Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

FREE delivery Wednesday, February 22 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Or fastest delivery Tuesday, February 21

In Stock.

As an alternative, the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app. Want to listen? Try Audible.

[{"displayPrice":"$14.95","priceAmount":14.95,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"14","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"95","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"66PUAIKhUaNT%2BsEtoV07Ysbw6kcH52mXpZCu7P%2FrCjcVWf5CCymdjaZtgw%2BKlcf%2BBgM3iuTEWmT41bI4Ap5KWZaWvO%2BNeR0t1Ol%2FbqgrFt3o6kdolE%2BR%2BIgREGo8I4xCIHyDnBheMqU%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$6.94","priceAmount":6.94,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"6","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"94","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"nn3aJBGPsPbmMFwGXzydVEIPEDWGEhPnLPBadpNgmylApPSWmRAqrf5VQ7vUm0AHBs01he0KG1LzFKCUvA0YU033RF3yjivIyrMzxZQ91%2BbBdkdc50GbgVApu6E3BCzEWo0CVjIRrcmxHgAQOzhnj4AzNoYhF0jgs7ai%2BKnRZacvChIHXsT0ib8KH%2F486LKY","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]

$$14.95 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Secure transaction

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Gift options

Add at checkout

Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.

Read full return policy

Gift options

Add at checkout

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Thursday, February 23 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by ZBK Books

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Other Sellers on Amazon

Added

Not added

$15.23
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: TheProductsHub

Added

Not added

$13.15
+ $3.99 shipping

Sold by: allnewbooks

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

Philip Roth

The Dying Animal Paperback – July 9, 2002

by Philip Roth (Author)

326 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$17.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$13.93

$12.66

$1.18

Paperback

"Please retry"

$14.95

$10.48

$1.34

Audio CD

"Please retry"

$21.44

—

Enhance your purchase

The unforgettable story of an affair between a star lecturer at a New York college and the beautiful daughter of Cuban exiles—and the quagmire of sexual jealousy and loss that ensues—from the renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Pastoral.

“[A] disturbing masterpiece.” —The New York Review of Books

No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you’re not superior to sex. With these words our most unflaggingly energetic and morally serious novelist launches perhaps his fiercest book. The speaker is David Kepesh, white-haired and over sixty, an eminent cultural critic and star lecturer at a New York college—as well as an articulate propagandist of the sexual revolution. For years he has made a practice of sleeping with adventurous female students while maintaining an aesthete’s critical distance. But now that distance has been annihilated.

The agency of Kepesh’s undoing is Consuela Castillo, the decorous and humblingly beautiful 24-year-old daughter of Cuban exiles. When he becomes involved with her, Kepesh finds himself dragged—helplessly, bitterly, furiously—into jealousy and loss. In chronicling this descent, Philip Roth performs a breathtaking set of variations on the themes of eros and mortality, license and repression, selfishness and sacrifice. The Dying Animal is a burning coal of a book, filled with intellectual heat and not a little danger.

Print length

156 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

July 9, 2002
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

037571412X
ISBN-13

978-0375714122
See all details

Frequently bought together

+
+

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Some of these items ship sooner than the others.

Show details Hide details

Choose items to buy together.

by Philip Roth Paperback
$14.95
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Tuesday, Feb 21
by Philip Roth Paperback
$14.65
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by FindAnyBook and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
Get it as soon as Thursday, Feb 23
by Philip Roth Paperback
$13.75
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by CE_BOOKHOUSE and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.

