I wish I could say that it is just as entertaining reading the puritan backlash Roth engenders among a large number of Goodreads' reviewers as it is to read Roth himself. But, alas, I cannot say that.

So, all right, this is not the masterpiece that, say, "Portnoy's Complaint" is, but I also can't deny that Roth speaks to me on every page. And that's because the man refuses to lie about human sexuality and motivation. What he says makes a lot of people uncomfortable. In many quarters that's a prerequisite of art.

And it's funny that reactions to him that claim to stem from positions of enlightenment (eg., offended feminist sensibilities) strike me as coming from merely a mutated form of Victorianism. Roth addresses that very American tendency in this book; he might as well have been quoting from Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life."

So, yeah, on the surface this is about a professor who "abuses" his position of "glamor" and power to seduce students, or at least ones who've just graduated, his classes being part of the leading-up-to process of the conquest. But in this framework much is examined about aging and longing and the choices, good or bad or both, that people make in how they choose to live. There's much discussed about the mixed legacy of the sexual revolution of the '60s. The conflict between the "bad" father and the "noble" son, the latter overcompensating for the injustices of neglect he felt, is well examined, also.

The fact of the matter is, I visited a professor yesterday on the campus where I work to gather information for a music article I am writing. He's in his 40s and has a well-known reputation on campus for plucking his plums among the student body. He does the very same thing that Roth's protagonist in this book does. He even introduced me to his latest "assistant," a smoking hot young blonde ex-student whose knowing smiles to him during our interview spoke volumes.

So this shit happens, folks. So yeah, shoot the fucking messenger.

Readers need to stop personalizing so much when authors allow their characters to speak or act. I mean is the writing fabulous? Are the points well stated and thoughtful? Is there good basis in history and philosophy for what he talks about? YES, YES and YES!

And Roth's characters get to be promiscuous and fuck, and you don't. Don't get so frustrated and take it out on him.

I've just surpassed the halfway point, and Roth just fucking rocks, if you want to cut to the chase.

Just finished. Roth says so much about life and death. There's a scene close to the end, the passing of his best friend. All I can say is, I've never read a more intimate and moving depiction of a person's last hours. And it's not drawn out. He says just what needs to be said. And then there's more, but, don't want to spoil it.

The Dying Animal, the slow death of the body. Mortality. Who could have anything new to say? Does Roth say anything new? Maybe not, but it's all in HOW it's said.

I had to give this five stars. Roth just leaves me so full, so satisfied. I can't rate it any less.2009-reads deliciously-nasty disease-of-the-week ...more80 s2 comments RoxaneAuthor 122 books164k

An absurdist, wish-fulfillment meandering stream of consciousness type book-length monologue recounting the inner life of an aging narcissist, misogynist, breast-obsessed professor who, the cliché has sex with his students and is incomprehensibly virile in his sixties. In terms of committing to a premise, Roth is brilliant. There are some remarkable passages but they are interrupted by large swaths of self-indulgent, aimless prattle. The title is masterful, though. 66 s Michael FinocchiaroAuthor 3 books5,860

While not his greatest work, Philip Roth's A Dying Animal is a highly readable and entertaining story of Roth's alter ego David Kapesh and his various affairs as a septuagenarian ex-professor. It ranges from hilarious to grotesque (in the Sabbath's Theater sense of the word) to poignant. Few writers are as brutally honest about themselves as Roth and this is one of the books on which I find his psyche right on top.
RIP (1933-2018). One of America's literary giants has left us.american-20th-c american-21st-c fiction ...more69 s Luís2,103 897

In this novel, we find the themes dear to Roth: love and sexual freedom, aging, and death. David Kepesh, 62, a brilliant and renowned academic, is also an incorrigible seducer; his latest conquest is a young Cuban student with captivating charm and generous curves. We see the Rothian obsessions in Kepesh's portrait, sex as the last pleasure in the face of looming old age and death.
Philip Roth is an immense writer, so it is always challenging to counter the many praises regarding "The Dying Beast." However, this novel excited me less. Suppose we find the inimitable style and reflections on the meaning given to life. In that case, Roth also takes pleasure in putting us in discomfort (must the intimate scenes be so explicit and coarse?) and then this vague feeling of repetition in questions.
However, despite these drawbacks, "The Dying Beast" remains a largely estimable work.2023-readings american-literature e-3 ...more59 s William2789 3,405

I’d to know who else among today’s writers has produced anything even remotely this brilliantly articulate inquiry into desire and mortality? The only books I can think of are The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera—but that was mostly about Eros, not Thanatos—and Sophie’s Choice; the latter arguably concerned both, but its theme is far more death-centric, and the sex isn’t so much sybaritic in Sophie as it is the briefest of respites from madness and genocide. And both my examples are too old! Who’s recently written as sensibly as Philip Roth on these perennial human themes? You could argue that Roth himself did it with his earlier Sabbath’s Theater, many have, though I found it unreadable. I’ll be reading J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace next. But are there any others you can think of? Oh, I just though of one, Knut Hamsun’s Pan, but again that’s dated, as is the marvelous work of Yasunari Kawabata. I’m interested in more recent novels, say, the last ten years or so. Please let me know.21-ce fiction us50 s6 comments Fabian977 1,929

