Rating: 
Summary: when Literature is life
Review: Philip Roth and James Ellroy are the most important contemporay north american writers. Roth is in Literature for a long time, Roth'complete work demand a map for reading (this idea I develope in other space) and he writes the inner world writing from the outer world, especially the great historical events. In "Sabbath's Theatre"( context: world war) I guess he writes about himself (yes, there is Mickey, the unforgetable Drenka and the death of his brother)- this three pieces of humankind (man, human, death)- Roth always elaborates with his readers:I think that are his obssessive theme (an idea of Ernesto Sabato). Ellroy continues this task from the world - his central theme is the elaborations of his suffering, his dark places, our dark places. Both writers are great persons. Walter Luis Bastos Doege, M.D.
Rating: 
Summary: Another National Book Award Flop
Review: Apparently there's something special about Philip Roth and his writing that escapes me. This novel was a complete waste of my time. I struggled to the middle then simply dumped it. The story is about a self-loathing, conflicted, sexually addicted misogynist who has lost all connection to anything humane. The writing style is dull and after 200 pages I didn't find a single character likable. The story is laced with the main character's sexual escapades but after a while even that loses it shock value and becomes numbing. It's good to see that I am not alone in my assessment of this novel. From the reviews posted you either really enjoy it or not. For me . . . NOT! Can't recommend this one.
Rating:
Summary: A very great dissapointment
Review: Having read other of Philip Roth's novels,very good indeed, I bought this title Sabbath's Theater. It has good prose since Roth is a good narrator, but I kept feeling like not reading the book at all at several moments during the story.
I admire Roth for other books, but make yourself a favor do not buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Astounding twists
Review: David Dukes' superb reading of Roth's book is 24 sides of 12 tapes, and worth it! The story unfolds and Dukes uses his acting skills to create characters that remain true and recognizable from tape to tape, using voice and accent, male and female characters are brought to life. Roth's story is an amazing look at an aging puppeteer who has not done much with his life, and is in a frantic rush to try to find what it means. He never has gotten over any loss, and he has had many. The story is strong, very sexual, and very original. Stay with the tapes, even though they may be disturbing. And certainly arousing.
Rating: 
Summary: Only Roth can create such humanity in a sexual deviant
Review: The main character of this book, Mickey Sabbath, envisions his own epitaph as reading: "Morris Sabbath - 'Mickey' - Beloved Whoremonger, Seducer, Sodomist, Abuser of Women, Destroyer of Morals, Ensnarer of Youth, Uxoricide, Suicide - 1929-1994." As a final self-assessment of this character's life, it is not far from the truth. Objectively speaking, there is little in Sabbath's behavior to qualify him as a role model or inspiration for others. And yet, somehow, Roth turns this seemingly despicable character into an undisputed hero. Do we love Sabbath because of his overpowering humanness? His brutal honesty? His perseverance? Is it because he celebrates in himself the dark elements of human sexuality that we, as individuals, must suppress in ourselves? Or is it because Philip Roth is the most eloquent and insightful portrayer of the human soul alive today?It would be easy to dismiss Sabbath as an immoral pervert, a man driven by his sexual urges with little regard for societal norms or the feelings of others. And as such, it is also easy to reject the notion that he is anything like you and me. He is a man who takes pride in having slept with prostitutes on more than one continent. He is remarkably unfaithful to his wife. He engages in bizarre sex acts with his lover. He rummages through the drawers of a 19-year-old girl, the daughter of an old friend, looking for naked Polaroids, and finding none, settles for swiping a pair of her underwear. And then there is the scene at his lover's grave that is too bizarre to recount here, a scene that would be nothing short of obscene and disgusting in any other author's hands, but that Roth somehow renders as a powerful expression of love and grief. So go ahead, feel free to say that Sabbath is nothing like you, if it makes you feel better. But when you are finished condemning him, look deeper at who he is and what he represents. Sabbath is a grieving man. He is grieving not only for the death of his free-spirited, erotic mistress, who dies a tragic death in the early pages of the novel. He is also grieving for his own lost life as he begins to accept his own mortality. And he is persistently haunted by the ghost of his mother and the memory of his brother. Yes, he is a social and sexual deviant, but he is also incredibly human. We cannot blame him for the desires and emotions that he unapologetically displays for the world to see, for they are the same desires and emotions that live in each of us. So how can we blame him for the brutal honesty with which he lives his life and faces his demons? It is because there is a little bit of Mickey Sabbath in each of us that makes this novel painful, at times, to read. But that is also what makes it so exquisite and, ultimately, so true.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a particularly interesting read
Review: I found this book to be overly vulgar and I did not assimilate in any way with the main character, Sabbath. I have not read anything else by Phillip Roth, so I cannot attest that this is how all of his books were, but I think I just did not like his style. Basically, every page had some sort of vulagrity on it, and to me it served no purpose. The characters were, in general, not likable. They were not the type of people I would like to know, and thus don't enjoy reading about them. This book could be enjoyable if you can identify with sabbath in some way, but since I couldn't, I did not enjoy it. (It was awfully long to not enjoy, too)
Rating:
Summary: Lust personified¿is an ugly thing.
