First time I have read Philip Roth. Unfortunately not my cuppa tea. You can take the opening sentence as a description of the majority of the book. Full of sexual obsessions that are not erotic, but perverse and leave a bad taste in one's mouth. However, the description, encounters, conversations in the rehabilitation centre were interesting, enjoyable and entertaining (eg. Happiness considered as a mental health disorder).The book, described as humourous on the cover - I guess I just don't share that sense of humour - left me very tempted to read some more by this author; so he must be doing something right. ( )

El teatro de Sabbath es una creación cómica de proporciones épicas en la que Mickey Sabbath, eterno adolescente casi al borde de la jubilación, es un héroe digno de Rabelais. Este ex titiritero imaginativo y genial se ha convertido en un personaje permanentemente indignado con el mundo a causa del lugar que ocupa en él y escandalosamente libidinoso. Muy libidinoso: le gustaría ser el marqués de Sade, pero, definitivamente, no lo es. Tras la muerte de su amante de toda la vida un «espíritu libre» cuya fidelidad al adulterio único ha sorprendido incluso al propio Sabbath, nuestro héroe decide hacer balance y se embarca en un turbulento viaje hacia su pasado. Acongojado y perseguido por los fantasmas de todos aquellos que más le amaron y odiaron, sus intentos de escapar a este cerco terminan en una sucesión de desastres absurdos que casi consiguen volverle loco y acabar con su vida

Not at all like the Roth I know, not to my taste I'm afraid ( )

Not the most pleasant read anyone of us will experience. Just under 500 pages describing the purposefully repugnant Mickey Sabbath. While the more prudish among us will simply stop reading, those of us who are more widely read ask ourselves the question Roth surely intended: aren’t we really all like Mickey Sabbath deep down?

And I can’t disagree with him. Deep down, we’re all repugnant, driven by animal desires and a self-interest that is utterly loathsome at times.

There’s another question here though: isn’t Mickey to be praised above the rest of us because he is, at least, honest and, in admitting he is as such and revelling in it, lives the fullest life that he possibly could while we live in fear of our peers and confine ourselves to the limitations of their expectations?

Er. No.

And Roth illustrates this with continuous flashbacks in Mickey’s memory to long-dead war hero brother Morty who everyone holds up as the ideal man and is, yet, subject to a moral code that most of us would esteem – courtesy, commitment, honour, hard work, etc., etc. – all the qualities that Mickey lacks entirely.

Thus is Mickey constantly conflicted, on the one hand driven to anarchic hedonism while on the other gazing up longingly to his brother on the moral pedestal he’s placed him on.

Anyway, the novel’s purpose aside, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Roth wrote this novel simply to provide himself with a playground for experiments in obscenity. There’s a lot of distasteful sex, for example, described, as far as I’m concerned, in completely unnecessary detail. Surely this is one area where our imaginations need as little help as possible.

In all, this seems to be the antithesis of American Pastoral and it struck me that Norman, an old friend Mickey shacks up with for a while, is probably Roth’s prototype for the Swede.

So, while this is no doubt an important book in terms of Roth’s development as a writer, it’s not very pleasant to read, and I think you can quite easily skip it without suffering any literary loss whatsoever. ( )

Great literature but marred by unrelenting pornography. Hard to get through the shlock. ( )