Indignation (Vintage International)

I couldn't put this book down... the subject matter was thoroughly explored and the characters were well developed and credible.
At one point I was taken aback by the self indulgence and feared the story was going to get raunchy.
I am so glad I kept going and look forward to the movie.

It's 1951, the Korean War rages thousands of miles away and Marcus Messner, son of a Newark Kosher butcher contemplates college. An A student, a perfect son, he starts at the local college, but soon his father begins acting strangely, watching over Marcus' every action, worrying for his son's safety.

To escape this overbearing, protective parental behavior Marcus escapes and transfers to Winesburg College in Ohio. It's a small liberal arts school, originally religiously founded and now tradition bound. Here Marcus finds anti-Semitism, hypocrisy, narrow mindedness from the lowest freshman to the esteemed Dean of Men. Then Marcus meet 'shiksa' goddess, Olivia Hutton, a vulnerable, unstable young woman.

So far we are in typical Rothian territory with his usual themes- the Jew as outsider, the obsession with death. Why I ask myself is Roth, forty plus years after Portnoy's Complaint still struggling with these themes? I find myself feeling cheated by Roth, yet still I read on and soon discover Roth has taken me in a mere 225 pages on a very dark journey.

Marcus' friendship with Olivia sets off a seemingly superficial chain of events which will have dire consequences for Marcus. I will say no more because shocking events will unfold which should not be mentioned in this review. To do so would ruin the brilliance of this novel for others. Suffice it to say the seemingly usual Rothian territory will explode in your face. I found this book profoundly disturbing.

Good book, had a lot of substance... Based on what we can do too our self... Passion if not handled correctly can lead us astray...
Most of all indirectly we are victims too our circumstances, how sad... One Must be good @ navigating through life... It's difficult too see how many, are able too do...

Philip Roth's Indignation is an exploration of the conflict between social pressure to conform and individual restlessness. Roth chooses to set the novel in the early 1950s. But his reflections on the seething indignation that can gradually build when the individual feels hemmed in by standards of social propriety easily speak to our current situation. It's to Roth's credit that he also underscores the personal confusion that the restless individual can experience even as he bucks the system. Typically, Roth chooses to express this in the sexual confusion experienced by both his protagonist Marcus and Marcus' "girlfriend" Olivia.

The central theme of the novel is explicitly voiced about mid-book, when Marcus, paraphrasing from one of Bertrand Russell's essays, observes that fear leads to cruelty. In one way or another, most of the people in the novel are examples of this algorithm: Marcus' father, who falls into a perpetual paranoia; Olivia, who resorts to bottle and razor blades; Dean Caudwell, who clings to tradition; Marcus' closeted roommate, who shields himself behind a reckless bohemianism. All of them are frightened, and all of them fall into destructive behavior--as, indeed, does the entire nation when it allows its paranoid fear of communism to lead to the Korean conflict, which serves as the novel's backdrop. (Once again, all this should sound familiar today.)

But ultimately the novel isn't one of Roth's best. The overall message is fantastic, but the writing tends to be limp and at times--such as the seemingly interminable (pp. 82-111) and too didactic exchange between Marcus and Dean Caudwell--is almost unbearable. There are some good moments. Roth remains a master at voices, and two of the minor characters in this novel, Marcus' mother and college president Albin Lentz, are unforgettable. Moreover, the final short chapter is poignant, Roth at his best. But overall, the novel was hard to get through, and the main character, Marcus, never quite comes alive.

One feature I personally found fun, which says nothing about the novel's literary merit, was Roth's description of the college town in which the novel is set. I happen to live in Lewisburg, PA, the town that hosts the university that Roth attended. Veiled references to the town are scattered throughout the book, and it was a hoot finding them.

I recently picked up this little book--my first exposure to Philip Roth--and was completely blown away. Someone described Roth as writing "perfect novels," and I think that this might just have been perfect. Short, concise, yet rich and descriptive. When you read this book, you are carried away into a different time, when things were simpler, yet so much more complex. You connect with the narrator because we've all been where he is--or at least, we've all experienced similar things--horrible roommates, rocky relationships with parents and authority figures, first love, first break-ups, and crazy adolescents.

The ending caught me by surprise--and the sheer irony of it all reminded me of life itself--no matter what happens, or what we do, life just marches on... Sometimes in the way we least expect it.

Great book, would certainly recommend.

