Review - Indignation by Philip Roth

Indignation by Philip Roth
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company 2008
Hardback 233 pages




I have a habit of doing things backwards. One such "backwards" habit of mine is to read reviews of a book after I have finished reading it. This especially holds true with authors that I like. I would rather that I first form my own ideas, feelings and opinions about a book before someone has time to eviscerate a beloved authors newest work. When I open a book I want it to be a fresh world, unprejuidiced by the suppositions of others.

That being said, reading a review after I have read the book can be as entertaining as the book itself. I can either feel solidarity with another reader, shout in outrage over their misinterpretations or just laugh and think "how in the world did they get that out of this book!". No matter what though, it is always an interesting journey for me.

The reason I bring up this topic now is due to the wide variation of reviews that I found for Philip Roth's Indignation. Some, like the Financial Times found it to be "intricately wrought, passionate and fascinating" while The Los Angles Times found it "an irritating, puzzling and fascinating bundle of mistakes, miscalculations and self-indulgences". And if these two reviews were just the extremes of what has been said about this little novel then one could disregard them, however they seem to be the norm. The reviewers either hate it or they love it with no feelings in-between.

So now to give my own humble opinion on this little book. Again, I think Roth has crafted another complex, yet meticously compact, story that reaches on themes larger than any one character. Very few authors have the gift that Roth has for conveying so much thought and passion in such a stunningly simple and beautiful way. The neurosis of the young Messner shows us much more than a young man's individual struggle to fit in. It shows us humanities struggle to find a place of acceptance and respite. Read the reviews if you must (a link to them can be found at the end of this post) but my advice to you is to read it and judge it yourself.

Reviews from a variety of publications can be found here.