Oh, Mr. Roth, you're so dead-on when you write: "You're not superior to sex" (33). This simple idea is made manifest with that inimitable, incredible Rothian verve we absolutely admire. The entitled voice nears perilously close to, in my recent memory, the pu**y protagonist of the horrid abortion that goes by the name of "Ian McEwan's Saturday." The 70 year old in this book, a decrepit nonetheless persistently sharp Hot Shot TV persona, goes on ridiculing people, mainly sexually (mostly an array of too-sharp, too-glamorized-then-trashed [this, a defining element of the iconic writer] women one-third his age) & Oedipally/Emotionally (his son). A bastard, but clearly one that can foretell the upcoming dance (a total downer) of the elements of death and sex, & there are plenty graphic depictions of these both.

In "The Dying Animal", Roth's mastery of whisking up just the correct ingredients to stuff a 156 page novella with, is impeccable: national themes, concerns & histories (his lifetime is marked most decidedly by the dawning millennium and the sex-and-drugs 60's) and personal anecdotes of sexual love (hot) and biological death (lame). It is a story about the sadness of sex and the literary thrill which comes from an immediate proximity to, a pronouncement of, death.

Alas, bottom line: damn better-than-good novel and a less-than-average novel in terms of Philip Roth. (For that enlightening feel, go to "Sabbath's Theater," go to "Everyman", go to [you really really REALLY oughtta go to] "The Human Stain".)48 s Paul Bryant2,294 10.8k

Philip Roth is a sexist pig. Who can argue about that? When he drags his mind off his wilting member for a week or so he produces Operation Shylock which is a minor masterpiece. But that was just a vacation. For years now he just rewrites the same story where some old geezer (himself) fantasises about shagging some young bird and then - just life - gets to shag her. Bah. What a pig.novels43 s Matteo FumagalliAuthor 1 book9,485

Videorecensione: https://youtu.be/yQwWeTJ1ir8einaudi letteratura-nordamericana49 s Yasmin205 157

I definitely did not this book. Not very surprising though, pretty much anyone could've told you that this just isn't a book for me. But I had to read this for school, so I didn't really have a choice.

It wasn't I hated the whole book; at times it was quite enjoyable. The writing wasn't that bad either, it's just that I couldn't stand the story. Yeah, not just the protagonist, but the whole story. I'm sorry (and I said, these kind of books aren't for me) but it just felt such a pathetic, ridiculous and pretentious book.
You have this old, white, misogynistic professor who's constantly either whining about life and how it works or he's fucking young women.
But then, he ''falls in love'' with Consuela. Yeah, not really. He actually just gets obsessed with being with her and her breasts.
In this book, women are only pretty objects Kepesh can use to make himself feel better, just men are apparently bound to cheat at least once in their married lives. He's constantly saying things ''Oh well it's in a man's nature and hey man, this is America, land of freedom, why the hell would you fuck only your wife lmao''. That's really problematic. And the book is just completely about that philosophy. It was incredibly annoying and even more boring.

But I really can't get over the ridiculousness of this book. At one point, he asks Consuela to take out her tampon and watch her bleed. And then he fucking licks the blood of her thighs. I was quite disturbed. (Though the author has never probably done this himself, because menstruation blood doesn't just flow at once out of your vagina and over your legs. Seriously wtf. That's not how it works, Roth.)
And Consuela always just did whatever the fuck Kepish wanted her to do. She wouldn't even say a word. She literally was his object to use. And what was even more annoying, was that Kepish was constantly thinking things ''Consuela does this and that because she is this and that and women always do this and that, and yes obviously I know everything about her because I'm an old white male, I know everything about the world and how it works duh <3''. Just stop please.

And then Consuela leaves him and he is soooo upset and can't get his life to be normal again, because he was so obsessed with her. It's not even her personality he misses; he never speaks a word of that. It really is because of her magnificent body that it takes him three years to get over her. And even then he's still not completely over her.

But then after 5 years, Consuela suddenly calls him. Because she has breast cancer. Of course she has. Everything about this book is about her breasts. So in the last 50 pages of the book, the only thing Kepish talks and thinks about are her breasts. ''Oh no, she'll lose a bit of them''. Because, as everyone knows, that's the real problem with breast cancer. Not the big chance of dying, but the surgery.

Ugh. Someone get this book away from me please.for-school-or-bookclub i-dont--the-author only-finished-bc-im-not-a-quitter ...more29 s Fructitza ?235 43

Suntem mult timp ni?te suflete tinere prinse în corpuri frumoase. Apoi, încet încet, pe nesim?ite, suntem ni?te suflete tot tinere, dar prinse în corpuri care se ve?tejesc ?i cãrora le e fricã de bãtrâne?e, de degradare ?i de (inevitabila) moarte.

