All reviews for The Humbling (2009)
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65 year old actor loses ability to act, has a breakdown, contemplates suicide, has a relationship with a 40 year old lesbian-the daughter of two of his oldest friends-which revitalises him...well being Philip Roth you can probably guess this won't end happily..and it doesn't! The love affair stretches credulity, though nothing is impossible in matters of the heart-or the body, to be slightly more accurate, but what did strike home was the poignancy of the loss of power and confidence brought about simply by getting older, and the fear that maybe all your life you've been a fraud, and that now is the time to be called on it. It's a bleak message, so don't read Roth if you don't like bleak messages!
Read it in less than an hour and a half.Philip Roth writes without discontinuation in his story, flipping through pages had never been easier.The story revolves around an actor removed from his pedestal of success, left with questions. His being unable to go out and act on the stage. His having been a psychiatric inpatient. His conducting a love affair with a lesbian whom he'd first seen nursing at her mother's breast...The ups and downs in his life. Being the only ear to a mother whose 8 year old is molested by her own husband. His self doubt. Leading him into a grinding end or not. This one sure was a good read!
Not Roth's best but well worth the time to read.