43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Satisfying Coda to Roth's "American Trilogy", June 4, 2001
It's useful to think of "The Dying Animal" as a coda to Roth's magnificent trilogy of books on post-war America--"American Pastoral", "I Married a Communist", and "The Human Stain." It functions much the same way as "The Prague Orgy" did as that novella summed up his earlier "Zuckerman Bound" trilogy. The themes of the earlier books are cast in unexpected new ways that show even more light. The protagonist of this new book is Kepesh, not Zuckerman, but the preoccupations of this book are the same as the American trilogy--how do you reinvent yourself like a good American who can supposedly just shuck off the past; what is the price you pay for that spiritual reformation (or deformation.) This David Kepesh's history is somewhat altered from the Kepesh of "The Breast" and "The Professor of Desire"; he now has a middle-aged son who hates him and one somewhat shadowy ex-wife who he abandoned during the sexual upheaval of the 60's. Otherwise he remains the same; a hedonistic moralist intoxicated by female beauty (especially breasts: he loves a voluptuary Modigliani painting of a female nude that appears on the jacket of this novel.) In his sixties he begins an affair with Consuela, a decorous young Cuban-American woman who presses all the right buttons for the aging professor. Intertwined with the story is a marvelous debate on the meaning of the cultural revolution of the '60's and '70's. Kepesh is predictably king-hell for freedom, but his son is a constant unwelcome reminder of the damage done. One again as in "Operation Shylock" and the American trilogy Roth brilliantly shows a man tearing himself in two trying to "break on through to the other side", to a life without history and consequences. Once again Roth shows us that he can write an English sentence better than anyone else. Again we get his excruciating, tragic, comic self-indictment. For at the end it turns out that Consuela needs Kepesh in a most desparate, life-or-death sense and Kepesh is forced to confront the fact of her not as just a breast, not as his somewhat dim little girlfriend (as he thoughtlessly sees her) but as a human being in terrible trouble. The final pages as as harrowing as anything Roth has written. This book, by the greatest living American writer, is required reading for lovers of American fiction.
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The wish to love - and to hang on to life, August 7, 2001
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.
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The return of David Kepesh: Eros v Death, July 11, 2001
A noteworthy feature of contemporary American fiction was the resurgence of Philip Roth. Eight marvellous books in a row. His trio of experimental novels: The Counterlife (that gives post modernism a good name); Deception; and Operation Shylock; the intensely moving biography, Patrimony; for this reader the finest novel of the 1990s, Sabbath's Theater, a nihilistic masterpiece of sex, death and despair; and the new Zuckerman trilogy dissecting post war America, American Pastoral; I Married a Communist; and The Human Stain. Could this great run continue? Sadly, not.
The Dying Animal is a disappointment. Written in a first person narrative it reintroduces David Kepesh, a Professor of English. Kepesh is the man that transformed into a breast in Roth's Kafkan fable, The Breast; and detailing the sexual life of a literary academic in Professor of Desire. Kepesh is a creation of the 1960s, and this new novella indicates that kepesh has not progressed very far. In order to beat off notions of his mortality Kepesh seduces students (although in a concession to the passage of time, Kepesh no longer seduces them when students, having the decency to wait until they pass through his class). This brings a whole new meaning to the concept in modenr education of the Staff-Student Liaison Committee.
In his monologue, addressed to a listener revealed only in the final paragraphs, Kepesh remembers various lovers concentrating on Consuela, a Cuban emigree. The intense relationship between the two, and Consuela's subsequent absence and the effect on Kepesh, forms the crux of the novel.
The novella is very readable. Roth remains a wonderful stylist. But, as he has been subject to on previous occasions Roth is criticised for pronography. This novella is not in my view pornographic. Certainly there are passages that are explicit, but far more pornographic is Kepesh's relationship with Birgitta in The Professor of Desire - Birgitta, like The Monkey in Portnoy's Complaint, being a girl that would do anything. The abusive nature of that relationship is pornographic. The relationships here are not like that (although the ostensible power imbalance inherent in sexual relationships in some recent Roth novels remains).
While sex plays a role in the novella it is not its main focus. Kepesh is worried about growing old, worried about death. One Scottish poet, Norman MacCaig, said the thing that upsetted him most about growing old was that all his friends were dying. Ditto, for Kepesh, and so Roth - as he did in The Conterlife and Sabbath's Theater and The Human Stain, wrestles with death. Sexual activity is used as a means of keeping mortality at bay. Love is not what keeps Kepesh going, sex is. This not only underpins the septugenarian Kepesh's life, but also the lives of his friends, even to the death bed. Kepesh's stroke-ridden friend, a serial adulterer, gropes his wife in his last concerted physical act.
One interesting theme developed in the novella is the relationship between Kepesh and his son (another of these father/son relationships beloved by Roth's writing - see the first Zuckerman trilogy - and his reading - such as his praise of John le Carre's A perfect spy). The son's stumbling path into adultery (based on love) acts as a neat counterpoint to Kepesh's serial philandering.
I think this book merits discussion, much thought. Roth is a serious writer after all. But, why the relatively low rating? For me, there are two principal reasons. This novella simply revisists themes he has explored before, in more depth, with more rounded characters. Kepesh's trials here mirror those of Mickey Sabbath in Sabbath's Theater. Roth is not giving us anything new here. The second reason relates to the ending. The return of a character, and their motivation for returning to visit an old man is absurd and lacking credibility. The absurdity of the final pages serves to undercut the power of some that has gone before.
If you enjoyed this novella try Sabbath's Theater, a funnier, angrier, darker take on similar themes.
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