"Caracterul imposibil al individului. Stupiditatea de a fi tu însu?i. Inevitabila comedie de a fi cât de cât cineva. Fiecare nou exces m? sl?be?te ?i mai mult – dar ce poate face un b?rbat nes?tul?
Nu m? opun fiindc? e dezgust?tor. M? opun fiindc? înseamn? îndr?gostire. Singura obsesie pe care ?i-o doresc to?i: <>. Oamenii cred c?, îndr?gostindu-se se împlinesc? Unirea platonic? a sufletelor? Eu cred tocmai pe dos. Cred c? e?ti întreg înainte de a începe. Iar iubirea te fractureaz?. E?ti întreg apoi e?ti despicat. Ea a fost un corp str?in introdus în integritatea ta."27 s2 comments Elina502

????? ????????? ??? ???????. ?????????? ??? ??????? ??? ????? ??? ????????? ?? ????? ??? ??? ??? ????? ??? ???????????? ??????? ?? ??????. ????????!
?????????? ????????????!!!27 s Ubik 2.0978 269

Ero il gatto che guardava il pesce rosso. Ma i denti li aveva il pesce rosso.

Dopo le prime pagine di "L'animale morente" si ha l'impressione che il libro offrirà ulteriori argomentazioni ai detrattori di Philip Roth, quelli che considerano l'autore americano solo un sessuomane monotono, pornografo e maschilista.

L'impostazione iniziale della storia (l'anziano carismatico docente nonchè personaggio televisivo che narra in prima persona e l'avvenente studentessa di 38 anni più giovane) alimenta questa sensazione (non solo nei detrattori a dire il vero...) anche perchè Roth più che in altre sue opere recenti, la butta ben presto sul sesso esplicito, privo di eufemismi, quasi provocatorio.

Invece, un po' alla volta affiorano nel racconto, intervallati alle esibizioni degli incontri carnali fra professore e studentessa, digressioni che restituiscono la memoria di personaggi del passato, frammenti brevi ma precisi come pochi scrittori sono in grado di creare, che ci riportano alle atmosfere degli anni '60 o ad altre epoche vissute e respirate dal protagonista. Il romanzo (romanzo breve giacchè conta un centinaio di pagine appena) si rivela di una densità straordinaria allorchè entrano in scena personaggi secondari (un figlio rancoroso, una vecchia amante, un amico generoso...) che creano un affresco che fa sfumare "L'animale morente" dall'iniziale elegia del sesso verso un'opera progressivamente malinconica che porta ad un incombente senso di caducità e di morte.

E' il miracolo della prosa di questo autore che, partendo apparentemente dai soliti temi "rothiani" (ma stavolta manca quello dell'ebraismo, e forse non è un male...), sa imboccare ogni volta strade nuove, sorprendere commuovendoci, creare pagine capolavoro che disegnano delle personalità, secondarie ai fini della trama di quest'opera ma degne di assumere il ruolo di protagonisti in un altro ipotetico romanzo a venire.

Resta da sottolineare come Philip Roth assurto, in un certo immaginario collettivo, a cantore del sesso già dai primi successi (Portnoy) si riveli in realtà un cantore molto più efficace e toccante sul tema della sofferenza, del dolore e della morte, come testimoniano, oltre a "L'animale morente, alcuni suoi capolavori come Everyman e Patrimonio.american-literature24 s LW354 76

"Consumami il cuore:malato di desiderio/ e avvinto ad un animale morente/ che non sa cos'è "

Romanzo intenso in cui si intrecciano inestricabili eros e thanatos.
Da un lato la passione divorante ,l'ossessione ,la lussuria ,il desiderio del maturo professore per la giovane e bellissima allieva cubana Consuelo
e dall'altro lo strazio del tempo ,che passa inesorabile e diventa limitato.
Per il protagonista il sesso non è semplice frizione o un divertimento superficiale , ma è un modo di vendicarsi ,anche se per un momento, di tutto ciò che non si ama nella vita , di tutto ciò che nella vita ti ha sconfitto.
La libertà era sempre stata per lui prioritaria: aveva sempre rifuggito i legami, l'attaccamento, perché fonte di bisogni, instabilità, tormento, disperazione , finché, a 70 anni, sentendo vicina la morte, arriva alla constatazione che forse,segretamente, anche in lui c'è il desiderio di non essere libero...
e l'amore /ossessione diviene una strana combinazione di erotismo e tenerezza, che commuove ed eccita
allo stesso tempo

#myfirstPhilipRothlove-sex-relationships stelle-e-strisce23 s Thodoris Fotoglou28 26

4+
???? ?????? ???????? ???? ?? ???????..
????????? ??? ???????????? ??????? ??? ? ????? ????????? ??? ?? ????????? ???????? ?????????? ?? ?????? ???????
???? ?????????????? ??? ?????..
??? ????? ??? ?????? ?? ???????????? ??? ? ???????? ?????? ???? ?? ?????.23 s Ian "Marvin" Graye910 2,438

Man of the World

In the third of Philip Roth's David Kepesh novels, David is a divorced, semi-retired professor, philanderer, libertine and man of the world. He teaches a class in Practical Criticism and does book on NPR.

