Sabbath's Theater

With this book Philip Roth initiated what promises to be the most impressive "late phase" in American literature since the later works of Henry James. This is an extreme book, very strong medicine, the perfect antidote for American Puritanism in its current (and politically triumphant) Christian Right phase. It is also a masterpiece of American prose. Roth lets rip in the opening sentence and doesn't let up until the great, shattering, Kafkaesque final line. (No, I won't spoil it for you. Read it yourself.) "Sabbath's Theater" is one of the greatest American novels of the last 25 years. Check it out.

Having read Roth since "Goodbye Columbus" I can honestly say that, in spite of his brilliant narrative skills and scintillating dialogue this book's content,the repetitive use of sexual scatology, the obsession with sexual deviance was first shocking and ultimately boring. Compared to " The Counter Life " it rates a 3 at best. As I struggled through the book I wondered what possessed Phillip to write it.

After enjoying American Pastoral, I bought Sabbath's Theater in a used book store excited to give it a chance. Instead, I found myself very disappointed with this novel. While some credit his use of characters of moral ambiguity, I found his characters rather unbelievable, unlikable, and therefore uninteresting. The main character, Mickey Sabbath, might be complicated and, some might argue, "deep," but his bizarre and crude antics make it difficult to care when so you have to struggle painfully through hundreds of pages of convoluted back story supposedly explaining why he has slipped so far. I found the numerous and sometimes gruesome sex scenes distasteful, despite the fact that I am usually neutral or even glad to have such content. Overall, I found this novel boring, disgusting, tedious, and forgettable. All in all a pointless read.

Philip Roth has an unfortunate penchant for long polemics to skewer his notions of "political correctness" using contrived caricatures.
I can't believe the focus on this book's reviewers is that the sexual content is shocking; not for the squeamish; salacious, etc. That that should be a readers difficulty with the material. I beg to differ. Unrealistic polemic and narcissism is what offends me.
Then, again, incredulous, to me, that it won a National Book Award.
Even his phone sex is boring! More a manipulative attempt to show he wasn't being a sexual predator than to engage in mutual erotic, orgasmic fantasy. Though it seems to have titillated some of his male reviewers. His political "skewers", which most reviewers have found amusing are the only things which shock me.
They act so woodenly; arbitrary and clumsy.
Roth is at times inciteful, compassionate and courageous; but here and in his later novels, he is overindulgent, filled with a rage that is really mean. A petty man with petty grievances, given magnification by grotesqueness.
Very disappointing.

While I have not always enjoyed all of Philip Roth's books, even the ones I disliked had some redeeming quality. This is Philip Roth's worst book. Roth is such a talented and thorough writer that it pains me to see him write books about ones extra-marital escapades. To make things less tolerable, the main character's tastes stretch far into the realm of deviancy.

Mickey Sabbath's life is altered when his long-time mistress dies. His problems are exacerbated when his wife effectively disowns him. Trying to satisfy his drive, Sabbath falls to stealing garments in one of his many attempts to relive the past. In a downward spiral that leads toward suicide, Sabbath revisits the past while trying to engage previous interests. Just based on his behavior, it is difficult to like or identify with the main character. At the same, there really is not any character to like in this book.

While many of Roth's books involve man's most basic drive, "Sabbath's Theater" takes the discussion to a base level while lacking any wit. Part of me was compelled not to finish the book as it was just not to my taste. Judging by the reviews, it was not up to the standards of others either.

Okay, I didn't really like Portnoy's Complaint either although I appreciate it as a coming of age type of novel. This novel is like Portnoy grows old and still does disgusting things with his body fluids. Even worse, the plot dragged. I feel as though I'm reading the reminiscences of a stunted teenager who hasn't a clue that he's stunted.