Philip Roth
613
Paperback
99 offers from $1.66
Philip Roth
139
Paperback
67 offers from $1.51
Philip Roth
1,536
Paperback
261 offers from $0.96
Philip Roth
152
Paperback
68 offers from $1.99
Philip Roth
87
Paperback
56 offers from $1.61
Philip Roth
3,490
Paperback
241 offers from $1.18

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A disturbing masterpiece.” —The New York Review of Books

“Sorrowful, sexy, elegant ... [A] distinguished addition to Roth’s increasingly remarkable literary career.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Roth is a mesmerizing writer, whose very language has the vitality of a living organism.” —The Los Angeles Times

“No one can come close to Roth’s comic genius and breadth of moral imperative.” —The Boston Globe

From the Inside Flap

No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you?re not superior to sex. With these words our most unflaggingly energetic and morally serious novelist launches perhaps his fiercest book. The speaker is David Kepesh, white-haired and over sixty, an eminent cultural critic and star lecturer at a New York college?as well as an articulate propagandist of the sexual revolution. For years he has made a practice of sleeping with adventurous female students while maintaining an aesthete?s critical distance. But now that distance has been annihilated.

The agency of Kepesh?s undoing is Consuela Castillo, the decorous and humblingly beautiful 24-year-old daughter of Cuban exiles. When he becomes involved with her, Kepesh finds himself dragged?helplessly, bitterly, furiously?into the quagmire of sexual jealousy and loss. In chronicling this descent, Philip Roth performs a breathtaking set of variations on the themes of eros and mortality, license and repression, selfishness and sacrifice. The Dying Animal is a burning coal of a book, filled with intellectual heat and not a little danger.

From the Back Cover

"No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you're not superior to sex. With these words our most unflaggingly energetic and morally serious novelist launches perhaps his fiercest book. The speaker is David Kepesh, white-haired and over sixty, an eminent cultural critic and star lecturer at a New York college-as well as an articulate propagandist of the sexual revolution. For years he has made a practice of sleeping with adventurous female students while maintaining an aesthete's critical distance. But now that distance has been annihilated.
The agency of Kepesh's undoing is Consuela Castillo, the decorous and humblingly beautiful 24-year-old daughter of Cuban exiles. When he becomes involved with her, Kepesh finds himself dragged-helplessly, bitterly, furiously-into the quagmire of sexual jealousy and loss. In chronicling this descent, Philip Roth performs a breathtaking set of variations on the themes of eros and mortality, license and repression, selfishness and sacrifice. The Dying Animal is a burning coal of a book, filled with intellectual heat and not a little danger.

About the Author

PHILIP ROTH won the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral. In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House and in 2002 the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction. He twice won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award three times. In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians’ Prize for “the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003–2004.” Roth received PEN’s two most prestigious awards: in 2006 the PEN/Nabokov Award and in 2007 the PEN/Bellow Award for achievement in American fiction. In 2011 he received the National Humanities Medal at the White House, and was later named the fourth recipient of the Man Booker International Prize. He died in 2018.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (July 9, 2002)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 156 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 037571412X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0375714122
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #646,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7,926 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #32,869 in American Literature (Books)
- #33,438 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
326 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Philip Roth

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

PHILIP ROTH won the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral in 1997. In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House and in 2002 the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction. He twice won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award three times. In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians’ Prize for “the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003–2004.” Roth received PEN’s two most prestigious awards: in 2006 the PEN/Nabokov Award and in 2007 the PEN/Bellow Award for achievement in American fiction. In 2011 he received the National Humanities Medal at the White House, and was later named the fourth recipient of the Man Booker International Prize. He died in 2018.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

326 global ratings

5 star		62%
4 star		16%
3 star		11%
2 star		8%
1 star		3%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Zazee1

