Rating: 
Summary: Goodbye, Columbus
Review: Goodbye, Columbus is a coming of age story, a summer romance between a poor boy and a wealthy girl. Many themes that were to show up in much more detail in his later works are presented in embryonic form in this novella, his first major work. Being Jewish in America, sex, class boundaries, the American Way: All Roth subjects, all handled with intelligence and compassion.
Neil is the typical poor Jewish boy enamoured with Brenda, the classy, self-assured, rich girl. He shows a rare spark of confidence when he calls her for a date after first meeting her at a swimming pool, when she accepts and they meet, he finds that he really doesn't know what to do from there. But, they bumble through the beginnings of a relationship, mutually attracted physically, diametrically opposed socially. Neil has a few 'poor' ideas and thoughts that Brenda cannot relate to, while she accepts such luxuries as a maid or 'getting her nose fixed' with such ease and complacency that we - and Neil - are amazed. Over the summer, their relationship develops further, with the typical ups and downs of love colouring the journey.
Neil is the 'I' character of the story, and it is through his point of view that we watch the story unfold. However, even though the story is in first person, there is never much of his personality revealed through contemplative thought or reflection. Instead, we learn who he is from the way he interacts with Brenda and others, and from the way he studies the events in which he is involved. By the end of the novella, we (mostly) understand his motives and ideas, and though, admittedly, it is a little difficult to imagine Neil existing outside the scope of the novel, that actually plays into the theme of the story. Neil is searching for meaning, for a reason to keep on existing, and he considers that in Brenda, he has found it. Whether this is true or not becomes a large focus in the novel, particularly when, later on, she repeatedly reveals to him that she is in fact her own person, with her own ideas, and that sometimes they won't mesh with his.
Brenda, on the other hand, remains a complete mystery to both the reader and Neil. Because we are never allowed to see her thoughts, and because her and Neil have such a different social background, she is someone who we try to understand, but inevitably fail. At times, Neil will say or do something and she will become upset, or tender, or both, and Neil will be so confused that he simply accepts. This can be frustrating for the reader, because Brenda is an appealing character, and it would be nice for him to have the gumption to search deeper within her for meaning and thought, but unfortunately he rarely does. Interestingly, this doesn't come off so much as a failing on Roth's part as an author, but Neil's as a character.
As stated above, the typical themes and ideas that Roth was to develop more fully in his later works are present here. There is the same easy insight into the mundane reality of life, and the same simple joy in, say, eating a piece of fruit or swimming in a pool. Goodbye, Columbus is a story that focuses on one single idea, that being the summer romance between two people that could not have a relationship in any other situation, and it explores it in a remarkably fulfilling way. Admittedly, the very Jewish quality of the writing and ideas may not be as identifiable for a non-Jewish person, but speaking as a man of no faith, I didn't find it to be all that much of a problem. Also, the casual racism towards African-Americans may be off-putting, but again, it didn't upset the flow of the novel.
To conclude, what Roth has done here is to introduce himself as an author, and for a twenty-six year old, it is an impressive introduction. Having read other works of his, I would recommend it as a good starting point. If you like Goodbye, Columbus - and I am quite certain everyone would - then you will love his later works. If not, not. And at only 140 pages, it is worth everyone's time to check out.
Rating: 
Summary: I've Lived This Story
Review: Goodbye, Columbus is the story of Neil Klugman from poor Newark and Brenda Patimkin from an upper-crust family in Short Hills and their relationship over a summer. Neil relates the story of his love for the beautiful Brenda, a love in which the two share little in common. He presents his hopes and dreams and his ultimate realizations about the state of the world and about himself. The novella is ultimately a beautiful, complex coming-of-age story which it seems everyone goes through.Goodbye, Columbus is one of the best books I have read. It was so realistic and easy to relate to. I think that I have had a relationship similar to every one related in the novel. There are so many great insights to be found here. The novella isn't a difficult read, but one should definitely be aware of a lot of the symbols (such as the title, the fruit, the lions, and the uncle at the wedding) to glean the most from it. I will also say a word about the short stories. All of them, particularly "The Conversion of the Jews," were wonderful. They alone would make the book worth five stars; they just seem to get forgotten because of the masterpiece the opening novella is.
Rating:
Summary: Great relationship story
Review: I have tried to read Portnoy's complaint and just couldn't get very far. I can't really remember why now. I thought this might be more accessible Roth and indeed it was. The title story just rings so true about a summer love. The people and their feelings are just dead on. The Conversion of the Jews was kind of bizaare though. I enjoyed the story and what Roth was trying to say about religion but just didn't understand Oscar all that well. The book as a whole piqued my cutiosity enough to hunt around the house for my copy of Portnoy's Complaint to try again. At least read the title novella it will keep you going through the rest of the stories.
Rating:
Summary: mean, concise, brilliant
Review: I like to read relationship-ey novels, and I was thinking that this relationship-ey novella would be a high end take on the impossibility of love, etc (plus I've been told good things about it). And that I'd feel classy after reading it. I do feel classy after reading it. It's a really excellent bunch of set pieces on a young summer romance. Roth does a great caricature: Brenda's worldly father, less-successful uncle, and Neil's crazy aunt are all very memorable and concisely drawn. And he does really precise scenes: it's kind of swimming pool, dinner, doctor, wedding, and we're done.
