The Breast

Rating:
Summary: "It Began Oddly"
Review: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

- opening sentence of "The Metamorphosis," by Franz Kafka Gregor had it easy compared to Professor David Kepesh, a college professor who wakes up one morning to find he has been transformed into a gigantic breast, in Philip Roth's aptly-titled "The Breast."

"It began oddly," Roth starts the 89-page book, and from the opening sentence readers are plunged into the new world of Kepesh.

Refreshingly enough, Roth refrains from turning "The Breast" into an extended pornographic joke. Instead, he spends his time exploring David's state of mind- how would you feel if you suddenly transformed into a giant mammary gland?- which makes for an interesting psychological drama.

First, David describes the experience of being a breast as though he does not quite believe it himself: Is it all a dream? How is he able to communicate with the others around him? Where'd his face go?

Later, David's mentality changes, first to a perverted interest in a female nurse who washes him, then utter paranoia that he is under constant surveillance while in his hospital room, and finally a blatant refusal to accept his condition and the belief that he has gone mad.

Things degenerate to the point where Kepesh believes he cannot hear his doctors' actual diagnoses; because of his "insanity" he only hears what he wants to hear.

Throughout all this, we see how David's wife, Claire, deals with her husband's new state, as well as the reactions from his father, his doctors and nurses, and his mentor, who collapses in giggles at the sight of David the Breast.

"The Breast" is one big fat Franz Kafka admiration camp, where all the questions about

"The Metamorphosis" apply. Is David really a breast? Or is he mentally insane? Is he really being watched?

But the Kafka homage doesn't end there. Kepesh mentions strained relations with his father. Gregor's daddy wasn't a picnic either. Kepesh also calls the two hairs growing from his nipple his "antennae."

At one point, David even comments that most of the characters' names begin with the letter "K".

To which his doctor, Dr. Klinger, replies, "The alphabet only has twenty-six letters. And there are four billion of us in need of initials for purposes of identification."

It's a smart book, one's that's certainly different from the usual literary offerings. It's certainly a concept film director Spike Jonze should contemplate following "Being John Malkovich" up with.

It's a wild, short ride of a tale and one worth taking just for the sheer spectacle of it all.

Rating:
Summary: Slight but worthwhile
Review: Ah, Phillip Roth. The dirty old man of American literature; if he didn't exist, someone would have surely created him. Ironically enough, that someone would probably be one of the people who find him and his work to be terribly offensive. At times, Roth seems to be writing specifically to offend, as if he knows that without his dirty thoughts, a lot of self-appointed puritans would have a lot less outrage to keep their days active. Certainly, The Breast is a book that superficially seems to be designed specifically to offend delicate sensibilities. The book's narrator wakes up one morning to discover that he has been transformed into a huge female breast. The rest of this rather short book (I completed it in a little less than an hour) is devoted to detailing how this one man adjusts to his new life as a breast. Though Roth never goes for any glib explanations as to how or why this transformation took place, one can't help but get the feeling that the narrator -- so obsessed with sex -- finally just transformed into that which he had become fixated. However, one can't also help but feel that this explanation is a result of reading too much into Roth's whimsical, deadpan fable.

Anyway, as for the meat-and-bones of this review, this is a book that I have to recommend to all Phillip Roth fans and to anyone with an affinity for bizarre, off-center satire. If you don't like Roth, you probably won't care much for this book. As well, this is not a book to read if you're looking for an introduction to Phillip Roth. Though amusing, its certainly not anywhere near his best work.

Rating:
Summary: Slight but worthwhile
Review: Ah, Phillip Roth. The dirty old man of American literature; if he didn't exist, someone would have surely created him. Ironically enough, that someone would probably be one of the people who find him and his work to be terribly offensive. At times, Roth seems to be writing specifically to offend, as if he knows that without his dirty thoughts, a lot of self-appointed puritans would have a lot less outrage to keep their days active. Certainly, The Breast is a book that superficially seems to be designed specifically to offend delicate sensibilities. The book's narrator wakes up one morning to discover that he has been transformed into a huge female breast. The rest of this rather short book (I completed it in a little less than an hour) is devoted to detailing how this one man adjusts to his new life as a breast. Though Roth never goes for any glib explanations as to how or why this transformation took place, one can't help but get the feeling that the narrator -- so obsessed with sex -- finally just transformed into that which he had become fixated. However, one can't also help but feel that this explanation is a result of reading too much into Roth's whimsical, deadpan fable.

Anyway, as for the meat-and-bones of this review, this is a book that I have to recommend to all Phillip Roth fans and to anyone with an affinity for bizarre, off-center satire. If you don't like Roth, you probably won't care much for this book. As well, this is not a book to read if you're looking for an introduction to Phillip Roth. Though amusing, its certainly not anywhere near his best work.

