- Hardcover
- Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (April 5 1993)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0517098830
- ISBN-13: 978-0517098837
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
With the honesty of a skilled biographer and the sensitivity of a caring son, Roth chronicles the life of his father, Herman, in this gripping work which won a 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award. Roth holds little back in describing his father as a man of rare intensity and fierce independence who, for better or worse, stood by his principles and held others to his own rigorous standards. Writes Roth, "His obsessive stubbornness--his stubborn obsessiveness--had very nearly driven my mother to a breakdown in her final years." Frank throughout, Roth calls his father "a pitiless realist, but I wasn't his offspring for nothing, and I could be pretty realistic, too."
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Alter ego Nathan Zuckerman doesn't appear in these pages, andneither is there any sleight of hand blurring the line betweenliterature and life. Instead, here is Roth (NBCC Award-winning TheCounterlife ) at his most humane as he pens a kaddish to his recentlydeceased father, Herman. A vigorous 86-year-old, Roth pere wakes upone morning and half his face is paralyzed; soon he is deaf in one earand the verdict is a benign brain tumor. Surgery is ruled out for theoctogenarian, and the author is a helpless, horrified witness to hisfather's humiliating demise, "utterly isolated within a body that hadbecome a terrifying escape-proof enclosure, the holding pen in aslaughterhouse." In a fast-paced, cogent memoir, Roth, whose filialdevotion and awe are tempered with clear-eyed observational powers,ranges far afield and discusses the anti-Semitism of the insurancefirm that employed Herman Roth for 40 years; Herman's perfectionismand his latter-day disregard for his wife whom he neverthelesselevated to quasi-sainthood after death; Herman's abandonment of hisphylacteries in a locker at the local YMHA; the author's quintuplebypass surgery weeks before his father's death; and Herman'sincontinence and the ample size of his genitals. BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Parent-child role reversal,
By
This review is from: Patrimony: A True Story (Paperback)
This is more than a book about Philip Roth and his father. This is a book that explores the father-son relationship in general. Roth eloquently traces the process of role reversal in which child becomes parent as his father's health gradually deteriorates. What he reveals is that this is by no means an easy or natural process. His father resists at every turn his son's attempts to care for him, clinging desperately to the pride and self-respect that painfully elude him as his independence disappears. And for Roth, the son, the process of coming to grips with the mortality of his father is equally difficult. This figure in his life that he has looked up to as indestructible is suddenly revealed to be human, and the son is forced to deal with the loss - not just the loss caused by his father's death, but also the loss of security that came before that as he slowly assumes the role of responsibility vis-à-vis his father.This is also a book about the human tendency to fear and resist death. It is a testimony to the courage of the human heart, the courage to fight death and the courage to finally accept what is natural. It is only fair of me to point out that of the seven Roth novels that I have read, this is the worst. That said, it is still better than 90 percent of the books I have read. That's simply a testament to how good a writer Roth is, that even his worst performances are still worthy of prizes like the National Book Critics Circle Award, which Patrimony won. What I didn't particularly care for in this book was that it made no attempt at being anything other than autobiographical. It read more like a personal journal than a novel, and Roth's ability to create wonderful characters was hampered by the fact that he wasn't really creating anything at all here; rather, he was simply recording the events and emotions of his actual life. It thereby loses the feel of being a novel.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant,
By
This review is from: Patrimony: A True Story (Paperback)
Read this book in two seatings. First rate non-fiction from my favorite author. Vivid scenes put you in his shoes; sad and happy at the same time.Just bought it for my father for father's day.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A slim and beautiful portrait of an old man at lifes end,
By A Customer
This review is from: Patrimony: A True Story (Paperback)
With the possible exception of Goodbye Columbus when you undertake a Roth novel you are in for some heavy reading and a major time committment. No so with this novel. At almost novella length, Roth spins a somewhat possibly fictionalized story of the elder Roth's late life which despite being the father of a famous author, he is also a man full of memories and regrets.The most moving of scenes which will touch anyone who has lost a loved one is the trip to the Mother graveside. Ultimately no matter how you behave during the visit; if you talk to the deceased, weed the plot or whatever, you walk away the same as you came in...alone... to paraphrase Roth. This an other flashes of the master make this and all Roth novels worth reading over and over.
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