Indignation (Vintage International) [Paperback]

Philip Roth (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 6, 2009 | Series: Vintage International

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

In 1951, the second year of the Korean War, a studious, law-abiding, and intense youngster from Newark, New Jersey, Marcus Messner, begins his sophomore year on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohio's Winesburg College. And why is he there and not at a local college in Newark where he originally enrolled? Because his father, the sturdy, hardworking neighborhood butcher, seems to have gone mad–mad with fear and apprehension of the dangers of adult life, the dangers of the world, the dangers he sees in every corner for his beloved boy. Far from Newark, Marcus has to find his way amid the customs and constrictions of another American world.

Indignation, Philip Roth's twenty-ninth book, is a startling departure from the haunted narratives of old age and experience in Roth’s recent books and a powerful exploration of a remarkable moment in American history.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307388913
• ISBN-13: 978-0307388919
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #644,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2008: Enter once again into the echo chamber of Philip Roth's memory and imagination. In the second year of the Korean War, a butcher's son--a straight-A student wound tight with aspiration--flees Newark and his father's increasingly unhinged fears for his safety. Heading midwest, he finds a strange collegiate land of fraternities, football heroes, V-neck pullover sweaters and white buckskin shoes, panty raids, and mandatory chapel services, and, most startlingly, a young woman with desires of her own. Like another fiction grandmaster of his generation, Alice Munro, Roth seems able to spin infinite surprising tales from a few familiar building blocks, and in Indignation, his 25th novel, he has constructed a taut, haunting (and, as always, funny) story that ranks among his best. Reading at times like a buttoned-down Portnoy's Complaint (if it's possible to imagine such a thing), Indignation records a series of small explosions against '50s propriety and the dire consequences they lead to, capturing the misery of desire amid repression, along with the greater terror of being trapped in endless, relentless memory. --Tom Nissley --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Roth's brilliant and disconcerting new novel plumbs the depths of the early Cold War–era male libido, burdened as it is with sexual myths and a consciousness overloaded with vivid images of impending death, either by the bomb or in Korea. At least this is the way things appear to narrator Marcus Messner, the 19-year-old son of a Newark kosher butcher. Perhaps because Marcus's dad saw his two brothers' only sons die in WWII, he becomes an overprotective paranoid when Marcus turns 18, prompting Marcus to flee to Winesburg College in Ohio. Though the distance helps, Marcus, too, is haunted by the idea that flunking out of college means going to Korea. His first date in Winesburg is with doctor's daughter Olivia Hutton, who would appear to embody the beautiful normality Marcus seeks, but, instead, she destroys Marcus's sense of normal by surprising him after dinner with her carnal prowess. Slightly unhinged by this stroke of fortune, he at first shuns her, then pesters her with letters and finally has a brief but nonpenetrative affair with her. Olivia, he discovers, is psychologically fragile and bears scars from a suicide attempt—a mark Marcus's mother zeroes in on when she meets the girl for the first and last time. Between promising his mother to drop her and longing for her, Marcus goes through a common enough existential crisis, exacerbated by run-ins with the school administration over trivial matters that quickly become more serious.... The terrible sadness of Marcus's life is rendered palpable by Roth's fierce grasp on the psychology of this butcher's boy, down to his bought-for-Winesburg wardrobe. It's a melancholy triumph and a cogent reflection on society in a time of war. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307388913
• ISBN-13: 978-0307388919
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (111 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #644,986 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.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 84 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars There Will Be Blood October 2, 2008

By R. W. Rasband VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Butchery and blood are recurring images in Philip Roth's scalding new novel which is probably his darkest comedy since Sabbath's Theater. The images are shocking yet appropriate since this little novel deals with a big subject: what someone once called "the meat-grinder of history." Many of Roth's familiar elements are here. The naive young Jewish hero meets up with an unstable gentile girl in the 1950's and farce ensues. But this is 1951 and the Korean War hovers over the story like a thundercloud. I wasn't very enthusiastic about Roth's last couple of novels which seemed rather flaccid to me. But this one has suspense, narrative drive and storytelling fury that recall his great "American" novels of 10 years ago, only in concentrated form. "Indignation" left me wrung out, like you hope a novel will do for you.

Marcus Messner announces on page 54 that he is dead (this is no great spoiler, believe me.) The dead narrator is a time-honored narrative strategy in film noir (see Sunset Boulevard (Special Collector's Edition) and the novels of Jim Thompson, especially Savage Night) and it's interesting to see how Roth uses it. Although there may be an alternative explanation for Marcus' state; check the chapter titles. As he tells his story we learn how he came to die. Practically driven out of his home by his loving but suddenly paranoid kosher butcher father, he flees to go to college in the same town as Sherwood Anderson's com/Winesburg-Signet-Classics-Sherwood-Anderson/dp/0451529952">Winesburg, Ohio (Signet Classics). The smart but inexperienced boy finds himself way over his head. He is flummoxed by a beautiful girl he dates and is unable to tolerate either a flamboyant gay roommate or the strictly conservative college administration with its Christian affiliation. Instead of laughing it off and making the best of it, as apparently Roth in real life was able to at Bucknell, Marcus goes to war with his surroundings. His private mantra becomes the Chinese national anthem he learned in grade school with its refrain "indignation, arise!" And in a hideous irony it is the Chinese army that butchers Marcus on a hill in Korea some months later.

