Features

Everyman

31 Aug 2006 by intern11

Philip Roth, Jonathan Cape London, US$16.32

In Everyman, Philip Roth bravely attempts, in just 182 pages, to explore the truth and universal fear of human deterioration. The story takes its title from an anonymous 15th-century allegorical play, whose theme is the summoning of the living to death. While the book may not be for readers seeking a fast or plot-driven read, it is both beautifully written and thought provoking.

The narrative begins at the heart of the issue, at the unnamed protagonist’s funeral where Roth writes, “That was the end. No special point made.” It then flashes back to chronicle his life from a good son and brother into an elderly man battling cardiac disease and lamenting the loss of his physical and sexual prowess. Along the way, the character remains painfully aware of time and the deterioration of his body, first with his meticulous attention to watches and ultimately his own sickness. He is neither innately good nor bad; he is the everyman who abandons his dreams for material success, who breaks up three marriages due to his inability to control his own bodily lust, and who both loves and viciously envies his successful older brother.

As a man lacking any strong connection to religious or political ideology, he epitomises man’s mortal struggle as he faces death alone and questions how one should live. As he reflects upon his life, he can’t see how he has bettered humanity save for one unflappably idealistic child created along the way, Nancy. Roth’s style reflects these tragic truths of human existence by remaining sparse at most times but inserting small moments of lyrical beauty.

The story isn’t just a function of what is said, but the hollow fear that remains unstated and echoes long after the last chilling lines of the book, “He was no more, freed from being, entering into nowhere without even knowing it. Just as he’d feared from the start.”  

Emma Sussex

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