Wallflower at the revolution

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 14, 2004

Verified Purchase

I read Philip Roth's first few books then missed a couple of decades. Upon joining an online discussion group I read this book and find he has become just another old goat looking for young poon. Is he vying for that rascal Henry Miller`s mantle as Dirty Old Man of American Letters? I know that art can be about anything but an essay on the changes in society over the last forty years would have sufficed. Like many Woody Allen fans I prefer the older, funnier work.
Roth is a fine writer and unlike some best selling authors he does have a lot to say. I just could not get past the story of a twenty year old entering into a liaison with a senior citizen. As young coeds in the sixties, my friends and I would never entertain such thoughts about even the youngest instructors. "He must be at least thirty and probably married." We had plenty of callow frat boys buzzing around who didn't know anything about anything and it suited us just fine.
Attending college in Canada, the Vietnam War did not really affect us except for the occasional kid with a Yank accent panhandling on the street. Draft dodgers. We kept our distance because American boys had a reputation for being fast..... By the seventies I was safely married sat on the sidelines during the devolution of the freedom movement into the disco era. That generation jettisoned the ideology and kept the drugs. A writer of Roth's stature would have no end of groupies willing to sit at his feet or do anything else he wanted. It was amusing when he invoked the US Constitution to bolster his case for doing exactly as he pleased. Rogering as an Inalienable Right.
His alter ego in the book is not an altogether hopeless case. Anyone as erudite and cultured as David Kepesh cannot be all bad. I found it endearing that he persisted with his piano playing even though he kept hitting wrong notes. He was truly attached to his friend George and went out of his way to make his last days meaningful even though it was an exercise in futility. We are all wary of being smothered by the very people from whom we seek comfort. Intimacy is fraught with danger. But being alone has pitfalls as well as pleasures.
Having a peek beneath David's detached exterior it gives the reader hope that he will extend himself to the ailing Consuela. The affair that caused him to regress into adolescent jealousy and possessiveness may enable him to finally grow up. He only has to take the opportunity to redeem himself.

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Gio

Sex is Life. Sex is Death.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

Mention Philip Roth to almost any literate woman and you'll hear a howl of outrage. "A male chauvinist pig, an unrepentant Don Giovanni, a loathsome narcissist stroking his ego and thinking it's his shlang! Or vice-versa." I'll wager very few woman readers get past the first ten pages of The Dying Animal. Honestly, I almost tossed the book myself, being more or less post-erotic and easily bored by other people's lust. But I soldiered on. I'm not unhappy I did. It's a book to love and hate with equal fervor, because it's about a "self" that one must love and hate with open eyes. Roth is often taken as a paragon of self-adulation, and his character in this novel -- a drama critic named David Krepesh -- anoints himself to be the ultimate evolutionary product of sexual liberation while simultaneously portraying himself as a hopeless victim of sexual obsession. Sex is life; sex is death.

Alas, Roth's depiction of Krepesh as a hero/victim of the 60s jibes achingly with my own memory-image of myself in the throes of the "sexual revolution." I despise Krepesh. I am Krepesh. (Or I was Krepesh then and would probably still be Krepesh today except for etc.) Yeah, the book is literary smut, but so is life. And then it turns out to be just what the title proclaims: a book about Death. With highly amusing interpolations and meanderings. It's just 150 pages. You might give it a shot.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Sam

Roth is one of our greatest authors; his prose is not like any others ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 21, 2015

Verified Purchase

Roth is one of our greatest authors; his prose is not like any others in contemporary writings. His plots are so varied - I have read almost all his books and even if I am not in love with each plot, I must say they all surprise me. The main character is a mystery
in the beginning but by the middle, he is exposed and the beat goes on after that. The twists and turns kept me interested from the
beginning and I must say I did not want it to end. One has to be open to his sex scenes or they might be offended. I was not
offended as they fit nicely in the plot. I recommend this book as it is an excellent read.

This is only a note on how much I enjoyed it but not wanting to give away the plot, I must say the plot was filled with insight into one man, his family and his lovers lives. By attempting to avoid outing himself he shows the pain he instills on others and mostly himself.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

Engaging and insightful read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 27, 2014

Verified Purchase

I greatly enjoyed the main character. It reads more as an inner monologue than a novel - almost at times like an essay or even a lecture, which makes sense, given the narrator's profession. Other characters are primarily props in his lesson - introduced for a purpose then dismissed when that purpose has been fulfilled. The narrator's discussion and reflections on sexual relationships and interactions between men and women are superb, and if you're of the right frame of mind, it's hard not to nod your head. Nevertheless, despite his emancipation from the slow death of a married life, he still finds himself trapped - drawn to a particular woman like a moth to a flame, and everything, including his self-esteem, is out the door. Is it because, as he asserts, his own mortality is staring him in the face, or is it something more? In the end, no amount of possession would ever be enough, with age both granting him the wisdom to recognize his ideal and denying him the ability to have anything but a secret or openly absurd (in his mind, at least) relationship. Many good quotes here!