But since Roth's writing really economically and less evaluatively, the main characters were less clear. Brenda, the romantic object, gets some witty lines, but is otherwise treated semi-unfairly. It's really unclear, in the light of this century, how a fight over a contraceptive would be so important for a couple having plenty of sex - a fight where Brenda's implausibly portrayed as both self-hating and pretty sneaky. And Neil as unbearably arrogant. And why'd she like the paranoid, chip-on-his-shoulder, but also smugly superior kid-from-the-other-side-of-the-tracks? Also unclear - since Neil works in a library, it wasn't like he was rough trade or anything.
So it's very good in the particulars, but there's a hole in the center of this thing. I liked the Ghostwriter - an absolutely perfect novella - even better.
Rating:
Summary: "I'm dark"
Review: I'm not a huge fan of Roth at all, and when discussing him, I always seem to forget that he wrote these stories. It really does seem like the work of a different author; a brighter, more clever and inventive one; namely, younger. Maybe the mold of cynicism just set around him at a certain point as he aged, in which case Goodbye, Colombus stands as his first and last good work. First of all, the writing is first-rate modern American, a light but not overly breezy style, something like Bellow. Especially in the title story, the subtle humor is very effective, and he has a Salingerian gift for making the last sentence of a paragraph resonate. The themes, also, that continue throughout the stories are well-developed and intriguing; in 'Defender of the Faith,' he shows how a very convincing sociopath takes advantage of his Jewish identity and uses it as a weapon; in a story the title of which I can't remember, a young boy rebels against the oppressive Jewish instruction of his elders; then, later, in 'Eli the Fanatic,' Roth shows a man discovering solace in the stark rituals of traditional Judaism. The issue is examined from many angles. 'Epstein' is more suggestive of his later work and somehwat distasteful, very bleak, but a convincing portrait of an aging and frustrated Jewish man. 'You can't tell a man by the song he sings' is lighter and has little relation to the theme of Judaism, in case you were beginning to think Roth couldn't write about anything else. The title story is easily the best; the rest are just accesories. While the romance which it depicts never really seems justified (what does she see in him to begin with?), the writing is superlative and the characters interesting, and the semitragic conclusion more moving than it really should be. In this story, Roth displays a delicacy which is foremost among the things he inexplicably loses later on; he seems to like these characters, even the spoiled and decadent family, and stops to linger on minor details with a real zest for description. Reading these stories made me think I had judged Roth too quickly after reading only two of his books; I read another, and was disappointed again. Stick to this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Unexpected
Review: Not many writers had such a great debut as Philip Roth with his `Goodbye, Columbus'. His harshest critics may say he has had ups and downs in his career, but no one can say that his first book is not superb --even those who don't like it. Crafting with a short novella, Roth was able to display all his qualities that he would develop later on with his books. `Columbus' is nothing more than the simple story of a summertime love. A Jewish boy named Neil meets a girl, who belongs to an upper level in society, they fall in love, and, above everything, have to deal with their social difference. But the way Roth writer is so simply profound and beautiful, that it is impossible no to be touched by this little masterpiece. The characters are so well developed, that the more one reads the more compelling the story becomes. Not failing to mention such a fresh sense of humor that makes this novella very funny. This same quality appears in the other five short stories gathered in this Vintage edition. One may complain that Roth has not much creativity, writing about only one subject: the young Jewish man in the late 50's. But that is not really true. His stories are similar not because of the lack of imagination, but because the writer cares to focus his attention in this subject. And, although, it seems a limited issue at first, with his words it becomes easily universal, because above all the stories concern on the human condition. Among the stories, it is possible to find one the finest Roth's short texts: `Defender of the faith'. The surreality of the proximity of the war and the dispute between the two main characters somehow reminds the tour de force present in the movies made by Amos Gitai. The absurd of the situation, and the characters focusing on another --maybe smaller-- issue are funny, when we don't think of the imminent situation. One doesn't have to look any further to find hints of the themes and characters that would be present in further works. The daughter in `Epstein' is somehow a draft of the daughter who would appear much more developed in his novel `American Pastoral'. All in all, `Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories' is a good introduction for those curious to get into Roth's universe, and, it is a fundamental reading for the ones who like his books.
Rating:
Summary: Only the strong survive
Review: Philip Roth obviously doesn't believe in stretching his imagination too much - the main story here and most of the supporting shorter stories revolve around Jewish boys growing up around Newark, New Jersey. His real strength however lies in his ability to take these characters and describe and examine what makes them tick, and imbue them with just enough personal identity to distinguish them from each other and allow them to sink into our consciousness.
