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The Dying Animal
 
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The Dying Animal (Paperback)

by Philip Roth (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 14.95
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Product Details

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Eros and mortality are the central themes of Roth's frank, unsparing and curious new novella. It's curious not only because of its short form (new for Roth), but because he seems to have assumed the mantle of Saul Bellow, writing pages of essay-like exposition on contemporary social phenomena and advancing the narrative through introspection rather than dialogue. The protagonist is again David Kepesh (of The Breast and The Professor of Desire), who left his wife and son during the sexual revolution vowing to indulge his erotic needs without encumbrance. Kepesh is now an eminent 70-year-old cultural critic and lecturer at a New York college, recalling a devastating, all-consuming affair he had eight years before with voluptuous 24-year-old Consuela Castillo, a graduate student and daughter of a prosperous Cuban ‚migr‚ family. From the beginning, Kepesh is oppressed by the "unavoidable poignancy" of their age difference, and he suffers with the jealous knowledge that this liaison will likely be his last; even when locked in the throes of sexual congress, a death's head looms in his imagination. The end of the affair casts him into a long depression. When Consuela contacts him again eight years later, on the New Year's Eve of the millennium, their reunion is doubly ironic in the Roth tradition. Consuela has devastating news about her body, and it's obvious that retribution is at hand for the old libertine. Roth's candor about an elderly man's consciousness that he's "a dying animal" (from the Yeats poem) is unsentimental, and his descriptions of the lovers' erotic acts push the envelope in at least one scene involving menstruation. The novella is as brilliantly written, line by line, as any book in Roth's oeuvre, and it's bound to be talked about with gusto. (May 18) Forecast: Roth's audience is faithful, and the erotic explicitness of this book may attract other readers who have not tackled the author's longer novels. But his longtime refusal to do talk shows or give interviews will as usual limit publicity efforts, and it remains to be seen whether such a narrowly focused story will sell with the rapidity of Roth's longer novels.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


From Library Journal

Roth at his most erotic, which really says something. A sixtyish cultural critic who has never managed to commit he's still enjoying the sexual revolution gets all tangled up in an affair with the voluptuous young Consuela.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews

44 Reviews
5 star:
 (18)
4 star:
 (13)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (6)
1 star:
 (5)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (44 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

 
4.0 out of 5 stars laughing, Aug 21 2009
By Zenobia (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Dying Animal (Hardcover)
From a previous reviewer

"Upon joining an online discussion group I read this book and find he has become just another old goat looking for young poon."

Oh my lord that is so hilarious, and yes, yes it is true. This is a story of an old goat looking for young poon, or any poon really. But that old goat is starting to notice he is getting old and this book is how he struggles to deal with the vulnerability that comes with aging - the fear of death or maybe even worse the fear of being totally alone.

I find Roth raw and blunt in a way that appeals to me but some may find his protagonist (who some say is based on Roth himself) arrogant and self centered. He is. But I don't always want to read books with perfect characters leading the story.

Parts that stuck out for me: At the bedside of his dying friend, the strained relationship with his son, how he views Consuela (sad really) his life feels hollow and unfulfilled despite all his success career-wise.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Wallflower at the revolution, Mar 14 2004
By "zazee" (Below the 39th //) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Dying Animal (Hardcover)
I read Philip Roth's first few books then missed a couple of decades. Upon joining an online discussion group I read this book and find he has become just another old goat looking for young poon. Is he vying for that rascal Henry Miller`s mantle as Dirty Old Man of American Letters? I know that art can be about anything but an essay on the changes in society over the last forty years would have sufficed. Like many Woody Allen fans I prefer the older, funnier work.

Roth is a fine writer and unlike some best selling authors he does have a lot to say. I just could not get past the story of a twenty year old entering into a liaison with a senior citizen. As young coeds in the sixties, my friends and I would never entertain such thoughts about even the youngest instructors. "He must be at least thirty and probably married." We had plenty of callow frat boys buzzing around who didn't know anything about anything and it suited us just fine.

Attending college in Canada, the Vietnam War did not really affect us except for the occasional kid with a Yank accent panhandling on the street. Draft dodgers. We kept our distance because American boys had a reputation for being fast..... By the seventies I was safely married sat on the sidelines during the devolution of the freedom movement into the disco era. That generation jettisoned the ideology and kept the drugs. A writer of Roth's stature would have no end of groupies willing to sit at his feet or do anything else he wanted. It was amusing when he invoked the US Constitution to bolster his case for doing exactly as he pleased. Rogering as an Inalienable Right.

His alter ego in the book is not an altogether hopeless case. Anyone as erudite and cultured as David Kepesh cannot be all bad. I found it endearing that he persisted with his piano playing even though he kept hitting wrong notes. He was truly attached to his friend George and went out of his way to make his last days meaningful even though it was an exercise in futility. We are all wary of being smothered by the very people from whom we seek comfort. Intimacy is fraught with danger. But being alone has pitfalls as well as pleasures.