To his students, especially the female ones, he possesses an intellectual and journalistic glamour: "They are helplessly drawn to celebrity." He reciprocates their attention, being "very vulnerable to female beauty".

At the time the novel is narrated, David is 70. However, the subject matter is an affair that started eight years earlier and lasted over 18 months. Consuela Castillo is a 24 year old student when he meets her in his class.

As he has done for the last 15 years, he targets Consuela for his advances, but resolves not to start a physical relationship until she has sat her exams and received her grade. This is his concession to propriety.

Duchess in a D Cup

Consuela's appeal is most immediately physical. David first spots her beautiful cleavage, then her gorgeous breasts, then her ample buttocks. Overall, she is a tall voluptuous Cuban; statuesque, marvelous, enticing and alluring:

"She knew what her body was worth...She has a D cup, this duchess, really big, beautiful breasts, and skin of a very white colour, skin that, the moment you see it, makes you want to lick it."

Her appeal is, however, more than physical:

"She's not a demi-adolescent, she's not a slouching, unkempt, ''-ridden girl. She's well-spoken, sober, her posture is perfect...she dresses carefully, with quiet taste...not to desensualise herself, but more, it would seem, to professionalise herself..."

David implicitly differentiates himself from Humbert Humbert, because Consuela is adult, cultured, mature, not a minor, not a nymphet, not a victim, supposedly not an inappropriate object or target, academic propriety and age aside. But she is an object, a target nevertheless.



Amadeo Modigliani - "Le Grand Nu"


A Whopping Invitation

David starts off interpreting Consuela's body as both a display and a "whopping invitation" that tells him "that I need no longer suppress the wish to touch". Apparently she has one of those bodies that articulates to sexually-active men:

"That body is still new to her, she's still trying it out, thinking it through, a bit a kid walking the streets with a loaded gun and deciding whether he's packing it to protect himself or to begin a life of crime."

Consuela doesn't resist David's approach. She does specify one constraint though: "I can never be your wife." He can never legitimate his conquest in a convention.

So far, perhaps, so bad. There is a lot of frank sexual description (not to mention psychoanalysis), at least of the women, in the novel.

Up to this point, Roth seems to have created some mischievous, but good-natured, septuagenarian version of lad lit.

If this were all you knew about Philip Roth and his writing, you'd be tempted to dismiss the novel as sexist and misogynistic. However, ultimately, there's more at stake, and the novel is more sophisticated and nuanced, even Proustian, than you would expect.

The Gift of Stature

Although David is the first person narrator, Roth delves into the basis of the relationship from both points of view, via his narration. David is an astute, if self-interested, observer.

The relationship is nevertheless defined in terms of the male gaze. Consuela, initially, is something for David to look at, to watch over. She is not so much a sex object as an objet d'art.

What Consuela gets from David in particular, in his opinion, is the authority of his educated gaze. He purports to judge her professionally:

"I had pronounced her a great work of art, with all the magical influence of a great work of art...she had only to be there, on view, and the understanding of her importance flowed from me. It was not required of her...that she have any sort of self-conception. That's what I was for: I was Consuela's awareness of herself."

He admires her simplicity, her lack of complexity, even if it's not strictly correct to say that she lacks a self-awareness of her own.

Moreover, it's David "who fired up her senses, who gave her her stature, [and] who was the catalyst to her emancipation..."

The Professor of Desire sees his age-derived authority as mutually beneficial to his student(s):

"They do it for the age...my age and my status give her, rationally, the licence to surrender, and surrendering in bed is a not unpleasant sensation...she gets both the pleasures of submission and the pleasures of mastery."

Of course, this perspective is still David's.

Surrender seems to be more than succumbing to David's initial proposal. There is both submission and mastery present in the eventual relationship itself, one that Roth paints in terms of a (pleasurable and emancipatory?) master/slave relationship.




The Author of Her Mastery

As the relationship progresses, Consuela starts to see through David. She calls him:

"Mr Arrogant Intellectual Critic, the great authority on everything, teaching everybody what to think and setting everyone right!"

Conversely, he realises that "she didn't desire me...she experimented with me, really, to see how overwhelming her breasts could be." Of course, breasts will win out every time!

Inevitably, David feels he has lost whatever authority he had ever had in the relationship. He knows because for the first time he experiences jealousy. Ironically, his own authority is at the heart of the problem. It has succumbed to her mastery:

"[I had] inaugurated her into the sinister dream, the full amorous truth. The instinctual girl bursting not just the container of her vanity but the captivity of her cozy Cuban home. It was the true beginning of her mastery - the mastery into which my mastery had initiated her. I am the author of her mastery of me."

The master has become the slave at his own behest. (Or is each lover always both master and slave? Is this the amorous truth?)

The Fracture of Love

Whether or not David realises it, he has undertaken a journey of his own. His starting point is a pretty masculine mindset:

"He who forms a tie is lost, attachment is my enemy."

Inevitably he becomes attached. However, his friend, George, a Pulitzer Prize winner, questions what has happened to him. He diagnoses his plight in the following abstract and intellectual terms:

"You violated the law of aesthetic distance. You sentimentalised the aesthetic experience with this girl - you personalised it, you sentimentalised it, and you lost the sense of separation essential to your enjoyment...what lies behind the comedy of this Cuban girl taking a guy you, the professor of desire, to the mat?...it's falling in love...