Rating:
Summary: Readable, but only partly successful.
Review: How's this for a premise: a university professor one day inexplicably turns into a human breast. It's a memorably bizarre set-up that launches Roth on all his usual speculations on the nature of human sexuality. But Roth is unable to do much with the idea, and the novel simply lurches along to a tepid conclusion. Still, this is very readable, like all of Roth's fiction; it's entertaining enough for a quiet night at home.

Rating:
Summary: Silly- A Kafka wannnabe
Review: I don't have much to say about this story, other than it is not silly enough or over the top enough to be good. Absurdism is fine, but there isn't really much beyond a man turning into a giant boob. It seems to rip off Kafka & even points it out, but lacks the depth of Kafka. The characters are not as interesting as K, or Samsa, or any other Kafka characters. The Rilke poem on the last page is a poor translation, and looks silly following this story- The "you must change your life" feels forced ... It' doesn't flow like in Woody Allen's "Another Woman"- where that same poem line is used.

Rating:
Summary: Going Bust
Review: I would agree with the review below that Roth doesn't do enough with his scenario here. Roth seems to shrink away from the obvious potential for travesty that his subject allows; instead, he retreats into cool academicism, choosing to discuss the philosophical ramifications of Kepesh's predicament, and thereby insuring the book's "serious" credentials. He's too careful: he never really gives in to the debasement and inherent misogyny implied by Kepesh's metamorphosis into a female breast (I'll take honest misogyny over dishonest political correctness anyday). This tactic would work if Roth showed us the ridiculous desperation of the character's attempt to save face, but Roth seems to share Kepesh's objectivity. The rollicking wit and audacious deviltry of a novel like Portnoy's Complaint are nowhere to be found. (And the book lacks the queasy nightmarishness of Kafka, to whom it owes an obvious debt.) Roth seems to want to revel in the bad taste and ridiculousness of male fetishism, on the one hand, and yet still maintain a dignified demeanor. This is a tricky feat to pull off, and I don't think he is entirely successful. One moment of absurd comic bliss remains: the breast's recitation of Othello's final soliloquy has got to be one of the most ingenious mock-heroic scenes in all of literature. If Roth had pulled off more scenes like that, this book would be a minor classic of literary travesty (despite all the attempts by academics to cleanse it of impurities by their insistence on the book's serious themes and imagery).

Rating:
Summary: Roth does Kafka
Review: More a curiosity than great literature, and certainly not representative of the best Roth has to offer as a novelist. For that, you're better off picking up a copy of "American Pastoral". What works here is the sheer audacity of Roth's style and the effortless flow of his narrative.

"The Breast" is the first in a trilogy completed by the recently published "The Dying Animal". Professor of comparative literature David Kepesh wakes up one day to discover himself in the hospital, having been transformed into a 155-pound female breast. The ensuing 89 pages depict his rationalization for such a sudden and drastic change, his trying to convince himself and others - his girlfriend, his father, his doctor, and a university mentor - that he has only gone insane, and his quest to satiate an ever-present, raging libido.

None of this really amounts to much and it certainly isn't great literature. I kept expecting it all to come to some elevated meaning. It doesn't. But that aside, I did enjoy reading it, found myself cracking a grin or two, and as ever with Roth, I was in awe of the flow of his narrative and the strength of his voice.

It's an hour or two's diversion but by no means much more than that. Bottom line - not bad, but not earth-shakingly good. For that, crack open "American Pastoral", which is in my opinion one of the greatest American novels of the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Rating:
Summary: funny & moving
Review: philip roth's novella the breast is an absolutely enchanting read, while comparisons with kafka and gogol are inevitable, roth himself acknowledges it as the protagonist, a professor of literature wonders about his misfortune.

the book presents a brilliant picture of insanity & human frailty, morality & love. the breast is a fast, pacy read and each page resonates with the assurance of roth's immense talent. although not roth's best book, this will make a delightful addition for fans of roth. read this if you are crazy about roth's style and are not overly prejudiced in favor of kafka's metamorphosis. this is in short eminem doing pink floyd.

Rating:
Summary: Wow...
Review: This book is incredible. I actually had to put this book down several times while reading it just to "relieve" myself. A GREAT read. Definitely worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Grade B Roth
Review: This is Roth's effort at being Kafka. But the transformation made here does not have the striking originality and effectiveness that Kafka's does. Roth has a formula here which he plays out to the end. And the whole premise of the work is simply not very interesting. With Roth the effort to prove and justify is strong and this often leads to some of his worse fiction. This is mediocre Roth which means its language still has a vitality greater than most. But it does not convince and it does not move. It appears that the formula disappears once one seeks for true elegance.