The Counterlife : Philip Roth

Amazon.com: The Counterlife (Audible Audio Edition): Philip Roth, Malcolm Hillgartner, Inc. Blackstone Audio: Books



The Counterlife is about people enacting their dreams of renewal and escape, some of them going so far as to risk their lives to alter seemingly irreversible destinies. Wherever they may find themselves, the characters of The Counterlifeare tempted unceasingly by the prospect of an alternative existence that can reverse their fate.

Illuminating these lives in transition and guiding us through the book's evocative landscapes, familiar and foreign, is the mind of the novelist Nathan Zuckerman. His is the skeptical, enveloping intelligence that calculates the price that's paid in the struggle to change personal fortune and reshape history, whether in a dentist's office in suburban New Jersey, a tradition-bound English Village in Gloucestershire, a church in London's West End, or a tiny desert settlement in Israel's occupied West Bank.

Audible Audiobook Listening Length: 12 hours and 14 minutes Program Type: Audiobook Version: Unabridged Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc. Audible.com Release Date: October 1, 2016

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Daniel P. Liderbach

5.0 out of 5 starsExperience Without Fantasy

January 12, 2014

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Philip Roth deserves to be recognized as portraying human
experience as ambivalent, rather than as simply positive or
negative.
In COUNTERLIFE he portrays the lead character as a male
with great talent which turns out to be the great flaw of that
character: he compulsively follows his talent in spite of the
fact that such following by him leads to the dissolving of his
relationships.
This book is an excellent portrait of human life as it is.
More novelists might well imitate Roth's honesty in portraying
human experience.

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J. Grattan

VINE VOICE

5.0 out of 5 starsAn intelligent human being: a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding

February 5, 2011

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In this amazing, provocative novel - with five interconnected chapters of varying fictive purpose - there is scarcely any aspect of Jewish life, whether at the level of individual, family, or broader society, which goes unexamined by renowned writer, Nathan Zuckerman (Roth's alter ego). Having exposed the ridiculousness of his childhood family in his acclaimed, hurtful book, CARNOVSKY, thus, acquiring a reputation as a biting social critic, Nathan, in frank, often acerbic, letters, reminiscences, and long conversations, challenges comforting illusions in many areas and concerns of life, such as marriage, fidelity, potency, religion, Jewish authenticity, discrimination, etc, including the underlying attitudes and beliefs. Ultimately, it is how one is situated in those facets of life, as perceived by self and others, that supplies the basis of one's identity. However, for the characters in this book, identity is not a given; in fact, they suggest the difficulty of establishing an unquestioned, coherent, resilient identity.

Little is sacred to Nathan in his quest to expose life's fictions. In fact, in the first three chapters of the book Nathan examines the supposed obsessions and excesses in Henry's, his younger brother, life. First, Henry is seen agonizing over an operation with life-threatening possibilities to restore potency, though hardly to improve his marriage. Next, Henry abruptly joins an obscure settlement in Israel established by a radical Jewish element, having suddenly decided that his former life was superficial - inauthentic. However, in chapter four, Gloucestershire, it turns out that Nathan is actually the brother who has had bypass surgery. Henry goes through Nathan's papers to discover that his older brother has every intention of misrepresenting him, disparagingly so, as a person with ridiculous identity issues in Nathan's next book. Interestingly enough, those notes appear as the first chapters of this book - fiction within fiction!

Chapter five, Christendom, finds Nathan, having married pleasant, sharp, younger, upper-class Maria, is convinced that his very being is under assault as it turns out that Maria's mother and older sister either harbor or express anti-Semitism. His defensive, non-religious urbanity is thinner than he realized. Maria is not particularly sensitive to Nathan's concerns, finding his reactions to be a failure to accept reality at the risk of jeopardizing their marriage. The doubts and dilemmas of the fictional Henry suddenly do not seem so ridiculous; perhaps one's choices have constraints that come to the surface only at certain stressful times in life.

A curious aspect of the book is the constant criticism that Nathan (Roth) gets from those whose motives or passions he questions. He, as an isolated writer, is accused of failing to grasp unpleasant, harsh, and changing reality, preferring to excoriate those who have to deal with the world as it is presented to them, and holding to a purist, idealistic view of life that is both arrogant and irrelevant. There is little response. Additionally, the author is hardly unaware of the comedic and absurd aspects of man's foibles. How zany can you get: the young religious fanatic who hunts down Nathan at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and pretends to be an outfielder catching a ball against the wall. The phallic-centric Roth is on full display in the interview scene between Henry and his new dental assistant.

Practically every page of this book is pregnant with perceptive comments, descriptions, ideas, etc. Despite weighty matters, the writing is eminently understandable, precise, sarcastic, and, for the most part, keeps the story going. Final answers are in short supply, however. According to Nathan after his last "stupid" argument with Maria,

"Life `is' and: the accidental and the immutable, the elusive and the graspable, the bizarre and the predictable, the actual and the potential, and the multiplying realities, entangled, overlapping, colliding, conjoined - plus the multiplying illusions! ... Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?"

While there are no hard and fast answers, the book is not without its view. Sex is a powerful instigator in life; decisions based on sex can be ridiculous. More important to the author are the far greater consequences and meaning involved in fanatical religious perspectives, on the one hand, but also in the dehumanizing of those of a different religious experience. In addition, superior, dismissive, know-it-all approaches to one's own life or towards other will invariably come up short. While this book is not without a certain amount of ambiguity and complexity, it is so amazingly intelligent, thought provoking, and entertaining, that it must be read.

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Howie

5.0 out of 5 starsTo Jew or not to Jew

June 22, 2015

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That is the question, to which Mr. Roth gives no answer. I have. not enjoyed the writing of earlier books; but this one is fascinating, captivating and deeply enticing. So many answers to unfathomable questions makes this literature of the highest order. I will now read more. HAR

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Ann Wicks

4.0 out of 5 starsThe Counterlife

February 15, 2014

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I thought I had read all of Roth 's Masterpieces. What a wonderful discovery that Kindle Fire presents some I knew nothing about. Previously, I had read this selection and found both times it was necessary to read and reread to fully understand what was being said in all the correspondences and at times tedious prose. Still it was so nice to curl up beside my best friend and lapdog, Hugo, and escape, for a while, the utter madness of real life. Thanks Mr Roth!

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Richard E. Hoffman

5.0 out of 5 starsPhilip Roth is intense. He writes extremely well. ...

February 16, 2017

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Philip Roth is intense. He writes extremely well. His fiction addresses issues that are submerged in me and his writing brings them to the surface and lets me think about them consciously.

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Allan Goldfeder

5.0 out of 5 starsROTH DELIVERS AGAIN

August 11, 2016

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"A NATIONAL TREASURE"
Incite into the human condition second to none. A tremendous command of language. One of his best

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deb

3.0 out of 5 starsThree Stars

March 26, 2017

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William Van Brunt

3.0 out of 5 starsIf you're new to Roth, skip this one...

February 16, 2014

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I have read about 75% of Roths output, and am usually stunned at his brilliance. Counterlife, on the other hand, was the first piece of his I actually dreaded opening up my Kindle Reader (on a Surface Pro). However, read it I did as no matter what his content or obsession might be, he is the master, and I bow down to him. Plenty of better positive and negative reviews here or elsewhere to see what others are blissed or angry about....my only suggestion is that if you are a beginner to Roth, don't pick this one.

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