"People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole. The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole when you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole and then you're cracked open. She was a foreign body introduced into your wholeness. And for a year and a half you struggled to incorporate it. But you'll never be whole unless you expel it. You either get rid of it or incorporate it through self-distortion. And that's what you did and what drove you mad."





Haunted by the Pastness and the Still-Being

Once again, there's a misogynist overtone to this perspective. However, it has to be assessed in the context of the last third of the novel. Just as David's self-conscious about his age, Consuela at the premature age of 32 becomes ill and for a time must confront her own mortality.

As David ages, his attitude towards time has changed. This is his view at the beginning of the novel (the language both resembles and questions that of Heidegger, at least in its embrace of the past tense):

"To those not yet old, being old means you've been. But being old means that despite, in addition to, and in excess of your beenness, you still are. Your beenness is very much alive. You still are, and one is as haunted by the still-being and its fullness as by the having-already-been, by the pastness."

In contrast, David believes that the young focus on the past as the evidence of their life and vitality. There is less concern about the future, because it's assumed that it will just happen inexorably, and that it will take and last a long time.

Sailing to Byzantium

Only this doesn't recognise the risk of illness. When you become ill, your perspective necessarily changes:

"Time is now how much future [you have] left, and [you don't] believe there is any."

Until now David has always enjoyed good health and has pursued a life of absolute freedom within which he has only been accountable to his own (masculine) desire.

More recently, he has known "the sickness of desire...fastened to a dying animal" that Yeats speaks of in a poem that gives the novel its title (see comment 1 in the thread below this review).

Now David has started to experience feelings of genuine "longing, doting, possessiveness, even of love." Ultimately, Consuela forces David to look at her breasts in a different way, just as she has had to. (I won't say more than this because of spoiler concerns.)

David realises that his concern about his own death sometime in the unforeseeable future is nothing compared with the more immediate terror confronting Consuela because of her illness.

As a result, he surrenders some of his freedom, some of his libertarianism for the sake of a better relationship.

While David's perspective is undeniably male, "The Dying Animal" examines many Proustian concerns, only from a more overtly heterosexual point of view. That doesn't necessarily mean the novel itself is sexist or misogynistic. It's arguable that it is quite the opposite, that it is critical of the attitudes of David and George, and ultimately respectful of the women in the novel.

David finally recognises that he has stood in the way of Consuela's real liberation, as well as his own. Whatever the sexual revolution might have achieved in the sixties, only when men retreat from patent selfishness and egotism will a non-sexist relationship be possible for women or men. To this extent, the novel concludes as an argument for the (sexual) liberation of women (even if it must be at the expense of men), not against it.

This is often a highly stimulating and enjoyable work, if you're prepared to look and explore beyond the rudeness and lewdness of the male gaze.




Madeleine Peyroux


SOUNDTRACK:

Lisa Gerrard - "Sailing to Byzantium"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgCgg...

William Butler Yeats - "Sailing To Byzantium"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzftw...

Fleetwood Mac - "Man of the World"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJWOt...

Prince - "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-2PA...

Madeleine Peyroux - "Dance Me to the End of Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch6h2...

Lou Reed - "Call on Me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaHg...

Featuring Laurie Anderson

Lou Reed was 61 when he released the album ("The Raven") upon which "Call on Me" and "Who Am I" appear.

Lou Reed - "Call on Me" [Live on 22 May, 2003]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm2TP...

Featuring Anthony

Lou Reed - "Who Am I" (Tripitena's Song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYLj6...

Lou Reed and David Bowie - "Dirty Blvd." [Live]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBCbM...

read-2015 -4-stars ...more22 s Come Musica1,761 483

Philip Roth è sempre il brillante Philip Roth.
Non capisco come non gli abbiano ancora dato questo benedetto Nobel.
Una storia straziante sul finale.
Bella, metaforica e così vicina alla realtà sofferta da tante donne.23 s olaszka216 49