This is a remarkable book: a terrible tragedy with farce, a funny book where the laughs catch in your throat. It once again displays Roth's famous psychological toughness; no one is let off the hook here. And Roth plays fair; although he displays what is coming to be his obvious disdain for religion of all kinds, he shows Marcus playing a role in his own destruction through the kid's own intolerance and pride. Although the president of the college is a Republican political hack (as Roth sees it), the author lets him deliver the theme of the novel in a thunderous speech near the end of the book: you may try to hide from history: but like Jonah inside the whale, it will find you. Read more ›

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Indignation - my take December 27, 2008

By Emily R. Odza

Format:Hardcover

Do we each have a turning point or series of turning points in our lives that lead us to our fate? Or do we simply have things happen to us, in combination with our childhoods, our makeup, our genetics and the world events which catch us up, which in all their minutiae add up to "fate?" This is a small perfect book about which one should say nothing so that its progression and its surprises are not telegraphed in advance!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite books of all time April 27, 2010

By Derrick Hibbard

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I recently picked up this little book--my first exposure to Philip Roth--and was completely blown away. Someone described Roth as writing "perfect novels," and I think that this might just have been perfect. Short, concise, yet rich and descriptive. When you read this book, you are carried away into a different time, when things were simpler, yet so much more complex. You connect with the narrator because we've all been where he is--or at least, we've all experienced similar things--horrible roommates, rocky relationships with parents and authority figures, first love, first break-ups, and crazy adolescents.

The ending caught me by surprise--and the sheer irony of it all reminded me of life itself--no matter what happens, or what we do, life just marches on... Sometimes in the way we least expect it.

Great book, would certainly recommend.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Prolific Roth Keeps Rolling October 22, 2009

By David A. Moyer

Format:Paperback

Unlike some Roth books, in which he seems to be outrageous for the sole purpose of provoking the reader, this book can stand with his best work. It sits aside The Human Stain as a personal favorite of mine. He seemlessly weaves the the story of the main character into the historical backdrop of the Korean War, working in the timeless themes of parent-child relationships, love, and the human desire to make sense of the chaos around them. It served as an inspiration for my book, Life and Life Only. Roth seems in a hurry to write as much as he can while he can, yet the writings of his recent years are carefully crafted and a joy to read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars It needed something more October 26, 2009

By Reading Wasp

Format:Paperback

I have always enjoyed Philip Roth's work and this was no exception. The plot was interesting and characters vivid. The tale of a Jewish boy, who is the first generation to attend the school is universal in many ways. The inability to fit in, the cultural issues and the non functional family are something most of us can relate to. The reason I gave this book three stars is because I felt that there was something missing. It was almost like in the last part of the book, author got bored of the book and just wanted to end it. The end was abrupt and almost incomplete. However, maybe that is the moral of the book - the end is abrupt and there is no real plan in life.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Write a Novel June 13, 2009

By Ann Ahnemann

Format:Hardcover

One of the best of 2008 for sure. Philip Roth provides the reader with an example of how to write a novel with perfect economy so rarely seen in modern overblown fiction- no matter how entertaining. In this little book are all the essentials: history past and present in vivid color, characters one can see inside and out, psychology of choice, life's vicissitudes, humor, pathos, reflection. Nothing is unnecessary here- all moves with perfect and interesting cadence. One is rooting for these people, while fearing the glint of the knife and the red of blood which surely will follow. Perfect.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Extraneous September 28, 2008

By Mark Stevens VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I think this book will be read for decades, maybe longer. It's succinct and fiercely written.

The centerpiece clash between Marcus Messner and Dean Caudwell is a brilliant verbal boxing match that speaks to assimilation, organization, power, faith, ignorance and, yes, indignation. There's nothing extraneous here. The writing is taut and boiled-down to its essence. "Indignation" made me think about people's attitudes towards their own self-worth and how much a role that plays in their character - from would-be girlfriend Olivia to Messner's mother, from the dean to Sonny Colter.

This book is about entitlement in a very powerful way. It's about oppression by organization, whether it's frat boys or the college superstructure itself. It's about the people in the trenches (not giving anything away) doing the messy work of life. It's about societal norms and niceties--and everything, in the end, that's not so nice. Brilliantly conceived, well executed and power in every page. For the return on investment (in other words, this won't take you long to read) this is one of the best.