"You do what you have to do," Marcus Messner learned from his father when working at the family butcher shop in New Jersey. But when Marcus begins college in 1951 during the Korean War, his father becomes obsessively fearful and concerned about his son's independence, surveilling every one of his actions. Because of this, Marcus moves out of Newark and transfers to a traditional college in Ohio where he does everything right as a responsible student. But even then, he couldn't find the peace to be himself nor be respected for who he was or who he loved. Indignant provocations came from different characters, including the dean, who cannot accept Marcus being atheist. Should he just keep his mouth shut and renounce his freedom to be himself? Or should he defend his dignity and beliefs at all costs even if that means risking being expelled during a critical time of war? I enjoyed this book a lot.

"Indignation" starts off well, soars in the middle and then trickles down at the end rather hastily. But it still manages to be a beautiful Greek tragedy, a cautionary tale of how the best-laid intentions of a promising life can be thrown off-kilter by small missteps and the mundane, uncontrollable screws of a system that are designed to tighten and throttle.

The novel centers on Marcus Messner, a working class Jewish boy from Roth's ubiquitous Newark who secures admission to small Winesburg College, Ohio to study law and thereby escapes the draft during the Korean War. By all measures Marcus is an immensely promising, extremely hardworking, fastidious young scholar whose informed atheist leanings are already well thought out and clear. His father is a butcher who fusses over him; his mother seems to be the real force in his life, and he enjoys an excellent relationship with him. Marcus goes to Winesburg even as his friends are being drafted and dying in Korea. The escape to Winesburg is both a chance to escape the war and one to escape the worry wart of a father. He seems primed for the American success story; working class Jewish kid from New Jersey becomes a lawyer presenting briefs to the Supreme Court.

Just when it looks like Marcus's career and life at Winesburg are set, he gets ensnared by a girl with rather unconventional erotic tendencies (for the 50s); a girl named Olivia Hutton who comes from a mysterious and wealthy background, a girl whose almost sanitized prim and proper image hides deep scars; a history of mental incarceration and a suicide attempt. Marcus falls for her and she presumably for him, but her unconventional sexual advances, general reputation and pressure from home cause him to break off the relationship. Stress from the relationship combines with a fractious argument with his Jewish roommates and he ends up changing rooms in the middle of the semester, repairing to a cold, dank isolated room that's the only one available.

In a small college like Winesburg, this seemingly mundane act reaches the ear of the dean, who calls Marcus to his office for a chat about...everything. What follows is probably the most memorable part of the book, a mesmerizing exchange in which Messner invokes Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian" so forcefully that I was compelled to change gears and read this essay again (it's priceless, if you haven't read it). The Dean is insufferable and seems bent on prying into Marcus's private life and interpreting his change of room as some kind of overall inability to get along with others. Almost everything that Marcus says becomes criticism. Marcus in turn resents the inquiry into his private affairs and beliefs and feels indignant not just about this but about the fact that he is required to attend chapel every week and declare fealty to a God who he does not believe in. The physical and mental indignation that Marcus feels from this all-round attack couched in civil concern finally causes him to collapse in the dean's office with a burst appendix.

In the hospital he opens his eyes to see the mysterious and beautiful Olivia Hutton crooning over him. They briefly resume their strangely amorous relationship and exchange banter about their parents. One of those parents - Marcus's mother - shows up unexpectedly out of concern. A strong personality with firm opinions, she tells Marcus that she plans to leave his father who has recently become bitter and insufferable. When she realizes that the separation will devastate Marcus, she promises him she will reconsider, but at a price - he is to sever all contact with Miss Hutton. Marcus reluctantly agrees - another reason for indignation on his part. Bitter and confused, he pays a student to sit in for him in chapel - it's part of a longstanding arrangement between his Jewish fraternity brothers.

Unfortunately both the chapel subterfuge and the amorous events which transpired between him and Miss Hutton in the hospital are discovered - as is her departure from Winesburg because of a nervous breakdown - so it's time for another heart-to-heart with the insufferable dean again. This time Marcus loses it, and the end is predictable - expulsion followed by drafting into the war, ending finally in death under the blade of a bayonet.

Indignation works because it really reveals how someone can become gradually enmeshed into a trap, largely because of no fault of his except that of being an unconventional outsider to the system. The end is rather anticlimactic, and some of the characters who seem bent on making Marcus's life hell seem too obtuse to be completely believable, but generally speaking Roth does a very good job of showing the unfolding of Marcus's life as an inevitable Greek tragedy. It's after all the little things that get you into trouble.

This review is for the audio version produced by Brilliance Audio and narrated by Dick Hill.

