The Anatomy Lesson [Paperback]

Philip Roth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 1996

At forty, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction—pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Now his work is trekking from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Zuckerman himself wonders if the pain can have been caused by his own books. And while he is wondering, his dependence on painkillers grows into an addiction to vodka, marijuana, and Percodan.

The Anatomy Lesson is a great comedy of illness written in what the English critic Hermione Lee has described as "a manner at once...brash and thoughtful... lyrical and wry, which projects through comic expostulations and confessions...a knowing, humane authority." The third volume of the trilogy and epilogue Zuckerman Bound, The Anatomy Lesson provides some of the funniest scenes in all of Roth's fiction as well as some of the fiercest.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Anatomy Lesson is a ferocious, heartfelt book...lavish with laughs and flamboyant inventions." —John Updike, The New Yorker

"Roth has a genius for the comedy of entrapment.... [He] writes America's most raucously funny novels." —Time

"One of Roth's most unsparing and revealing books...forceful and startling." —Newsday

From the Inside Flap

At forty, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction?pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Now his work is trekking from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Zuckerman himself wonders if the pain can have been caused by his own books. And while he is wondering, his dependence on painkillers grows into an addiction to vodka, marijuana, and Percodan.

The Anatomy Lesson is a great comedy of illness written in what the English critic Hermione Lee has described as "a manner at once...brash and thoughtful... lyrical and wry, which projects through comic expostulations and confessions...a knowing, humane authority." The third volume of the trilogy and epilogue Zuckerman Bound, The Anatomy Lesson provides some of the funniest scenes in all of Roth's fiction as well as some of the fiercest.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (January 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679749020
• ISBN-13: 978-0679749028
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #496,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In the 1990s Philip Roth won America's four major literary awards in succession: the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995), and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for American Pastoral (1997). He won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for I Married a Communist (1998); in the same year he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House. Previously he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Counterlife (1986) and the National Book Award for his first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959). In 2000 he published The Human Stain, concluding a trilogy that depicts the ideological ethos of postwar America. For The Human Stain Roth received his second PEN/Faulkner Award as well as Britain's W. H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year. In 2001 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, given every six years "for the entire work of the recipient." In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians Award for "the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003--2004." In 2007 Roth received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Everyman.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Roth's best, June 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anatomy Lesson (Paperback)

This is one of my favorite works by Roth. It has everything that you would expect to find in a great Roth book such as humor, amazing prose that just swallows you up, and brilliant insights. The book follows Nathan Zuckerman on his quest to relieve himself from excruciating neck and back pain that has pretty much left him lying on his back in his apartment. That's all the set-up Roth needed to send you off on a comical and psychological quest with Zuckerman to find out what is wrong with him and cure it. Is it an actual physical problem or is it caused by some psychological guilt over his scandalous novel that ostracized him from his family? This is my favorite book of the Zuckerman trilogy.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zuckerman is back and more deprived than ever., July 15, 2008

By 

Brad Hoevel (Saginaw) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Anatomy Lesson (Paperback)

The Anatomy Lesson is everything you'd expect in a Nathan Zuckerman or Philip Roth novel. Though it doesn't top the exquisite beauty of Ghost Writer, it is an improvement over what I considered to be the lackluster Zuckerman Unbound.

Zuckerman's writer block has compounded and his life has grown exponentially more depraved since the last time we were with him. With the passing of his mother, Nathan Z. now feels guilty for the death of both of his parents. He hasn't spoken to his brother since the funeral. But worst of all, NZ is now bothered by a debilitating pain that has him confined to his New York loft. He self medicates with pills, grass, vodka, and c*nt. He's been to a dozen doctors and has received a dozen diagnoses. On top of all that he's going bald.

The written word alternates between introspective Zuckerman thinking about his life's problem and dealing with them in the aforementioned way. Eventually the idea comes into him to go back to school to become a doctor. He flies out to chicago where he takes on an alter ego and eventually ends up in the hospital after a drunken attempt at murder.

This book is not for everyone. Is it for you? Perhaps you've read some of Roth's work - Portnoy's Complaint, American Pastoral, etc - and you liked it enough to read more of the author's books. In that case, I suggest not only the Anatomy Lesson, but the entire Zuckerman BoundZuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue 1979-1985: The Ghost Writer / Zuckerman Unbound / The Anatomy Lesson / The Prague Orgy (Library of America #175). This is a collection of four short novels plus a television script, for the price you would pay for about two novels. Roth has procured for his reader luxuriously bound Library of America editions. Certified Archival paper and ink, a sewn in binding and a flexible but sturdy cover.

If you haven't read any Roth before, I suggest you start elsewhere, because here Roth is writing about his own writing, and if you haven't read any of the books that he's writing about writing about, then some (though not all) of the subtlety will be lost. One of the two, or both of the novels I listed above would be better places to start.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars My first book by Roth, September 12, 2010

By 

Zo (NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Anatomy Lesson (Paperback)

I must say, I never got engrossed in the book. I never stop reading books, no matter how uninteresting, but I just couldn't get into it and struggled constantly to figure out what was happening. Seemed to be quite a bit of ranting and raving and non-stop monologues or one-sided conversations about random stuff. Just wasn't impressed, maybe the reader would be better off starting with the first of the Zuckerman series' and working their way down?