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Keith M

Another Brilliant ‘Late’ Roth

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 19, 2019

Verified Purchase

As he approached the end of his career (and life), Philip Roth gave us a series of brilliantly conceived, often succinct, often meditative, novels, such as Everyman, Indignation and Nemesis and 2001’s The Dying Animal fits this same mould. Here, we have another Roth protagonist, the now ageing TV personality and academic, David Kapesh, reflecting on his maverick lifestyle, as divorcee and (past) serial bedder of his female students, with a particular focus on his obsessive relationship with the Cuban object of his desire and 40 years his junior, Consuela (memorably evoked by the novel’s cover depiction of Modigliani’s Reclining Nude). Roth was increasingly adept at summing up the key, real elements of the human (male) condition – here, understandably, the disorienting effects of sexual obsession and, by reference to both his narrator and Consuela, mortality – using flowing and on the mark prose and The Dying Animal is exemplary in this respect. This short novel may not have quite the unexpurgated, in your face, appeal of either Portnoy’s Complaint or Sabbath’s Theater, but I’m not really sure we would expect it to. Instead, we have arguably a more perfectly formed example of Roth at his mature peak.

3 people found this helpful

EvaQ

An eternally relevant book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 28, 2013

Verified Purchase

Should be compulsory reading for all young girls and all middle aged men. …… and middle aged women! to remind themselves that despite the universal delusion of being a civilized and evolved species we are,quite simply animals,and the pain and suffering to the human soul when we forget this or consider that we are superior to the more basic instincts is beautifully portrayed, stripped back …… acutely relevant to our narcissistic society. It has been made into a classic movie …Elegy, starring a remarkable Ben Kingsley and a surprisingly good Penelope Cruz. Both the book and the movie are so good that I can honestly say that uniquely it doesn't matter if you watch the movie before reading the book or vice versa. Buy it, read it and re-read it.

8 people found this helpful

Roy Sedgwick

Top rate Roth.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 30, 2021

Verified Purchase

I like these shorter Roth novels, because he always seems at his naughtiest and most daring best. This story of the really middle aged professor and his sexual attraction to a much younger woman is typical Roth, and it is easy to see why it got him into hot water. All in all, daring, explicit and at times beautifully written.

ky

Self-indulgent and egocentric

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 10, 2018

Verified Purchase

Excellently written and thought provoking. As an apologia for sexual irresponsibility and inappropriate relationships with troublesome age differences I found it unconvincing. It is nonetheless an intelligent, if self-indulgent and egocentric, piece of introspection on the human condition. However, for me it uncomfortably blurs lines; when does a manipulative adult educator become a sexual predator? I do not believe the American male psyche is as one dimensional, misogynistic, or impoverished as Roth would have us believe.

One person found this helpful

Esmeralda

A great book to read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 5, 2014

Verified Purchase

It is a great book to read.
It is a love story between a professor and his student, with a huge gap in between their ages!
The love and passion between David Kepesh and Consuela is very beautifully written by Philip Roth.
Kepesh is fascinated by the beauty of Consuela who is one of his students.
While Consuela sees perfection in her senior literature professor Kepesh. She sees a role model, someone whom she can never compare with anybody else, someone unique in her eyes and because he is too old for her.

2 people found this helpful

See all reviews

Buy new: $14.95$14.95 FREE delivery: Wednesday, Feb 22 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon. Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com

Buy used: $6.94

Other Sellers on Amazon

Follow the Author

The Dying Animal Paperback – July 9, 2002

Enhance your purchase

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the Inside Flap

From the Back Cover

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

Philip Roth

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Buy new:

$14.95

FREE delivery: Wednesday, Feb 22 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.

Ships from: Amazon.com

Sold by: Amazon.com

Buy used:

$6.94