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hadeanstars's review against another edition
5.0
Stunning, brilliant, utterly compelling. I simply cannot adequately convey what an amazing feat of literature this novel constitutes. The mechanism of the story, as a narrative of reminiscences is so seamless and yet so engaging that you are truly taken to the inner world of the characters, and Roth's genius, or one of them anyway, is his depiction of complex, contradictory, flawed humanity. I cannot wait to read the final part of the trilogy.
esmehello's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
camicarreno's review against another edition
4.0
Me gusta cómo escribe Roth, aunque es bastante machista. La historia de Ira Ringold, sus aventuras y desventuras, contada por su hermano Murray a su alumno y ahora escritor Nathan Zuckerman, atrapa y entretiene, porque la vida personal se ve fuertemente afectada por la era del McCarthyism, cuando se persiguió a los comunistas en Estados Unidos.
goheadass's review against another edition
4.0
“Short i, short i, long i. Short i, short i, short i, boom! Revenges. Brings in his revenges. His revenges. Sibilated. Hizzzzzuh!”
sabrinaliterary's review against another edition
3.0
Philip Roth, you are among the authors whose works remain opaque to me. This makes me feel like an ignoramus, but also like an elitist for thinking that I have such impeccable taste that I must agree with literary critics.
James Joyce is the leader of this movement, but you are most certainly in my Top 10.
James Joyce is the leader of this movement, but you are most certainly in my Top 10.
libellum_aphrodite's review against another edition
"it was ok" enough for me to read 2/3 of it, but not good enough for me to remain interested enough to read the last 1/3. I was a bit torn about giving up when I had made it so far, but I had already read enough to be able to verbalize what I don't like about Philip Roth (this is the second book of his I've read) and didn't think I was going to pull much more than that. I didn't care about the characters and I feel like the narrator is just a channel for Roth's voice. It is the same narrator in all of his books with a different first name slapped on. I also was bothered by how he frames the story - on some level it is the narrator's high school teacher telling him a story, but when you get into it, it is really the story of the narrator's relationship with the Communist in the title and the teacher just gets in the way of the telling. I don't know what the pretense of the story being just about Ira is for. It is entirely Nathan centric, Ira is supposed to be the protagonist, or at least the central character around whom the events unfold, but the narrator evidently can't get far enough past himself to tell a story about someone else. I get the distinct feeling that Philip Roth is the one who can't get far enough past himself to tell a story about someone else and he picks a new alias for himself in each book. I don't know if the events in any of his books line up with his own experience or he's just imagining himself into most of it, but he's definitely too much of a presence while reading.
upyourmother's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
vickyjmarlow's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
klinejosh94's review against another edition
5.0
“Occasionally now, looking back, I think of my life as one long speech that I've been listening to. The rhetoric is sometimes original, sometimes pleasurable, sometimes pasteboard crap (the speech of the incognito), sometimes maniacal, sometimes matter-of-fact, and sometimes like the sharp prick of a needle, and I have been hearing it for as long as I can remember: how to think, how not to think; how to behave, how not to behave; whom to loathe and whom to admire; what to embrace and when to escape; what is rapturous, what is murderous, what is laudable, what is shallow, what is sinister, what is shit, and how to remain pure in soul.”
Philip Roth’s tragic tale of marital betrayal amidst the Red Scare of postwar America is a work that seems to attempt to surpass David Cronenberg’s ‘The Brood’ in ex-wife spite.
Roth was writing from a place of unhealthy cognitive dissonance or disturbing self-awareness (or both).