"Goodbye Columbus" the story is a touching tale of a summer romance between two individuals from very different social circles. There isn't much plot, not very much happens and the moral dilemma that ultimately shapes the fate of the relationship is a bit hard to relate to in these promiscuous times. Roth doesn't spend much time on that aspect of the plot, presuming perhaps that his contemporary reader would be only too familiar with the portrayed dilemma. Reading it at the start of the 21st century I feel unable to fully empathize with the protagonists' situation. However the prose is well observed, the situations and dialogue are witty and amusing and although the ending is a bit weak, I feel the beauty of the writing transcends generational barriers. The short stories are more pointed, and pithier, and perhaps make for better reading. As in Roth's other work, the characters are mostly very Jewish, and many revolve around particularly Jewish themes, feelings and situations. However I still found myself well able to identify with the narrators, despite being handicapped by my obvious goyishness.
Rating:
Summary: Early glimpses of brilliance
Review: Philip Roth shows early glimpses of his brilliance in this collection of short stories. For Roth fans, the real treat here is seeing the author's work as a young man. If you are like me and have read all of his books from the 1990s, you probably have an image in your mind of an author in his 60s. His writing always comes across as somewhat autobiographical, and most of the main characters in his books over the past ten years have been Jewish men entering their golden years. Because of this, I was a bit surprised to read a book of his in which the main characters are almost all young Jewish men. This just reinforces the notion that Roth has always tried to stick with what he knows, and that his writing stems more from his experience than from his creativity. In my mind he's the best writer out there.
Rating:
Summary: Roth sets the mood
Review: The first five chapters of Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus follow his protagonist Neil Klugman through a romanticized post college summer. Roth introduces this straightforward prose with a sentence that does not waste anytime, "The first time I saw Brenda"(p 3). This sentence draws the reader quickly into a book that does not spend pages on exposition, rather Roth starts out with action and fills in any gaps as they arise. This writing style is beautiful to read, and perfectly matches the quick, to the point feeling of a summertime romance. The story, like the prose, is not over packed. It begins, as stated, with the first time Neil meets Brenda Patimkin. The feeling of young love jumps off the first page, when Neil watches Brenda walk away, "She caught the bottom of her suit between thumb and index finger and flicked what flesh had been showing back where it belonged. My blood jumped" (p 3). And the reader, along with Neil, is hooked on Brenda from the beginning. Roth is careful to make the feelings in the book apparent, from the first we feel as though we are about to embark on a summer of relaxation and love. But Roth's love is not married couple adult love; it is love like the cashier in Updike's A &P. It is love at first sight. It is pretty girl by the pool kind of love. This feeling of Neil's love for Brenda is only made stronger by Roth's evocation of summer. The dominant feeling in the book though, is lust. Neil begins his relationship with Brenda after watching her at the pool, and after that he is always bringing sex to the foreground of he book. The description of Neil and Brenda's escapade in the pool shows Neil's youthful obsession with the female body, "Her breasts swam towards me like two pink-nosed fish and she let me hold them"(p 17). It does not end there; after he ate dinner with Brenda's family he sat at his desk in the library and, "watched the hot high-breasted teen-age girls walk twitchingly up the wide flight of marble stairs"(p 32). And he describes his lust for other women as "academic and time passing" showing that may not feel anything towards the girls that walk by him, but that should not stop him from thinking about them (p 32). The constant remembrance of sex in the novel is the most effective method Roth uses of getting his mood across. Without it the spirit of summer, young love, and adventure would be gone. Neil and Brenda's relationship would be dull and flat; the afternoons at the library would be spent solely on thinking about work, and story would be deflated. Roth did not, however, write an erotic book that talks only about sex. He does recognize what a key role sex, lust, and love play in the lives of his twenty-year-old characters. He uses it as a framework for which to place the deeper, less common story.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant beginning
Review: The great brilliance and talent of Philip Roth announce themselves to the world in this first book. Much of what Roth would be later admired for is present in this work. A remarkable capacity for creating memorable characters, a tremendous liveliness and humor in language, a somewhat sarcastic view of American reality mixed up with a deeply romantic and idealistic one, fervent sexual interest. There is also in these works the kind of criticism of his home- team, the American Jewish family which would make him anathema to certain leading figures of the Jewish literary ( Irving Howe) and cultural establishment. The major piece of writing , the novella ' Goodbye Columbus' seems like it is the heir apparent to ' The Great Gatsby'. There is a mastery of tone , precociously mature. That tone and that control will lead to the less successful line in Roth's writing, in which the narrator ( When She was Good) and the writer appear to be seeking entrance to the cathedral of Jamesian Anglo- American literature. This novella has many skilled and interesting pieces of writing excellently evokes the world of Jewish American suburbia its business and family worlds. The love affair between Neil and Brenda Patinkin has a certain unsatisfactory quality especially in his ungenerous portrait of Brenda. The scene with the little black boy in the library fascinated by the works of Gaugin may be sentimental but is quite moving. As for the stories they too have a brilliance, and they also have that criticism of middle - class Jewish piety which Roth will be lambasted for .These are very good pieces of writing and would stand well on their own. But when Roth wrote ' Portnoy's Complaint ' he changed the way his previous work would be seen .And all would be understand as simply preliminary to that outrageous work of true literary genius. This is a fine book, but that is a great one.
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