Having a peek beneath David's detached exterior it gives the reader hope that he will extend himself to the ailing Consuela. The affair that caused him to regress into adolescent jealousy and possessiveness may enable him to finally grow up. He only has to take the opportunity to redeem himself.

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2.0 out of 5 stars A woman's point of View: David Kepesh; The Dying Animal, Mar 12 2004
By Laudan Tehrani "TehraniGirl" (Charlotte, NC United States) - See all my reviews
I had read some amazing reviews on this book. Very high ratings from different sources. I felt compelled to read this book. Obligated.
I am a woman, and to most people it would seem this book was out of my league. I am a young woman at that, and I was curious to understand the male mind and the powers of love, obsession, and desire.
This is what I got. A sad book with even more disturbing characters. I wondered how this sad excuse of a man managed to get so many female students in bed with him? If it was because of intelligence, I would say he was a walking robot of mostly useless knowledge one attains from many years of boredom, being alone, and not exactly having much of a life. Ok so David Kepesh, compulsive womanizer, sex addict and crazy old man syndrome still in the age of trying to live young, or at least pretend he is young is a man skewed with reality.
I kept reading.
I could never relate to any of these characters, not even Consuela , a year apart from me in age, similar background and family story, and yet she seemed so blah besides her nice clothes and apparent other assets. This would be the kind of girl to go to bed with a much older man, perhaps a professor.
But why? What seriously compelled her to fall for him? Is it because she had younger boyfriends and they didn't please her in bed?
So now, men and women of all ages are just completely helpless to sex?
I can't believe in a story if the characters are so shallow and limitless. I can't cheer for a character if there is absolutley not a single good soul in the entire novel.
I kept reading.
I think what I really expected was the story to show the process of growth and change. A man, a woman, people who learn from life's events and make better because of it. It was clear that David Kepesh would start the book as a perverted, sexaholic man with bad choice of consistent words ( you'll learn these words early if you read the book ), and end it in the very same way...no dignity, no true emotions or feelings, still at 70 years old obsessing over a former students breasts.
There was no closure in this book, it left you suddenly hanging and didn't even give you hope that maybe this character of 156 pages had changed.
I was so pumped to read this book, and I can certainly tolerate flawed characters, but I can't really bear the idea that people live their whole lives the exact same way, no regret, no changes or growth occur for them, no revelations, no wake up calls to alert them. Nothing. Just 70 years of a shallow life and a woman who comes to him after 8 years pass. Because she wants him by her in her time of need. Could David Kepesh really fulfill a need like that?
I didn't think so. For me it was a story about a sad man and a sad woman, with parts of other characters not lovable or even likeable.
I'm waiting for the next novel when perhaps Philip Roth lets David Kepesh finally grow up, of course I wouldn't read such hogwash, and certainly by then this Kepesh character will be gone from this world.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars The Elderly Adolescent and His Angst
Scanning this book as my other half poured over it with disarming fascination, I had to peek into what had so mesmerized him. Read more
Published on Oct 7 2003 by Zinta Aistars

4.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing Yet Riveting
I have to say The Dying Animal broke no real new ground in the "Lolita" genre, and in typical Roth fashion, nothing really happens in the book, as he pretty much tells the story... Read more
Published on Oct 6 2003 by J. Conrad Guest

4.0 out of 5 stars What struck me is the hypocricy
A friend of mine warned me I could not handle this book, but I read it, anyway, and I found I could not only handle it, but I had much to gain from the insights. Read more
Published on Aug 9 2003 by Tanja L. Edwards

5.0 out of 5 stars Roth, distilled to his most powerful essence
Roth fans, students of serious literature, and those interested in a glimpse into the aging male psyche should truly enjoy this gem of a book. Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars The Old Man with the4 Breast Fetish
There seems to be just one main theme for Vidal - one he comes back to again and again: SEX.

As the author ages, so does the protagonist professor David Kepesh, age seventy and... Read more

Published on May 30 2003 by lvkleydorff

5.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining and deep meditation on human sexuality
This is a review of _The Dying Animal_ by Philip Roth (in the Vintage Books paperback edition).

A friend recommended this novella to me, and I'm very glad she did. Read more

Published on Mar 20 2003 by bryan12603

5.0 out of 5 stars Written like a private diary
I don't explain plots. Read any other review, you'll get a good idea what the book is about. I'll comment on Philip Roth's writing which is lean and mean. Read more
Published on Nov 2 2002 by Thomas Ligotti Reader

2.0 out of 5 stars The Dead Animal
It's time for Philip Roth to grow up. He's what? 70? The guy has made a career out of his puerile obsession with sex, but his routine is tired. Very tired. Read more
Published on Aug 14 2002 by lewzayre

1.0 out of 5 stars Flogging a Dead Horse
I have a credential to crab about this book. As does the main character in this book, I teach at a major university and a think tank, have published a few books, appear on... Read more
Published on Jul 12 2002

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Novela
Great Little Novel. Roth's choice of First Person narration makes this work all the much better. David Kapesh combines age and experience to give a balanced view of both himself... Read more
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