Roth can be an amazing stylist, but this book lacks any sense of forward motion, and precious little suspense about the past. Mickey Sabbath is obsessed with his dead Croatian sex-goddess mistress, and with sex in general, and the book explores his sexual escapades (mostly in the past, but some ick-factoring fantasies in present too) in microscopic detail. This might be acceptable if it was leading to enlightenment or some kind of catharsis, but if it's intended to be there, it eluded me. When Mickey masturbates on her grave, for example, his release isn't more profound merely because apparently, he's not the only ex-lover of hers to do so.

It's as if Portnoy aged but never matured. Mickey is on the outs with his wife, and ruined that relationship partly with a dalliance with a student that came to life when the tape recording the student made of their erotic phone calls finds its way into the university's hands. perhaps this is meant to comment on some of the "sexual harassment" excesses of the nineties, but it's so implausible, it doesn't wash, and seems to be little more than an excuse for a tour-de-force reproduction of that recording printed side-by-side with a scene of Mickey and student.

Mickey is a retired puppetteer, and his first wife was his muse. she disappeared mysteriously long ago. This thought nags at Mickey like a scab, but it is never resolved for the reader. Sometimes Mickey claims to have murdered her. There's no reason to believe this, but there's no alternative either.

The book goes on and on episodically: Mickey throws himself on the mercy of an old friend, but is kicked out when he attempts to seduce the wife, and also, is found sniffing the panties of the daughter whose room he is staying in. Just because the rants of a dirty old man are described vividly, without holding back, doesn't make them somehow emblematic of the human spirit. Roth fails to turn these details into something universal and worthwhile. It's a long book that just never catches fire. I suspect it won its various awards because the judges didn't know what to make of it and didn't want to be considered prudish. There's no "there" there, no story to reflect upon...

As always, there are some lovely passages. Roth writes vividly and is often funny. It would have made a good novella or collection of stories, but as a novel, it sprawls in its own flab.

This book is an old-fashioned, "shock the middle-class" novel, circa 1962, but actually written in the mid-1990's. It is silly, overly serious, pompous, and tiresome - but I must admit that it has some great paragraphs here and there (the cemetery scene is wonderful). I read the book because Roth is taken seriously by people I respect, but after reading this I now question their judgement.

Sex - both in practice, and in mind only - tends to play a large part in Roth's books. However, seldom as much as in this one. The dirty old man here is of course officially Mickey Sabbath, but I guess it takes one to know one....

What's most amazing about this book, is that despite the at times despicable mind of the main character, you have to keep reading. And you feel some kind of sympathy with the fellow. Although I disagree with reviewers who claim that Sabbath comes across as both a bad guy and a good guy. To me he is a bad guy, period!(Of course everybody's both good and bad to some extent, but I'm talking about the main impression here.)Yes - he does have affections for his family, and for his deceased mistress, but both his thoughts and behavior are repelling to an extent, which can't be excused by his somewhat traumatic upbringing. Compared to most people, he's had a good life.

Still - you keep hoping for some redeeming feature to come across, and I guess this is part of Roth's brilliance.

The main reason I don't see this as a 5 star read, is that in some parts of the book, Roth seems to get lost in his perverted thinking, and the quality of the writing suffers. On a couple of occasions I considered putting the book away. Not because I was in any way disgusted by the content, but because I felt he was going on and on about something that was already said, and which added nothing to the story or to the literary content.

Another brilliant effort from Roth, but as usual in his books - in my opinion - there are some flaws, that don't quite put the work on top of any lists...

Perversity abounds to the layman, but what lies in the writing of Philip Roth resides within each of us as well. The beauty of this book, beyond the humorous exploits of the protagonist, is that even if you choose to be offended or disgusted by his behaviors and perspectives, you still get caught in the sympathies of his evolving humanity.

Apparently there's something special about Philip Roth and his writing that escapes me. This novel was a complete waste of my time. I struggled to the middle then simply dumped it. The story is about a self-loathing, conflicted, sexually addicted misogynist who has lost all connection to anything humane. The writing style is dull and after 200 pages I didn't find a single character likable. The story is laced with the main character's sexual escapades but after a while even that loses it shock value and becomes numbing. It's good to see that I am not alone in my assessment of this novel. From the reviews posted you either really enjoy it or not. For me . . . NOT! Can't recommend this one.

