Sabbath's Theater [Paperback]

Philip Roth (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 6, 1996 | Series: Vintage International (Book 1)

Sabbath's Theater is a comic creation of epic proportions, and Mickey Sabbath is its gargantuan hero. Once a scandalously inventive puppeteer, Sabbath at sixty-four is still defiantly antagonistic and exceedingly libidinous. But after the death of his long-time mistress—an erotic free spirit whose adulterous daring surpassed even his own—Sabbath embarks on a turbulent journey into his past. Bereft and grieving, besieged by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him most, he contrives a succession of farcical disasters that take him to the brink of madness and extinction.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Mickey Sabbath, the hero in Sabbath's Theater, the winner of the 1995 National Book Award, makes a concerted effort to be bad. Like Alexander Portnoy, the famously self-abusing character in Roth's 1969 novel Portnoy's Complaint, Sabbath has an appetite for "acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus." But while Portnoy's antics were usually comical and liberating, Sabbath often feels imprisoned by his own acts of self-indulgence. Though his frantic pursuit of sex is a desperate attempt to abate his anxieties about death, it only serves to obliterate any semblance of real life he could have had. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Roth's erotic black comedy of an aging puppeteer won the National Book Award.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage International ed edition (August 6, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679772596
• ISBN-13: 978-0679772590
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,696 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

61 of 65 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "I am disorderly conduct." August 31, 2004

By Daniel Fineberg

Format:Paperback

The incredible Philip Roth, who gets stronger and stronger as the years go by, plunges further down into the sewer than he's ever gone before to give us Mickey Sabbath, an anti-hero if ever there was one. Think of him as Falstaff and Milton's Satan mixed with some Marquis de Sade....a personality so large and so outrageous that the more adventurous readers may find themselves shelving their morality for a little while in order to more gleefully bask in the filth. Sabbath is a 65-year-old man living in the quaint New England town of Madamaska Falls. He is a retired puppeteer (a dirty puppeteer, of course, until arthritis sidelined him), and now he lives off of a wife who is a recovering alcoholic, and spends all his free time and energy chasing the outermost boundaries of sexuality with Drenka, the inn-keeper's wife, who is more than willing to follow him to those boundaries and even lead him past them. A string of tragedies sends Mickey into a whirlwind and brings back a flood of memories from his troubled but colorful past. The narrative intermingling of past and present is on full display and will be familiar to readers of Roth. Also, this is one of the rare Roth books that doesn't have a first-person narrator, but an omniscient voice (of course, Roth's voice). Sabbath, however, is such an overwhelming presence that he often hijacks the narrative and runs off with it, particularly at those times when he seems to be coming apart at the seams. Those who are quick to always correlate the man Roth with his main characters should ask themselves how he can be so adept at switching points-of-view so quickly and without warning, and without risk of confusion. The answer is, because he's a master. Sabbath makes like Poldy in "Ulysses" and goes into stream-of-consciousness mode, and if you can get past the filth, you'll be privy to a character with a very disturbed internal life, but with a very strict code of conduct--"for a pure sense of being tumultuously alive, you can't beat the nasty side of existence." But a lot of filth there is, and this book could definitely alienate more sensitive readers. It would be an understatement to say that this is the dirtiest book Philip Roth has ever written. It's probably closer to home to say that Roth in this book makes Henry Miller look like Jane Austen. A cosmos of depravity peppers the pages, climaxing (sorry) at the end of the novel in a flashback with Mickey and Drenka which will leave you yellow. Of Roth's more recent novels, this one moves at the surest pace, and finds the most nerve-racking balance between low comedy and high tragedy. Only "Operation Shylock", I think, gives it a run for its money, though I'm very much looking forward to his new one in October, "The Plot Against America."

There is profundity in the darkest, seediest corner and Mickey Sabbath desperately wants to grab hold of it. And Philip Roth lets you ride along for the fun at a safe distance.

