Review - The Humbling by Philip Roth

The Humbling by Philip Roth
Publisher: Harcourt 2009
Hardback 140 pages




I am in love. I read this book in a 90 minute car ride. Okay, so it would be more accurate to say that I devoured this book in a 90 minute car ride. I have to say that my first thought after reading this book was a particular episode of my favorite library comic strip Unshelved:

http://www.unshelved.com


It is about the "Seven Stages of Falling in Love with an Author". Currently I'm on stage 4: gluttony. I have ordered every book he has written (which is quite a few!) and have been reading them until I fall asleep with my nose pressed against the pages. (Thank goodness I don't drool!) The last time I did this with an author was after I read Chuck Palahniuk's book "The Diary" that my cousin had given me to read. Now once again, I find myself cautiously in love with this new author.

The Humbling is a story about a distinguished stage actor, who finds that after years at being at the top of his craft, he suffers a breakdown of the spirit and can no longer act. His self-doubt leads to a divorce, a stint in a mental hospital and a self inflicted exile to his countryside estate. While he flirts with thoughts of the shotgun in his attic, a forty-year-old daughter of a longtime friend shows up on his doorstep. While she comes bearing problems of her own; a disastrous breakup that caused her to flee across the country, to a just ended lesbian affair with her supervisor, her passion stirs awake something that had long been dormant inside the older actor.

Within the affair of these two people, Roth delves into topics such as age and success, love and despair, and how the difference between love and sex can either save us or tear us down completely.