I do not have a long history with Phillip Roth - aside from another audio recording (The Plot Against America: A Novel) and the short Everyman, I have avoided his work. In fact, the only reason I even read EVERYMAN was to confirm my beliefs about the temper of his novels, and, not wanting to spend a lot of time doing so, selected the shortest one I could find. While I still think EVERYMAN was only average, the two audiobooks I've listened to since then were very good - enough that I've changed my mind about the value of reading Roth's work, even if I haven't much changed my preconceived notions about that work.

INDIGNATION is the story of a young Jewish man attending college at a small mid-western university and learning about life and love. It also probes at the idea of fate, and how the life ping-pongs off multitudes of other personalities. Marcus Messner, the young man in question, has quite clearly defined goals in life, yet finds himself reacting to his family, his fellow students, the faculty, and women in ways that divert him onto tangents that he resents and which are antithetical to his goals, and which ultimately set him on a course toward that which he most hoped to avoid.

What is the indignation of the title? I'm not sure - that life did not conform to the way the protagonist wished? Maybe. Still, the delineation of the journey is extremely well done - as in THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, Mr. Roth sketches out his characters and their dialogue without ever hitting a false note...until the end. And, come to think of it, EVERYMAN also had a rather abrupt ending - as if the author approached the end to all three of these books and found that he was tired of writing them, and looked for the quickest, easiest way to sum up and write 'the end'. The endings aren't terrible or inappropriate, they just don't seem as if the author was as fully invested in them as he was the first three-quarters of the book. Perhaps it's a credit to Mr. Roth's writing that these lackluster endings don't affect the books more. Instead they are only minor disappointments.

Narrator Dick Hill is outstanding here. He moves expertly between the rhythms of a Jewish household in Newark to the WASP-ish accents of the mid-western campus to the bloated, overbearing and overweight voice of an old son of the South. After listening to the point of view of Marcus for the greatest part of the book, Mr. Hill transforms into the president of the college who berates the male population after an alcohol fueled panty raid, and made me believe I was listening to another person entirely. Good narrators are difficult to find, and Mr. Hill is another I would add to a list of readers whom I would be willing to listen to, even if I doubted that I was interested in the material they were reading.

Philip Roth forever manages to mine his background in Newark and his Jewish insular upbringing. He does it well here, in the fictional story of the protagonist's relationship with a father he loves, but who becomes so overbearing in his worry that his son, Marcus, not be drafted to the army and get killed, that the boy searches for a way to escape the pressure at home. He applies to a college of which he knows nothing other than the boy and girl in the photo are dressed in a way he finds pleasing, (and secretly, he buys the guy's outfit to take along.)
Marcus's contact with the world of Gentiles in a college that requires 40 hours of attendance at religious lectures, is sobering to the protagonist and a delight to the reader.
The novel is relatively short, and a great read.

"indignation," due to its length is probably more of a novella than a novel, but there is a lot packed into this depiction of 1950 America. For those of us who lived through the Viet Nam era just a decade or so later (and were the age of Roth's "Indignation" student hero at the time) this little book is a striking reminder of what it was like to worry about being drafted into combat that we were both unprepared for and for which we could not comprehend the necessity.

Most of us were not "indignant" in the sense that Marcus is indignant; as long as there was a military draft we were simply afraid of our immediate future. Even with that potential fate hanging over the heads of America's youth, some find that they are just not suited for college even if that is the only way to avoid going to war. Other, perhaps more patriotic of us, do not opt for that option because we believe in doing our part when it comes to defending this country. Perhaps, too, these were the most naive among us.

Roth captures all of those feelings and contradictions in the character of this strong-principled kosher butcher's son who can no more control his tongue when it comes to confronting authority than he can fly to the moon by flapping his arms. The boy seems like a doomed character almost from the beginning - and a careful reading of the story reveals his ultimate fate well before the final page is reached. What ultimately decides his fate is so trivial a matter that readers of "Indignation" will remember the novel for a long time.

"Indignation" is one of the final pieces of fiction published by Roth before his decision to retire. It is another reminder of how sad - and final - that decision of Roth's was.

