Everyman

De: Philip Roth

Narrado por: George Guidall

There is no more decorated American writer living today than Philip Roth, the New York Times best-selling author of American Pastoral, The Human Stain, and The Plot Against America. He has won a Pulitzer Prize, two National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, and numerous other distinctions.

The hero of Everyman is obsessed with mortality. As he reminds himself at one point, "I'm 34! Worry about oblivion when you're 75." But he cannot help himself. He is the ex-husband in three marriages gone wrong. He is the father of two sons who detest him, despite a daughter who adores him. And as his health worsens, he is the envious brother of a much fitter man. A masterful portrait of one man's inner struggles, Everyman is a brilliant showcase for one of the world's most distinguished novelists.

Listen to an interview with Philip Roth on Fresh Air.

©2006 Philip Roth (P)2006 Recorded Books, LLC.

Reseñas de la Crítica

• 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award, Fiction

"Roth continues exercising his career-defining, clear-eyed, intelligent vision of how the psychology of families works." ( Booklist)

"This is an artful yet surprisingly readable treatise on...well, on being human....Through it all, there's that Rothian voice: pained, angry, arrogant, and deeply, wryly funny." ( Publishers Weekly)

"Our most accomplished novelist. . . . [With Everyman] personal tenderness has reached a new intensity." ( The New Yorker)

Abused by the Narrator

I am giving this book a hefty four stars just because the writing level is Philiip Roth delivering his usual consistent quality, his facility with language much in evidence, his brilliance in targeted metaphor, and his characters meticulously drawn and never cliched. And he is one of our national literary treasures, along with Updike, Charles Frazier ("Cold Mountain") and Anne Tyler. There are other writers I've missed, but, contrary to belief in some circles, literature seems to be thriving as our national art form at the moment. Not that we always need a national art form, but I disagree that "the novel is dead".

Roth also gets special points for taking an "everystory" in which nothing unusual happens, a plot that unfolds day in and day out in lives across the country and all over the world, and turning it into a narrative with magnetic appeal and drama in detail. Isn't that what writing is about, really, the small everyday details?

But the story suffers from the narrrator's contribution. I respect Guidall's vast experience as an interpreter of audiobooks but in this case he just doesn't forge that critical bond with Roth. Throwing lines away, muttering like a sixtysomething curmudgeon himself, he removes any possible intimacy with the story and with its characters.

It compares negatively to the sensitive reading of Roth's "The Human Stain" by Arliss Howard, in which his rendering of lyrical phrases gave me chills and was the equivalent of listening to a musical work as significant as Handel's "Messiah" for example.

Instead of portraying a sensitive man dealing with the everyday challenges of a pedestrian life, Guidall gives us an oldish fuddy-duddy, sounding much like the aging, annoying uncle who appears at holiday dinners. Ergo four stars, not five.

Probably the most depressing book ever.

Not for the weak of heart. Will make you worry about every little ache or pain you ever get after listening to this book!!

Everyman... life a journey to sunset

You waken you live you exist you think you reflect and then a sunset... for Everyman...

Want an unvarnished existential view of life?

Then this may be the book for you. The prose is great. The characters are sufficiently vivid. The reflections on life are sufficiently profound. The main character's actions and inactions are all sufficiently realistic or appropriately motivated. The whole book is a very thoughtful, well-done examination of what it means to be a human being in today's world. I can even say that I enjoyed the book while I was listening to it. And yet, when it was over, I really had a hard time thinking of a good reason that this book needed to exist. YMMV

Rich, heartbreaking

I would give this a 5 except I find the narrator to have a bit of a halting style that distracted me from time to time.

But, the story itself is terrific. It is a bit short, but then, so's life, and that's the point here. (And besides, it was the perfect length for a 5-hour flight yesterday.) The reflections on mortality, life, failure to be the person we expect and hope to be, all of these ideas make this a brilliant listen--one that is close to the bone sometimes.

A keeper.