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Darkly Comic Masterpiece of Complexity November 24, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

In Sabbath's Theater, Philip Roth finally showed us he could write a book in which neither Philip Roth nor his thinly-veiled stand-in, Nathan Zuckerman, made an appearance.

The theme of Sabbath's Theater has been done before: a lecherous, unconventional man railing at the ravages of time and the dwindling of the sexual potency by which he has defined his very existence. Most of the time, however, this theme is poorly written, the characters trite and cliched. Roth, not surprisingly, invests this novel with more lyrical energy, more sexual frankness, sharper comedy and deeper seriousness than has any writer before.

Although Roth does make use of both flashback and association, the plot of Sabbath's Theater is brisk. Mickey Sabbath, who went off to sea at the age of eighteen just so he could visit the world's brothels, is a loathsome character. His abiding philosophy of life is simply to do whatever he pleases and never to worry about pleasing anyone else. Nothing phases him, in fact, he seems to take pleasure in his uncanny ability to antagonize others. Their outrage seems to be only a reflection of his own self-worth. Mickey Sabbath manages to hurt, deceive, betray, offend, insult and abuse just about everyone with whom he comes into contact.

A true degenerate, Mickey Sabbath may seem to lack any sense of moral conscience. Although anyone meeting such a character would deny it, Sabbath actually spent an idyllic childhood on the Jersey shore; a childhood that was shattered by a traumatic dual loss. In an effort to deal with his loss and the resultant pain, to stamp out the brutality of life, and, to affirm his own sense of aliveness, Sabbath turns to carnal pleasures with a vengeance, indulging each and every sexual impulse.

Even as Sabbath indulges his crasser nature, however, and casts a satirical eye on those who deny their sensual impulses, he still endeavors to understand himself and the workings of the universe. In fact, much of the novel's comic pathos is derived from the tension that exists between Sabbath's base nature and his lechery and his seemingly incomprehensible yearning for cosmic illumination.

There is a lot of graphic sex in Sabbath's Theater and most readers will probably find it simply too perverse. I did not enjoy reading this book, and, although I think I understand Mickey Sabbath, I have to admit that I hated him. He suffers, that cannot be denied, but he is simply so perverse, and his behavior so amoral, that I really didn't care.

To be fair, I do have to admit that the perversity in this book did enhance and advance my understanding of Mickey Sabbath and the conflicts in which he is embroiled. And Philip Roth is certainly better at creating degenerate, or at least morally ambivalent characters, than he is at creating the lofty or the solemn. His "good" characters are simply too good to be true, while Sabbath, much as we may despise him, is completely credible. He may be despicable and perverted, but at least he knows it.

The writing in Sabbath's Theater is absolutely first-rate; it is pure Philip Roth and it crackles with more energy and exuberance than Portnoys' Complaint. The characters are more complex, the narrative more sophisticated and the tonal range wider than many of Roth's other works. The ending of the book virtually drips with irony. This is a multi-layered novel and one that is brilliantly original. It also contains some of the funniest writing to be found anywhere in American fiction today. Sabbath's Theater is, at its heart, a darkly comic masterpiece of complexity from one of America's finest authors. But it is simply too perverse for most readers to enjoy.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the decade's finest novels September 29, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

It pains me to see so many reviewers either entirely miss, or disregard, the key note of this book. That is, quite ironically, loss; the story uses an unconventional, intentionally confrontational approach to depict a sad struggle with spiritual and physical decay. Sabbath's lifelong inability to empathize with anyone (incuding himself) is his downfall and is NOT something Roth celebrates. Disgust with the scatology of this book comes from a reductionist reading; we can harbor some disgust only while taking up the challenge of feeling pity for the repulsive puppeteer, particularly in the masterful and heartbreaking encounters with Uncle Fish, his parents' graves, and all things past. An inspiring book, written in Roth's trademark lyric American vernacular, to be read and re-read.