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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  sinaloa237 | Nov 12, 2009 |  Dite quel che volete: Roth non delude mai. La lucidità della sua visione del mondo manda bagliori sinistri ed accecanti ad ogni riga. Un esempio? «Sarà un discorso breve», dice Zuckerman alzandosi in piedi, al modesto pranzo di compleanno che hanno preparato per lui i custodi della sua casa di campagna. «Pensate all'anno 4000». La coppia sorride. «No, no. Seriamente, pensate all'anno 4000. Immaginatevelo. In tutte le sue dimensioni. Prendetevi il tempo che vi occorre ». E dopo un lungo silenzio aggiunge: «Ecco a cosa assomiglia avere settant'anni». (  ) sanseverina | Nov 3, 2009 | Very clever, slightly weird, funny and satirical, a bit intellectual, obsessive reading...i'm not entirely sure what i thought of this book, to be honest. Did i enjoy it? I'm not sure "enjoy" is the right word. It was a good read, although slow to start with it soon picked up, but i'm left feeling slightly frustrated as i don't think the story has been resolved...at least not to my satisfaction. But what do i know? This is my first Philip Roth book, so maybe thats typical. (  ) heidijane | Jul 20, 2009 | I didn't love this latest (and last?) installment of Roth's Nathan Zuckerman novels. Zuckerman, impotent and incontinent following prostate surgery, leaves his Berkshires haven for Manhattan. He connects with the lover of his late literary hero, I. E. Lonoff, an aggressive would-be biographer of Lonoff who claims to know a secret, and a young couple with whom he agrees to swap homes for a year. The story was absorbing, and the writing as good as always, but the tone put me off. Zuckerman seems to equate his sexual impotency with his literary decline, and that's so facile. He also seems to revere the Great Male Writers with their Big Ideas and their Propulsive Energy, and gives me the impression he would disdain women writers. I've been reading a Roth novel a year, and the recent ones I've read didn't have this vaguely anti-feminist tone. (  ) CasualFriday | May 20, 2009 | After 11 years of isolation in his New England mountain refuge, Zuckerman returns to New York City and makes three important connections. The first is to a young couple with whom he suggests swapping homes. The second is to Amy, the former muse of Zuckerman's first literary hero, E.I. Lonoff. And the third is to a bold, ambitious Lonoff biographer who is irritatingly persistent. It seems Zuckerman's carefully protected sense of isolation is bound to be shattered. (  )  jepeters333 | May 5, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0618915478, Hardcover)Like Rip Van Winkle returning to his hometown to find that all has changed, Nathan Zuckerman comes back to New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England mountain, Zuckerman has been nothing but a writer: no voices, no media, no terrorist threats, no women, no news, no tasks other than his work and the enduring of old age.Walking the streets like a revenant, he quickly makes three connections that explode his carefully protected solitude. One is with a young couple with whom, in a rash moment, he offers to swap homes. They will flee post-9/11 Manhattan for his country refuge, and he will return to city life. But from the time he meets them, Zuckerman also wants to swap his solitude for the erotic challenge of the young woman, Jamie, whose allure draws him back to all that he thought he had left behind: intimacy, the vibrant play of heart and body. The second connection is with a figure from Zuckerman's youth, Amy Bellette, companion and muse to Zuckerman's first literary hero, E. I. Lonoff. The once irresistible Amy is now an old woman depleted by illness, guarding the memory of that grandly austere American writer who showed Nathan the solitary path to a writing vocation. The third connection is with Lonoff's would-be biographer, a young literary hound who will do and say nearly anything to get to Lonoff's "great secret." Suddenly involved, as he never wanted or intended to be involved again, with love, mourning, desire, and animosity, Zuckerman plays out an interior drama of vivid and poignant possibilities. Haunted by Roth's earlier work The Ghost Writer, Exit Ghost is an amazing leap into yet another phase in this great writer's insatiable commitment to fiction. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:03 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
It is slow all the way to the end and hardly uplifting.
Just as if Philip Roth is trying too hard: to intelectual, too pessimistic, too obvious also.
Of course it is well written (I have read it in French) and there are very good pages, but the result is not what you expect from such an acclaimed writer. (