a woman at the most outrageously inappropriate moments can be labeled brutally candid, or severely unbalanced. There is much that can be commented on but I particularly enjoyed the Author when he had his players go off on some rant. The Professor explaining his status as a Karamazov Father to his Son was great. His friend George when counseling his friend and his despair regarding Consuela was outrageously witty. And then of course the Professor proclaiming his is pro-choice for her, unless of course it interferes with a loved one. The Professor's use of our Constitution to enlighten his rather dim Son was hilarious. And if there has been a better condemnation of Cuba under Castro I have yet to read it. Fascinating Author who creates memorable and complex characters, who also repeatedly goes farther off a limb than most would dare, and gets away with it. Very interesting work.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant essay on "letting go"
Review: This is not a sex book. It is an essay on "letting go" and on facing death. Sex is a metaphor for life; as it has always been for Roth. Perhaps, if I were younger, I may have missed the point. David's battle with depression is the war we all fight as seniors. And Roth's never ending struggle with the concept of committment has been an recurring theme throughout his career. It is true that he comes back to these themes many times, but he does so with great skill and creative talent. A few of his books have, in my opinion, been over the top, but this one is a strong "thumbs up"
Rating: 
Summary: One of his worse
Review: This is Philip Roth at his worse. Roth is one of the great American novelists, and one of the great comic geniuses of the form. I am reluctant to criticize his work because I know how good he can be. Over the past four decades he has produced a formidable body of work, and more importantly a few works at the highest level. But here the seventy year old cocker Kepesh's lust seems somehow ugly and mean. The whole tone of the work is low . The selfishness of the hero and his sexual adventures do not rescue him from being very dull. It is the kind of work which one feels guilty about reading afterwards.
Rating:
Summary: A masterful treatise on lust and aging
Review: This treatise on lust as a life force, juxtaposed against the onset of old age and the acceptance of one's inevitable mortality, is worthy of mention in the same breath as Nabokov's masterful treatise on love, Lolita. Like Lolita, the emotional power of the prose quickly forces the reader to disregard the immorality inherent in the significant age difference between the main character and the object of his desire. The narrator, David Kepesh, is a 62-year-old college professor who routinely seduces his female students. But in his relationship with the 24-year-old Consuela, he finds himself enslaved by his lust for her. Through Kepesh, Roth eloquently explores the conflict between lust and personal freedom, and the struggle to come to terms with the onset of old age and one's own mortality. Philip Roth is without doubt America's most eloquent literary voice, and The Dying Animal is perhaps his finest work.
Rating:
Summary: surprisingly touching
Review: What Philip Roth does so well is create the kind of character complexity that allows the reader to be attracted and repulsed by our randy protagonist at the same time. Much of this has to do with the fact that Kepesh knows himself so well -- he freely admits when he is using someone for his own erotic desires, his studied seductions of students, etc... Yet, he's also emminently likeable at the same time and not so cynical that he doesn't actually fall in love with Consuela at a deeper level. Consuela is well drawn too and between their interaction, Roth's terrific writing and the smaller scale of this book, I imagine Roth devotees will love this book and even new Roth recruits will understand why he's such a great writer and representer of the male psyche.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious
Review: Whatever Mr. Roth might once have had as an interesting and innovative writer, it's not here. The writing was so trite and the prose so purple I was offended even, and embarrassed for the author.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing like the best Roth and here's a tip
Review: When you love a book, as I did "Portnoy's Complaint" and "The Ghost Writer" even more than Roth's later books, though I felt keenly attuned to "The Counterlife" too, you Remember the scenes vividly even if, as I am, you are aging and tend to be forgetful. Now, I read "The Dying Animal" only two months ago, not 25+ years ago, and I remember breasts, the cancer, the man's consciousness, but vaguely as lesser books are forgettable or become vague. Just writing this helps me clarify how to tell if you love a book and if you find it worthy: how much and how well can you conjure back, vividly. Here, not much. But with Roth, one has a large selection from which to choose. I'm a Rothophile, and do not expect genius each time out.
| 