Late 19th and early 20th Jewish immigrants in the US worked long hours in physical jobs, hoping their children would do better thanks to education. This book is about the years 1950-1952 during the Korean War. From a young age Marcus Messner (MM) is a model son who helps his parents run a kosher butchery in Newark, NJ. He graduates with straight A’s from high school and helps his father in the shop until his departure to a nearby college. The signs were already there, but once MM has moved out his father is developing ever more irritating and intrusive bouts of anger at the world around him and anxiety about his only son's safety.
MM always has Korea on his mind: if he flunks he will be drafted and killed. Better to graduate with top marks and become an officer and improve his chance of survival. But his father’s frantic behavior prompts MM to move to a mediocre college in Ohio, where he does not always deal smartly with a series of new challenges and problems. Only two of the 15+ fraternities accept Jews, but he refuses to join the only Jewish one on campus, suspecting (rightly) his meddling father asked them to recruit him. When he joins later on, he will come to regret his decision…
Philip Roth became world famous with “Portnoy’s Complaint” (1969) and is today an institution among American literary writers. This short novel is often funny, often sad, always moving and a pleasure to read. Readers have to find out for themselves how MM will solve his different problems. Roth has written a domestic American history of an almost forgotten war. To recreate the atmosphere of the time, create a tense plot and a range of believable characters is a great achievement.

Interesting book---I can't decide whether I liked it or not. When an author
writes as well as Roth it is a pleasure to read his work. He is a skilled and
gifted writer. His characters are wonderfully developed. The reader can actually
visualize these book people. Marcus, an 18 year old college student is driven to always succeed.
His beloved father is a kosher butcher, Marcus has worked, idolized and learned from his Dad.
It has become obvious that his dad is slowly losing his mind, he has become obsessively overprotective
of Marcus. This home situation is so distressing that the 18 year old boy leaves home. Marcus is ill
prepared to fit in socially at college. The plot thickens and the reader meets other misfits on campus.
Roth writes these misfits especially well. I do recommend this book

Philip Roth forever manages to mine his background in Newark and his Jewish insular upbringing. He does it well here, in the fictional story of the protagonist's relationship with a father he loves, but who becomes so overbearing in his worry that his son, Marcus, not be drafted to the army and get killed, that the boy searches for a way to escape the pressure at home. He applies to a college of which he knows nothing other than the boy and girl in the photo are dressed in a way he finds pleasing, (and secretly, he buys the guy's outfit to take along.)
Marcus's contact with the world of Gentiles in a college that requires 40 hours of attendance at religious lectures, is sobering to the protagonist and a delight to the reader.
The novel is relatively short, and a great read.

"indignation," due to its length is probably more of a novella than a novel, but there is a lot packed into this depiction of 1950 America. For those of us who lived through the Viet Nam era just a decade or so later (and were the age of Roth's "Indignation" student hero at the time) this little book is a striking reminder of what it was like to worry about being drafted into combat that we were both unprepared for and for which we could not comprehend the necessity.

Most of us were not "indignant" in the sense that Marcus is indignant; as long as there was a military draft we were simply afraid of our immediate future. Even with that potential fate hanging over the heads of America's youth, some find that they are just not suited for college even if that is the only way to avoid going to war. Other, perhaps more patriotic of us, do not opt for that option because we believe in doing our part when it comes to defending this country. Perhaps, too, these were the most naive among us.

Roth captures all of those feelings and contradictions in the character of this strong-principled kosher butcher's son who can no more control his tongue when it comes to confronting authority than he can fly to the moon by flapping his arms. The boy seems like a doomed character almost from the beginning - and a careful reading of the story reveals his ultimate fate well before the final page is reached. What ultimately decides his fate is so trivial a matter that readers of "Indignation" will remember the novel for a long time.

"Indignation" is one of the final pieces of fiction published by Roth before his decision to retire. It is another reminder of how sad - and final - that decision of Roth's was.

Late 19th and early 20th Jewish immigrants in the US worked long hours in physical jobs, hoping their children would do better thanks to education. This book is about the years 1950-1952 during the Korean War. From a young age Marcus Messner (MM) is a model son who helps his parents run a kosher butchery in Newark, NJ. He graduates with straight A’s from high school and helps his father in the shop until his departure to a nearby college. The signs were already there, but once MM has moved out his father is developing ever more irritating and intrusive bouts of anger at the world around him and anxiety about his only son's safety.
MM always has Korea on his mind: if he flunks he will be drafted and killed. Better to graduate with top marks and become an officer and improve his chance of survival. But his father’s frantic behavior prompts MM to move to a mediocre college in Ohio, where he does not always deal smartly with a series of new challenges and problems. Only two of the 15+ fraternities accept Jews, but he refuses to join the only Jewish one on campus, suspecting (rightly) his meddling father asked them to recruit him. When he joins later on, he will come to regret his decision…
Philip Roth became world famous with “Portnoy’s Complaint” (1969) and is today an institution among American literary writers. This short novel is often funny, often sad, always moving and a pleasure to read. Readers have to find out for themselves how MM will solve his different problems. Roth has written a domestic American history of an almost forgotten war. To recreate the atmosphere of the time, create a tense plot and a range of believable characters is a great achievement.