This is Philip Roth's masterpiece. Here is where it all comes together in an unforgettable eruption: the giddy sensualism, the infuriating guilt, the brilliant narcissism and the punctured self-loathing, the mortal terror and sexual obsession. Mickey Sabbath is shocking and painful and hilarious and ultimately heartbreaking. Every time I read this book I am amazed. It is what novels are meant to be.

Some sections in this book are incredible. Roth's writing is amazing at times and breathtaking. I found myself in awe wondering many times, where does he get this from??? It was this hunger for extraordinary prose that kept me going. Unfortunaly half way through, I had to stop because I just could not relate and identify with the character nor could I find the purpose or direction that kept me going. I may go back at some point. But for now I am a bit tired of the old man... sorry in advance.

Roth did it with this BRILLIANT disturbing yet intriguing work. Left with "did he really just say that" which shamefully leaves it engrained in my mind. Loved the developed characters and interesting story. Wish I could come up with this stuff.

Having read other of Philip Roth's novels,very good indeed, I bought this title Sabbath's Theater. It has good prose since Roth is a good narrator, but I kept feeling like not reading the book at all at several moments during the story.
I admire Roth for other books, but make yourself a favor do not buy it.

Music ceases to be a cerebral construction and instead becomes a mainly physical experience if you stand within spitting of the front row of a 1000 piece steel orchestra, or actully put your head inside the base-bin of a fifteen foot high speaker. The rhythm and the base largely bypass your conciousness and just makes your muscles move, and the adrenalin flow. And so, similarly, Sabbaths Theatre manages to explode literature from the confines of ideas and into the realm of the immediately PHYSICAL. As well as being totally psycho-sexually terrifying, this is the is the most visceral and relentlessly blood curdling thing i ever read. This book causes some serious hormonal imbalances as it sets each and every chemical in the body raging into a situation of sheer EMERGENCY. One negative upshot of all of this physical and pschological panic is that PHILIP ROTH ACTUALLY GAVE ME PSORIASIS. But, you are purely addicted, and justify your next hit on the grounds that, yes, this really is an important insight into the state of 20th century, and beyond, western society, it's outrageous moralizing, sexual politics, and the structure of it's relationships. And in doing so your delicate identity becomes simply a site of repeated trauma. This is the 100% pure columbian of Literature.
Sabbath's payload is the overwhelming sense that you are living your life as if a castrated dog, and that any kind of moral judgement applied to any kind sexual behaviour or impulse is inhumane. You will spend several weeks seeking sexuality-affirming experiences in some crazy-ass attempt at making your own life something approching AUTHENTIC. ALL OF THE TIME. your own second-hand Sabbath-styled rants will get delivered for the millionth time in your local bar, and your conversation skills will become the verbal equivalent of no holds barred XTREME boxing, or what ever it's called. The interesting thing is how well and sympathetically these ideas are recieved. Sabbath will take your own grievences about the numbing effect of living in civilisation, feed them through a 500 megawatt amplifier and spit them back in your face with uncompromisingly brutal and brilliant humour.
A dangerous book for the over-impressionable. hilarious, unique and brilliant.

Having read other of Philip Roth's novels, quite excellent indeed, I went out and bought Sabbath's Theater. It has outstanding prose since Roth is a good narrator, but I kept feeling like not reading the book at all at several moments during the story.
I admire Roth for other books, but make yourself a favor and do not buy it!

I have read Philip Roth before and have enjoyed his work. This particular book is unreadable and unworthy in my estimation.

I bought the book on sale and obviously paid too much for it in my estimation.

I did not enjoy the main character and did not enjoy the plot, what there was of it that I could find.

I am happy that others seemed to enjoy the book much better than did. I know what it takes to write a book.

Sorry, but I will be careful about selecting a future book of his to read.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Mam, and the 'Isms'"