Review: Mickey Sabbath's life is one pathetic misadventure after another. An arthritic street performer, who once used his fingers as his puppets, he lives for his next sexual adventure. Any other ties to humanity, love, trust, honesty, (although he claims this value, he only uses it when it suits him) are lost amidst his pursuit of sexual gratification. Roth has deliberately created a character with no redeeming qualities, and while I admire his skill at developing such a reprehensible human being, I didn't enjoy reading about Mickey Sabbath or the lives he destroyed. No matter how many disastrous situations Roth creates for Sabbath I found myself wanting this to end; the book became a chore to read. Sabbath is a pathetic antihero, not an epic one, and hardly worth Roth's efforts on his behalf.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant study of a man's loneliness
Review: Mickey Sabbath, a former puppeteer, now 64 years old, suffers from extreme loneliness and depression. Unlike most people, Mickey has had to cope with loss on a grand scale: his older brother, Morton, dies when his plane is shot down by the Japanese in World War II; his mother suffer a nervous breakdown after this tragedy, and is so distracted that she can no longer communicate with her remaining son; Mickey's first wife, Nikki, suddenly disappears without a trace; Mickey's married, but loving Serbo-Croatian mistress, Drenka, succumbs to cancer; Mickey is dismissed as a college professor after a sex scandal involving one of his female students; he then loses his second wife, Roseanna, who chooses to dedicate her life completely to the AA recovery process. This brilliantly developed character study strongly suggests that some people become morbidly immersed in death and also may utilize sex as the primary means of escaping from loneliness. Mickey Sabbath, who is about to attend the funeral of a friend who has committed suicide, also contemplates suicide as a way of being reunited with deceased family members He hopes to reclaim the security he once had and lost. Mickey also uses sex and sexual fantasy, as many people do in actual life, to escape from an angst ridden existence. Some of the funniest, most erotic, but also most pathetic scenes in the book occur when Mickey and former rival suitors of Drenka visit her gravesite. Although the novel presents Mickey indulging in a number of sexual activities that may be viewed as kinky or even depraved, I believe that it would be a mistake to label Mickey Sabbath as merely "a dirty old man." In this sad, but very entertaining book, Mickey's plight merely represents the universal need for developing closeness with another human being. His extreme behavior is the self-destructive behavior of those in our society most starved for love and affection.
Rating:
Summary: A Darkly Comic Masterpiece of Complexity
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: The concept just didn't work for me
Review: This book is fairly well written (although not compared to Bellow or Nabakov or Self). However, there is an unforgivable flaw. Who can possibly write a meaningful novel about a lech of a man (a sailor who has had sex with how many prostitiues?) when the man has NEVER contracted an STD? Just blew the credibility of the whole thing for me. If this were more of an attempt at magical realism I guess I could have swallowed it, but this novel really struck me as trying to paint a somewhat realistic portrait...of trying to convince me (of something?). But prostitutes, unprotected sex, and tens of other partners without physical consequences (I suppose there seem to be spiritual consequences)? Sorry, Roth, I just couldn't believe it.
|