Interesting book---I can't decide whether I liked it or not. When an author
writes as well as Roth it is a pleasure to read his work. He is a skilled and
gifted writer. His characters are wonderfully developed. The reader can actually
visualize these book people. Marcus, an 18 year old college student is driven to always succeed.
His beloved father is a kosher butcher, Marcus has worked, idolized and learned from his Dad.
It has become obvious that his dad is slowly losing his mind, he has become obsessively overprotective
of Marcus. This home situation is so distressing that the 18 year old boy leaves home. Marcus is ill
prepared to fit in socially at college. The plot thickens and the reader meets other misfits on campus.
Roth writes these misfits especially well. I do recommend this book

What a wonderful writer Philip Roth is. He writes plainly and clearly, all the while evoking deep emotions from the reader from such events that may otherwise appear mundane. In this novel, Roth deals with the father-son relationship that has gone sour. Roth describes in vivid detail scenes that at the same time engender deeper reflections from the reader. For example, Roth's description of the ritual kosher killing of poultry is both a description of a procedure and a lamentation on its brutality while at the same time reminding the reader of its religious symbolism and cultural importance. The main character can't understand why his father has so suddenly becoming overprotective of him, wondering all the time where he is and what will happen to him. In response, the boy transfers from a nearby college in New Jersey to one in Ohio. His is determined to stick to his studies and work while in school to help pay his expenses. He deals with all kinds of problems while there - with roommates of various cultures and interests, with possible anti-Semitism. He is struggling with his own motives and intentions and often questions them. The reader can see him losing his emotional footing. Things get worse when he meets a girl who surprises him in many ways. I can remember having the same confused when in a relationship - Is this what she wants? Should I say this now or will she think me too aggressive? What if she wants me to be say this? Etc. Roth gets it right on the money when it comes to the constant equivocation of the human animal. We also get to see the main character's relationship with his mother whom he has seen all his life as a tower of strength and whose recent difficulties with his father bring another side of her to light. What we get here is a story of complicated humans doing things with great uncertainty, never quite knowing whether what they are doing is right or best. There are also sprinklings of philosophical discussions as the protagonist must deal with authority figures and how their beliefs conflict with his. For the reader, there is lots of material to mull over.

With "Indignation", Philip Roth proves to be as relevant now as he was at any point in his career. Capturing the angst of "Catcher in the Rye" in the Marcus Messner character, Roth adds sexuality and a political toxicity to create a plot the moves with the abandon of a runaway locomotive.

Marcus Messner is the son of a Kosher butcher. As Marcus reaches college age, his father becomes unreasonably controlling in his son's matters. The man, who has strictly followed Kosher laws in his business, believes his son has no structure or worldly sense. For academically strong Marcus, this burden becomes unbearable as he attends a local college.

To escape the controlling reach of his father, Marcus transfers from Newark to Ohio's Winesburg College. In his new surroundings, Marcus finds much of his new world unbearable. His roomates have no consideration for him. His female interest Olivia stews the emotions of his family burdens and school mate burdens together with greater venom. All this happens while his father continues to let his sanity slip away.

On par with Roth's other great works, "Indignation" is an easy read that speaks volumes abouts its times as relates to young adults/adolescents. The social and political climate are approached with tenacity and a sense of honesty. "Indignation" is a cunning portrait of the time period.

Philip Roth, as usual, draws upon his well-known personal history (growing up in the Jewish district of Newark, attending a secularized Christian college / university in the 1950s) in "Indignation" to create a short novel that is effectively a coming of age story from an outsider's perspective. "Indignation" poses many interesting questions (it would make a great book for discussion in a book group), and answers some of them in an especially over-the-top ending. Besides the typical coming of age questions about how to act upon the body's desires (given 1950's mores), the main questions posed in "Indignation" revolve around whether and how the individual should modify his behavior to adapt to the people and society around him, in order to successfully navigate through that society and ultimately survive and thrive.

Looking back at the book, I am amazed by how much ground Roth managed to cover in a little over 200 small pages. Each scene contributes masterfully not only to the development of the story, but to the questions Roth is posing and answering. As with everything that Roth produces, "Indignation" has layered meaning and can be read on several levels: as a potboiler, as a fictional account of the travails of a Jewish young man, or more broadly as an account of an outsider (and aren't we all outsiders, in one environment or another) attempting to adapt or remain true to one's beliefs. I felt the first half of the book was nearly perfect, but once events started unfolding in the second half, I felt that Roth took the scenes a little beyond what was necessary to convey his points. Sometimes Roth lacks subtlety.