of course it wasn't until the film came out that i read the book. i mean, it's philip roth so i would have read it anyway but it sort of accelerated things when the film premiered. i wasn't expecting much, i mean - no one talks about 'the dying animal' they do about 'portnoy's complaint' or 'everyman'.
the book was divine. it was shamelessly unputdownable. literally. i was starving and i needed to pee but i didn't put the bloody thing down until i read and digested every word.
i don't even know where to start. first of all it was just a good read. well-written but not pompous - just smart. it touched upon issues which everyone finds relatable: love, sex, family life, betrayal.
the plot itself was of course predictable - kind of lolita-esque, everyone knows it by heart - a man meets a woman, big age difference, a bit of passionate fucking which turns into obsession. but of course this is how it was meant to be. the actual story made up something of 10% of the novel, the rest was digressions. digressions which turned out to be not so digressive at all, if you know what i mean. one thing i loved about the book is that the narrator speaks the language of men - portraying a shameless old man who's quite chuffed abouut his long list of 20-year old lovers, who trustis his basic instincts, who accepts adultery as a part of everyday life and doesn't believe in marriage. roth employs the dicourse of masculinity but somehow translates it into the language of women, so i, being a woman, suddenly start to the read the novel as if it was more of a handbook or a genius study of male behavioural patterns.
apart from all the smartness, i loved the interaction with the reader. roth's preferred reader is well-read so he does not shy away from employing intertextuality as one of the main devices. he drops in a bit of shakespeare, milton, even some of the puritan chronicles but he somehow manages to stay casual, he does not make you blush just because you haven't read 'the brothers karamazov'.
he also doesn't try to be innovative in terms of style. he just writes carefully and elegantly, always uses the write amount of words and simply provides the read with an amazing piece of simple literary art. he takes you to the place where form is content. he's just so observant, he creates the most complicated characters with precission and ease, he makes them fully believable, he provides many POVs, plays with the reader and is totally convincing.i swear i could go on for ages. it's the best book i've read in a long time.21 s Darwin8u1,641 8,815

“The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open.”
? Philip Roth, The Dying Animal



The Dying Animal is the last instalment of Roth's David Kepesh novels. Isn't top-shelf Roth (American Trilogy), but isn't bad either. Of the Kepesh novels, I think it ranks above The Breast (think 36D Kafka) and below The Professor Of Desire. I think my subconcious understood, even before reading this novel, where Roth was coming from because what I thought was a random reading order for me: 1. Death in Venice and then 2. The Dying Animal, was actually quite useful. It isn't as much a tribute to Death in Venice as the Breast was a tribute to Kafka's Metamorphosis, but there were certainly similarities. Roth is exploring death and obscession of an artist, so in those ways it is a similar novella to Mann's earlier exploration (see my review). However, instead of the aging author/narrator being obsessed with a "perfect" 14-year-old boy, Kepesh* is obsessed with one of his Cuban student's perfect breasts. With a writer Roth, it is hard to realize where the autobiography starts and where the fictionalizing ends. But it appears that AT LEAST Kepesh is a breast man. Another aspect of Roth is his brutal honesty about desires, impulses, and actions. Things others would hide, Roth flaunts. I think many (including my wife) feel he is a mysoginst. I would agree that Kepesh is. But Roth is a writer of fiction. He is exploring and discesting parts of American Culture that are indeed ugly, narcissistic, rough. But again, with Roth it is always difficult to know.

* I just saw I originally put Roth here. See?!?2018 american fiction22 s Chris_P384 323

"Look," she said, "there's hair on my arms but not on my head"
This short novel is my first Roth. I've heard much about the guy, but I'd never got around to reading any of his works. The Dying Animal is a complex monologue that touches many delicate matters. Written just after the turn of the century, this change of everything in the world is portrayed clearly and in an in-your-face fashion, leaving, however, plenty of space for misunderstandings.

The sexual liberation that took place in the sixties gave birth to a ton of misconceptions dutifully adopted by the then soon-to-be fathers. Misconceptions which are the great legacy the sons and daughters inherited. And since they are merely inherited and not formed naturally (or even unnaturally, for that matter) as was the case with the fathers, they are quickly turned into neuroses and dysfunctionalities. What are we, really, but other people's misconceptions? The relationship between father and son is depicted in painful detail and, dare I say, extreme accuracy. In short, cultural and historical changes form people's lifestyle as much as families do. It's the long-term outcome that differs.

As the narrator's thoughts develop, we are treated with facts we normally tend to shy away from. Facts that we, who hardly, if at all, had the chance to get a glimpse of the world as it was before the new millennium, find hard to swallow although we clearly are products of them. I admit I felt my stomach tied to a knot with the twist of events at the end of the story and the century, and how those two equally inevitable ends were paralleled as much to each other as to the aforementioned twist.

Tied stomach or not, A Dying Animal is a gripping book, capable of delivering the trauma we, readers, tentatively seek from time to time.2000s north-american shorties20 s Mom?ilo Žuni?219 87

