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The Humbling (2009)

by Philip Roth(Favorite Author)

3.15 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0547239696 (ISBN13: 9780547239699)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

review 1: I would rather give this book a 3.5 or 3.75 but it's not quite a 4 for me. Phillip Roth is a terrific in the way he pulls the reader into the story. The plot was simple but compelling and his characters were also simple but in no means flat. I ripped through this book and enjoyed it very much however, it is not a particularly memorable story. Even as I'm writing this review I'm struggling to remember what I like and didn't like.
review 2: Two stars may be a little harsh for a not terrible and quite passable book, but really this couldn't go into the "I liked it" category. The book is short, snappy and punchy, and is rather engaging. The writing itself cannot be faulted. But ultimately the book did not convince me due to the faintly ridiculous plotline. A woman ... morewho's been "living as a lesbian" for decades arrives at the house of a sixty-something actor, announces that she now wants a man and moves in with him? By the end of the book, I had really stopped caring about any of the characters and while the book continued to engage me on one level, I was relieved that it was no longer than it is. This was my first time reading Philip Roth and it seems that I didn't make a good choice for my introduction. If I do read another Roth book, it will need to be fantastic to outweigh my opinion of him based on this humdrum effort. less

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Reviews (see all)

pillup

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!

tigerobsessed12

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!

cmcgee

Not Roth's best but well worth the time to read.

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