Philip Roth is one of the most honored American writers in the past 50 years, and "Indignation" again shows why Roth has earned his reputation. Roth fans should relish this short book, and it could serve as a good introduction to Roth for those who have not read him before. Roth is best in longer novel form, where he has even more space to allow his imagination and prose to roam. "Indignation" is not Roth's all-time best, but it definitely is worthwhile reading. Unlike some artists who continue to produce well past their peak, Roth should keep writing for as long as his body and mind permit.

I'd seldom heard Philip Roth's name mentioned when talking about books or writers in general with my friends, but had never read one of his works before. When I saw Indignation on the "Must-Reads" table display in Barnes & Noble, Roth's name jumped out at me and I bought it on impulse. When I chose this book as part of an English class assignment, there was nothing inside of me that thought I could possibly enjoy it as much as I turned out to.
I read it all in one sitting, with the exceptions of a couple bathroom breaks. I wasn't expecting something so gripping and mesmerizing as the perfectly articulated diction that Philip Roth used so well all throughout the book.

The storyline is one that I found so enjoyably unique that it compelled me to keep the pages turning. I had no idea that the life of a college boy from New Jersey in the 1950's would interest me to such an extent. Albeit a mild spoiler, I'd say it was by the revelation of the dead narrator, Marcus Messner, on page 54 that I knew this book would have a potentially chilling, unsatisfying ending. Roth certainly did not fail to deliver on my assumption.
The thematic expressions of inevitable death and repression are ones that I didn't know prior to reading but later found out were common among Roth's work in that period of his career. The themes were ones new to my realm of reading, and I could not be more grateful to have given them a chance because the impeccable word choice and syntax so swiftly turned any existing doubt into awe.

I found myself constantly reaching for a pencil to underline passages that I could not believe how perplexedly yet effortlessly worded they were. It was terrific; on my free time afterward, I'd go back and reread those quotes and it'd feel like I was heightening my vocabulary by tenfold (that's a hyperbole, but ah, if only). Philip Roth was able to trigger a whole new level of appreciation and attention from me to the bold protagonist by displaying a wit sharper than his father's butcher knives.
Also, although the use is quite sparing, potential readers should be expectant of the blurbs of explicit/sexual content that are important to not skip around for they are often referenced occurences in Marcus's story.

I highly recommend Indignation to anyone who likes a challenge. It certainly is no easy read if you aren't one for long, playful words and the intricate thinking that is demanded. The prose is so beautifully built, I can hardly express how wholeheartedly I was able to resonate with this novel.
I look forward to exploring more of Roth's creations, as finishing this one prompted me to order two more of his notable books.

indignation / n : anger aroused by something unjust, unworthy, or mean.

Philip Roth's 29th book (and the 15th of his I've read) is the best of the last few, similarly short, novels he's produced. I thought EVERYMAN was a total waste of time, and saw EXIT GHOST as an interesting but not wholly successful follow-up to THE GHOST WRITER, but his newest really worked for me. The first-person narrator, Marcus Messner, possesses a voice that is equal parts brilliant, precocious, antagonistic and innocent. The time is 1951, the place is a small Ohio college, where this kosher butcher's son from Newark has just transferred as a sophomore. The university is Winesburg -- an allusion to Sherwood Anderson's fictional town and novel about rural town grotesques -- that is pure, Christian-valued, Americana. Of course, it's the perfect place for a Jewish genius to get in touch with his intolerance, test his social and sexual mores, and escape the seemingly endless march of young American soldiers into the Korean War.

The plot revolves around Marcus' attempts to separate himself, both physically and emotionally, from his suddenly tyrannical father, who has grown paranoid and distrustful, convinced of his son's impending death at the hands of the big, bad world. Marcus rebels in the only way he knows how, by escaping five hundred miles away to a Gentile-filled campus where he blends in by disappearing altogether. He attends class, argues with his roommates, and focuses all of his prioritized energies on getting straight A's and achieving the rank of school valedictorian. Complications, big and small, arise, leading the main character into a questionable romance with a labyrinthine girl, a number of confrontations with the soberingly thoughtful yet condescending Dean of Men, as well as a slew of other pursuits both intellectual and emotional.