Zamislite otpri da je narcisoidni, wish fullfilment narator-hvalisavac iz "C. A. Blues-a" ostareo i pred penzijom, a da mu je cilj da i dalje, i to dok se još rve sa sopstvenom polnom (ne)mo?i - mada, eto, i u 62. i u 68. njegov "tower of power" je solventan!, ili, reklo bi se, i srce ho?e i penis ne kloko?e! - povaljuje (nesvršeni vid je tendenciozan) studentkinje... I eto vas pred "Životinjom na izdisaju", kljakavom i estetski i fiziološki, ali živom. U fazonu "Yes I can!" ili u doma?oj varijanti "Ne pada!". Kada bih želeo da budem u toj meri cini?an - a kao da to ve? samim ovim ?inom i nisam! - rekao bih da je Raki?u (bez obzira na kontekstualizaciju, tematsko-motivska proširenja, nepodudarnosti ili uz Rotova kolonijalisti?ka i feministi?ka sen?enja, recimo, u epizodi sa menstrualnom krvlju) uspelo da kroz svega devet katrena "Iskrene pesme" metafiziku i sav egoizam telesne ljubavi - ili, lišeno bilo kakve eufemisti?ke zadrške, jebanje i slobodu da se bezobzirno pari(mo) - izrazi supremativnije i sugestivnije negoli Filipu Rotu i njegovom Dejvidu Kepešu na otpri 120 strana ovog roman?eta. Odnosno, ako vam je tako drago i ne verujete mi, onda ve? znate da bez starca nema udarca! Što rek'o pjeva?, still my gitar gently weeps...
P. S. U fotofinišu, uz malo blagonaklonosti prijatelja, "Životinja"mi je doguzeljala do dvoj?ice zbog: 1)bizarne scene petinga sa šlogirano-umiru?im pesnikom rta?em i njenom završnicom; 2) ideje da se dolar zameni za valutu vajat, jer "Džejni to zaslužuje." - apsolutno podržavam!; i 3) sjajne finalne višesmislice koja unekoliko (ne) baca novo svetlo na ?itav narativ:" Razmislite o tome. Razmislite. Jer ako odete, vas više nema."This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full review20 s Amira Mahmoud618 8,658

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????translated ???-??????22 s Federica Rampi562 193


“Tutti hanno qualcosa davanti a cui si sentono disarmati, e io ho la bellezza”

David Kepesh è un esteta, uno spirito raffinato, professore in una prestigiosa università di New York, intellettuale, colto, eloquente, che si è sempre circondato della più bella e talentuosa delle sue studentesse.
Ha passato la vita a rivendicare la sua libertà sessuale; David è un seduttore impenitente, amante della bellezza senza attaccamento e senza sentimento.

A 62 anni incontra Consuela Castillo, una bellissima studentessa cubana di 24 anni e tra i seni di questa giovane donna che sembra un'opera d'arte, David scopre i tormenti della passione, i morsi della paura e della gelosia, della vecchiaia e della morte.

Per due anni impazzisce per questo corpo, vivendo il degrado dei sentimenti, umiliandosi in ginocchio alle regole della sua bellezza, consapevole di essere impotente di fronte al passare del tempo che lo avvicina sempre più alla fine della sua vita sessuale

La gelosia e la sfiducia lo tormentano d'ora in poi, l'amore doloroso e totalizzante per lei lo fanno vivere nella costante paura della perdita e del fallimento.
Kepesh soffre in presenza di Consuela tanto quanto in sua assenza.
Quando si incontrano di nuovo anni dopo, lei gli confida un segreto che lo cambierà per sempre.

Philip Roth ritrae un uomo tanto inquietante quanto implacabile.
Lascia che il suo narratore, David Kepesh, racconti la sua storia in modo franco ed intelligente facendogli affrontare la difficile relazione con il figlio, anche lui marito e padre infedele
Lapidario e crudo, provocatorio e cinico, L’animale morente è un ritratto nitido dell'amore, la dipendenza e la manipolazione.letteratura-straniera19 s piperitapitta995 393

Vive la différence!

Difficile dire qualcosa di questo romanzo breve di Roth.
Posso iniziare dalle motivazioni per cui ho deciso all'improvviso di leggerlo: innanzitutto il bel commento di @Gil D. e il desiderio di comprendere, e se non di comprendere la volontà, per una volta, di mettermi dall'altra parte, dalla parte di un certo tipo di uomo (o di molti?), di chi è frutto e risultato di quella rivoluzione sessuale che io non ho vissuto e per la quale non ho combattuto.
Da lì anche la sensazione che quest'animale morente, il Professor David Kepesh alle prese con libera sessualità vecchiaia e, forse per la prima volta scoperta di un sentimento simile all'amore, potesse in qualche modo avere il compito di compensare e completare Biglietto scaduto, un romanzo che ho molto amato, con il quale Romain Gary, in maniera struggente e dolorosa, metteva a nudo se stesso e l'incapacità di un uomo non ancora sessantenne di accettare il decadimento fisico e sessuale.
Oppure cercavo attraverso Roth una smentita, una conferma, non so.
Non ho trovato né la tenerezza né il dolore di Gary in Roth, ma solo un uomo che ancora una volta si pone davanti al corpo di una donna come davanti ad un'opera d'arte, che non si contenta solo di ammirare ma che vuole a tutti i costi possedere, anche se cosciente dei propri limiti e della sua incapacità di creare legami, che non può acquistare, ma solo affittare. Ecco, io che non sono cresciuta in quei tempi e non ho combattuto la rivoluzione sessuale degli anni Sessanta, ma sono figlia di una generazione alla quale tutto e tutti hanno cercato di inculcare in testa il fatto che non esistano differenze tra uomini e donne, cercando di appiattirne e uniformarne diversità e differenze comportamentali e di negarne la complementarità, ho trovato soprattutto l'uomo, inteso come 'maschio', in tutto e per tutto diverso dalla donna, intesa come 'femmina'.
E sono contenta, una volta di più, di aver scoperto che non siamo uguali, se non alcune volte, che non ci poniamo allo stesso modo davanti al sesso, alla vecchiaia, all'amore, alla morte; ma soprattutto mi sono accorta, con una certa dose di cinismo, forse insolito al femminile, che se noi donne, alcune o molte non lo so, ancora oggi abbiamo paura di volare, voi uomini, alcuni o molti non lo so, ancora oggi avete paura di atterrare.
David Kepesh è un uomo che fatica a guardare avanti a sé, con la testa ed i pensieri ancora costantemente rivolti a quello che era, alle sue strategie di conquista, alle facili prede che si allontanano ogni giorno di più, un uomo che al contrario del Jacques Rainier di Gary, pone al centro del rapporto con la bella giovane e sensuale Consulela sempre se stesso e le proprie performance, sia pur con dolore, sia pur con struggimento, ma con una dose continua di autocompiacimento che dà la sensazione di trovarsi, più che davanti alla solitudine dell'uomo che invecchia, davanti all'agonia di un coccodrillo. E alle sue lacrime. E a me questo coccodrillo fa più pena che rabbia, perché ha consumato una vita per arrivare ad accorgersi che molto spesso creare un legame non vuol dire incatenarsi. Ma c'è differenza, alla fine, tra provare commozione e provare pena per qualcuno? È necessario arrivare ad un passo dalla morte della carne, all'angoscia vesperale, per comprendere l'anima?



