Point Containing Books The Counterlife (Complete Nathan Zuckerman #5)
| Title | : | The Counterlife (Complete Nathan Zuckerman #5) |
| Author | : | Philip Roth |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 336 pages |
| Published | : | August 6th 1996 by Vintage (first published 1986) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Novels. Literature. American |
Philip Roth
Paperback | Pages: 336 pages Rating: 3.91 | 4003 Users | 286 Reviews
Commentary As Books The Counterlife (Complete Nathan Zuckerman #5)
The Counterlife is about people enacting their dreams of renewal and escape, some of them going so far as to risk their lives to alter seemingly irreversible destinies. Wherever they may find themselves, the characters of The Counterlife are tempted unceasingly by the prospect of an alternative existence that can reverse their fate. Illuminating these lives in transition and guiding us through the book's evocative landscapes, familiar and foreign, is the miind of the novelist Nathan Zuckerman. His is the skeptical, enveloping intelligence that calculates the price that's paid in the struggle to change personal fortune and reshape history, whether in a dentist's office in suburban New Jersey, or in a tradition-bound English Village in Gloucestershire, or in a church in London's West End, or in a tiny desert settlement in Israel's occupied West Bank.Declare Books In Favor Of The Counterlife (Complete Nathan Zuckerman #5)
| Original Title: | The Counterlife |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Complete Nathan Zuckerman #5 |
| Characters: | Nathan Zuckerman |
| Literary Awards: | National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction (1987), National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (1987) |
Rating Containing Books The Counterlife (Complete Nathan Zuckerman #5)
Ratings: 3.91 From 4003 Users | 286 ReviewsArticle Containing Books The Counterlife (Complete Nathan Zuckerman #5)
Once upon a time, when I went to a therapist for marital counseling, the doctor asked me, Where have you visited that you might like to live? Lets say Las Cruces, or Santa Fe, or Boulder, I said. Fine, what would Santa Fe might be like for you? How might you be different there? Ah, right, I said, I see your point. I would still be the same person, regardless of wherever I live. I could start a new relationship, and would still have my issues with whomever I was with. But I also thought, why notOne thing writing all these book reports has done is help me figure out why I read. Our Lady of the Flowers really clarified some key reasons for it in an unavoidably brash, ballsy, obvious way even I could understand: I read because my adult mind is worn out, is tired, it's limp and lazy, my mind's become frustratingly ineffectual and can't always get going. It wants to love the world, but it's become increasingly difficult for it to muster the necessary excitement. I'll be out walking around
The Question before FinklerEntertaining, thought-provoking, technically brilliant, and timely. Timely too in its relationship to another much-lauded book, Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question, the most recent Man Booker winner. By coincidence, a friend gave me her copy of the Roth on the same day that I bought the Jacobson; neither of us connected the two. But now, having enjoyed both books immensely, I am amazed at how closely Roth anticipates Jacobson 34 years earlier. Both authors treat the
My first Philip Roth experience and I'm not overly impressed.The idea of The Counterlife was a good one - alternate endings and outcomes to a person's life, kind of like an adult version of "choose your own adventure" stories I used to read as a kid. But the execution of this book was far too self involved, with pages and pages of monologues that seemed completely unrealistic (who has conversations where people woffle on for 20 minutes uninterupted??) and too heavy in the philosophical,
what a trip this was.
Coming from a very white, American world, I know few Jewish people. But because of Roth's fiction I feel like an expert - he covers his Jewishness from all angles, assuming the role of antagonist and victim and casual observer (shredding and reconstructing with abandon). The "plot" of this book is, on the surface, infuriatingly complex, although Roth pulls it together and eventually one realizes the first story is indeed just one of a handful of stories. The famous Zuckerman, as best I can tell,
I can't tell you what this book is about because, for one thing, I don't want to spoil anything and, secondly, because I'm not even sure what I just read. It's one of those books where I had the desire to pinch myself while reading it, hoping it was all a dream. But that doesn't work when I'm wide awake and when the author has purposefully set out to confound me with different levels of reality, making my reading experience unreal. And that isn't a compliment. I disliked this story. It was full
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