The main conceit of the novel, beyond Marcus' desire to avoid the war and distance himself from his father's madness, is something I won't reveal here, allowing the surprise and climactic discovery to remain a genuine twist for the reader to ponder and enjoy. Beyond Roth's main hat trick, there are plenty of wonderful scenes and characters to revel in, with their compelling thematic thrustings and morally ambigiuous ramifications supplied to attack and dazzle the senses. The novel, like his earlier works, is about youth and the hope for understanding and the wish to be understood. Marcus is at once the polar opposite and a carbon copy of Alexander Portnoy, whose complaints were as important and vital to his being as Marcus' indignation is to him. It's been almost 40 years since that scandalous novel of Roth's was published, and his newest proves that he still has the literary and controversial chops he had back then.

Philip Roth's "Indignation" is set in the early fifties and is told in flashback by Marcus Messner, a nineteen-year old straight arrow from Newark, New Jersey. Marcus, an only child, enjoys a special status as the only one in his family to excel academically and strive to attain a college education. Like the protagonist in "Everyman," some of Marcus's fondest memories are of the hours that he worked at his father's side in their store. This experience helped Marcus develop into a conscientious, responsible, and diligent young man.

Unfortunately, Marcus's relationship with his father deteriorates beyond repair when Mr. Messner develops a strange paranoia, characterized by unfounded suspicions that his son is spending time in pool halls and putting himself in harm's way. As Marcus becomes independent, his father clings to him even more and becomes "crazed with worry." Even after he enters college, Marcus is subject to surveillance, and finally in disgust, this obedient and conventional Jewish student applies and is accepted to a mostly gentile college in central Ohio.

"Indignation" is the story of Marcus's belated rebellion against organized religion, rigid authority figures, the social and sexual mores of his times, and the prejudice that he endures as one of the few Jews on campus. Marcus gradually grows bitter and quarrels with his obnoxious roommates, gets involved with an emotionally unstable but lovely young woman, and aggressively defies the dean of students. For all of this self-destructive behavior, Marcus pays a very steep price.

Roth, as usual, crafts each sentence with meticulous care and evokes sympathy even for those characters who prove to be their own worst enemies. As is his wont, Roth includes some scatological passages and quite a few scenes of black humor. Overall, this is an often poignant look at a time when young people were starting to awaken from a deep slumber that would eventually culminate in the sexual experimentation, political dissent, and social upheaval of the sixties. In addition, the author decries the high price that our country paid when we became embroiled in the Korean War--a conflict that would eventually claim over thirty-three thousand American lives. Roth demonstrates, as he has so often, that bad things happen to good people.

Indignation is told through the eyes of Marcus Messner, a young man from New Jersey who, in an attempt to leave his spiteful past behind, enrolls in a small Ohio college and faces a series of crises in his life. An incredibly earnest and likeable narrator, Messner is soon set upon a tragic fate that is the result of poor decisions, neuroses, and an overweening pride. It is this pride that forms so much of Messner's own indignation- at his parents, at his roommates, at the dean of his university, and also at himself for oftentimes straying off the beaten path and living a life antithetical to the orderly future he has planned for himself. The book is incredibly entertaining (Roth has a better sense of sentence structure, music and flow than probably any other author around), with moments of trademark Roth devilishness that do not quite breach territories he has indulged in more in previous works. The ending, abrupt and tragic, sets in sharp relief the story before it, and potently shows the price of having life depend too much on one's principles. Though not as broad and deep as some of Roth's previous books, it is still a worthy addition to them, and a must for any fan.

This is a very well written novel that challenges the reader with the concept of choice and its role in fate/destiny, and how one choice might change an entire series of predetermined plans. As this character is confronted with choices and situations that he is unfamiliar with, we see exactly where his weaknesses lie. He is quite a different person in the comforts of what he has come to know, his life as a butcher's son, his life as an only child, quite revered by his family, a dedicated self proclaimed "nice boy" that as it turns out, is not a very tolerant person or socially adept. I really enjoyed this book, although it is tragic, I don't think that you come away with it feeling disappointed (atleast I didn't). Sometimes with an ending such as it is, you feel cheated as if you've wasted your time with the character, but this book is so well presented it simply shines. There are alot of beliefs that this character confronts that may have your mind wandering to your own beliefs (religion, socialism, sexism, marriage, fraternity life) It's all here. If your looking for something that will entertain you and give you something to think about, this novel is a wonderful mix of both.