Philip Roth, è sempre un bel leggere, ma questa volta, accidenti a te professor Kepesh, un paio di schiaffoni te li avrei assestati volentieri.

Da questa poesia di William Butler Yeats, i versi che danno il titolo al romanzo di Roth.

Sailing to Byzantium (The Tower, 1927)

I.
That is no country for old men.
The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees-
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.


Verso Bisanzio

I.
Quello non è un paese per vecchi.
I giovani l’uno nelle braccia dell’altro, gli uccelli sugli alberi -
Quelle generazioni mortali - intenti al loro canto,
Le cascate ricche di salmoni, i mari gremiti di sgombri,
Pesce, carne, o volatile, per tutta l’estate non fanno che esaltare
Tutto ciò che è generato, che nasce, e che muore.
Presi da quella musica sensuale tutti trascurano
I monumenti dell’intelletto che non invecchia.

II.
Un uomo anziano non è che una cosa miserabile,
Una giacca stracciata su un bastone, a meno che
L’anima non batta le mani e canti, e canti più forte
Per ogni strappo nel suo abito mortale,
Né v’è altra scuola di canto se non lo studio
Dei monumenti della sua magnificenza
E per questo io ho veleggiato sui mari e sono giunto
Alla sacra città di Bisanzio.

III.
O saggi che state nel fuoco sacro di Dio
Come nel mosaico d’oro d’una parete,
Scendete dal sacro fuoco, discendete in una spirale,
E siate i maestri di canto della mia anima,
Consumate del tutto il mio cuore; malato di desiderio
E legato ad un animale mortale,
Non sa quello che è; e accoglietemi
Nell’artificio dell’Eternità.

IV.
Una volta fuori dalla natura non assumerò mai più
La mia forma corporea da una qualsiasi cosa naturale,
Ma una forma quale creano gli orefici greci
Di oro battuto e di sfoglia d’oro
Per tener desto un Imperatore sonnolento;
Oppure posato su un ramo dorato a cantare
Ai signori e alle dame di Bisanzio
Di ciò che è passato, o che è, o che sarà.autori-che-amo autori-usa dal-romanzo-al-film ...more18 s Teresa1,492

Não sei que pensar deste livro. Tem muito assunto mas pouca consistência.

Um professor de sessenta e dois que seduz alunas na casa dos vinte. Não acredito muito nisto, pois as miúdas não gostam de homens velhos (acho eu...).
Na cama faz-lhes coisas que nem miúdas nem graúdas apreciam (digo eu...).
Apaixona-se por uma delas; tem muitos ciúmes, sofre muito, mas continua a fazer uns biscates com outra. Quando ela o deixa entra em depressão durante três anos (não percebi...).
Entretanto vai divagando sobre casamento, infidelidades, filhos, Cuba,...
Na parte final, aparece a doença - a trombose e o cancro - com uma personagem que morre e outra que logo se vê...

Concluindo: acho que este romance está moribundo da primeira à última página.

As três estrelas são todas para a boa escrita e algumas ideias interessantes, conforme se pode comprovar pelos dois exemplos abaixo:

1. "As pessoas pensam que ao amar se tornam inteiras, completas? A união platónica das almas? Eu não penso assim. Penso que estamos inteiros antes de começarmos. E o amor fractura-nos. Estás inteiro e depois estás fracturado, aberto."
2. ...

a segunda citação está escrita em tinta simpática...e3 n-eua17 s A. Raca753 158

"Ölme ve ölüm aras?nda bir fark vard?r. Söz konusu olan aral?ks?z bir ölme de?ildir. E?er insan sa?l?kl? ve iyi hissediyorsa, bu görünmez ölmedir. Bir kesinlik olan ölüm illaki çarp?c? bir biçimde ilan edilmez. Hay?r, anlayamazs?n?z."


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