WOW !! Philip Roth

[LivinLOS]

I have just finished a book that has done that rare thing of powerfully hitting me.. I know I am going to have to get the rest of this guys work.

The book is called The Dying Animal by Philip Roth. The language is powerful and captivating. It is definatly very 'literary' and the language used is far more high brow prose than I normally enjoy (yous sure is book smeart) but the language is just so powerful.

The only thing I can do is give you some quotes direct.



..No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, your not superior to sex. Its a very risky game. A man wouldnt have two thirds of the problems he has if he didnt venture off to get fvcked.

...Each new excess weakening me further - yet what is an insatiable man to do?

..Because only when you fvck is everything that you dislike in life and everything by which you are defeated in life purely, if momentarily, revenged. Only then are you cleanly alive and most cleanly yourself. Its not sex thats the corruption - its the rest...

...it was a fierce, tense situation, but by bluntly lying right into her face, I survived and, fortunately, she did not leave me when I needed her most. She left, only later, and at my request.

Because in sex there is no point of absolute stasis. There is no sexual equality and there can be no sexual equality, certainly not one where the allotments are equal, the male quotient and the female quotient in perfect balance. Theres no way to negotiate metrically this wild thing. Its not fifty fifty like a business transaction. Its chaos of eros we're talking about, the radical destabilization that is its excitement. You're back in the woods with sex. You're back in the bog. What it is is trading dominance, perpetual imbalance. Your going to rule out dominance ? Your going to rule out yielding? The dominating is the flint, it strikes the spark, it sets it going. Then what? Listen. You'll see. You'll see what dominating leads to. You'll see what yielding leads to.



Its a very powerful book on the Human condition.. Its only short, I read it in a couple of sittings, a few hours diversion at most but I have a feeling that its really worth reccomending.. Right down to the last word which packs a sucker punch.

5 *

[marc26]

sefton. whats the main premise? life in general? sex? relationships?

[LivinLOS]

The main premise is an older sophisticated professor seducing and maintaining a relationship with a much much younger girl (student of his) so lots of taboo's broken etc..

Contemplative about life, death, body image, infatuation, the madness that love and lust brings, mortality, morality, etc..

Its a odd combination of being a fast paced page turner (and short) as well as being very deep.. I kept reading a passage and thinking WOW, grabbing a pencil and underlining lines and sentances like those above..