Although many of Philip Roth's recent novels feature elderly, aging protagonists, "Indignation" (2008) is a tragic coming of age story, a character study, and a tale of the difficulty of adjusting to change. The novel takes place in the early 1950's with the Korean War as the foreboding background. The hero and narrator of the story, Marcus Messner, is the only child of a kosher butcher and his wife from Newark, New Jersey. At the outset of the story, Marcus has just graduated from high school, where he has been a model student, earning straight A's. Marcus is studious and, self-controlled. He also plays second base on the school baseball team. Marcus is devoted to his family and diligently helps his father in the butcher shop where he works long hours, learns the trade, performs disagreable tasks, and develops a measure of tact in dealing with difficult customers.

None of the Messners had attended college and few had graduated from high school. Thus Marcus' parents are proud when their son enrolls in a local community college where he learns the joy of study and learning, excels academically, and plays to his strengths in participating on the college baseball team. Unfortunately, Marcus' father develops a fear that his son will waste his college opportunity and ruin his life by carousing with women or lounging in pool halls. His father's paranoia over many subjects increases as the novel progresses. When Marcus' father becomes overbearing in his suspicions of his son, Marcus decides to leave Newark and enroll in a small college, Winesburg, in northwest Ohio. His parents sacrifice to send Marcus to Winesburg College, and Marcus must take a job at a local pub on weekends to help meet his expenses.

At Winesburg, circumstances change from his close-knit home community in Newark. Marcus is on his own in a predominantly Protestant, conservative, and middle-class environment. Unlike other Roth characters, who frequently respond to their restrained childhood environment by seeking out frenetic sexual activity (the fear of Marcus' father), Marcus tries to be scholarly and introverted. He wants to study hard and says he doesn't mind being alone. Marcus aims to become the class valedictorian and attain success as a lawyer. But, alas, and unsurprisingly, things do not work out for Marcus. He does not understand the Winesburg Collge environment well, and his isolation helps bring him down. Marcus hits out at others, shows no tact or ability to relax, and displays a stunning naievety especially where young women and sex are concerned. The hero gets himself into irremediable trouble resulting from a series of seemingly small, manageable incidents and from a failure to adjust. Roth in his own voice observes at the conclusion of the novel about "the terrible, the incomprehensible way one's most banal, incidental, even comical choices achieve the most dispproportionate result."

For all the difficulties of the story and the conflicts between life in Newark and in Winesburg, Roth shows much sympathy and nostalgia for both places. In general the many disparate characters are well-meaning. Roth admires the hard working, solid, and mostly stoic character of the Newark Jewish community and of Marcus' parents. Yet Roth and tellingly in the novel, Marcus' mother recognize that with changing times and education, Marcus cannot remain in this world and carry it forward. In its turn, Winesburg College is portrayed as staid, conservative, and stuffy in its religious and sexual restrictiveness, even for the early 1950s. Yet Roth portrays the school and its administration as fundamentally decent and wanting to do the right thing to help Marcus adjust. One of the characters in the story is Dean Caudwell, the college dean for the men students at Winesburg. Even though the Dean levels some unfounded sexual accusations against Marcus, he is on the whole more than willing to meet Marcus halfway and to help him with the difficulties he understands Marcus faces at Winesburg. The young man's own temper, intellectual dogmatism, and lack of tact and social skills will not permit accomodation. Similarly, Roth both satirizes and respects the politically ambitious, moderate republican college president, Albin Lenzt who, in his pompous manner says some perceptive things to his students after a "panty raid" gets well out of hand. In a historical note at the end of the novel, Roth seems to regret the change in the school mores -- the elimination of a small chapel attendance requirement and the loosening of dormitory visitation rules -- that resulted from a student protest in the early 1970's.

Roth moves his novel forward through many effective scenes of dialogue. Among the most effective is a scene between Marcus and his mother. She strongly counsels her son against further involvement with an unstable young woman, Olivia. The mother is more than prepared to have Marcus lead his own life, but she warns him wisely against what she sees as a dangerous involvement. The relationship between Marcus and his mother throughout the book contrasts markedly with the overbearing mother-son relationship in Roth's most famous novel, "Portnoy's Complaint." Other important and telling dialogues in the book occur between Marcus and Dean Caudwell, Marcus and his girlfriend, and Marcus and Sonny, the sociable and well-adjusted president of the campus' only Jewish fraternity who tries to befriend Marcus.

Although it comes to a tragic end, "Indignation" displays a fondness for American life at the middle of the 20th Century. There is a suggestion that that the United States may recover some of its bearings by learning from, but not by emulating, its earlier virtues. This is a thoughtful short novel by an American master in his old age.

Robin Friedman