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Sabbaths Theater

by Philip Roth
Sabbaths Theater

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews
  • Award Excerpt

ISBN13: 9780679772590
ISBN10: 0679772596



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Awards

National Book Award Winner 1995

Staff Pick

This is not a good gift for your mother-in-law. Mickey Sabbath is one of the most memorable characters I have ever read. The man is despicable, and I couldn't wait to see where the perverted former puppeteer's life would go next. One of Roth's greatest creations requires a deep sense of humor, but if you have it, pick up Sabbath's Theater. Due to its risqué subject manner, it's one of the great underappreciated masterpieces of the late 20th century.  Recommended By Jeffrey J., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

As much as he wants to be the Marquis de Sade, he is not. As much as he wants to be seventeen, he is not. As much as he wants to be dead, he is not. He is Mickey Sabbath, the aging, raging powerhouse whose savage effrontery and mocking audacity are at the heart of Philip Roth's new novel. Once a scandalously inventive puppeteer, Sabbath at sixty-four is still defiantly antagonistic and exceedingly libidinous. But after the death of his long-time mistress — an erotic free spirit whose adulterous daring exceeds even his own — Sabbath embarks on a turbulent journey into his past. Bereft and grieving, besieged by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him most, he contrives a succession of farcical disasters that take him to the brink of madness and extinction.

Review

"A great work...Roth's richest, most rewarding novel...funny and profound...as powerful as writing can be." The New York Times Book Review

Review

"Roth's extraordinary new novel is an astonishment and a scourge, and one of the strangest achievements of fictional prose that I have ever read....It is very exquisite." New Republic

Synopsis

Sabbath's Theater is a comic creation of epic proportions, and Mickey Sabbath is its gargantuan hero. Once a scandalously inventive puppeteer, Sabbath at sixty-four is still defiantly antagonistic and exceedingly libidinous. But after the death of his long-time mistress—an erotic free spirit whose adulterous daring surpassed even his own—Sabbath embarks on a turbulent journey into his past. Bereft and grieving, besieged by the ghosts of those who loved and hated him most, he contrives a succession of farcical disasters that take him to the brink of madness and extinction.

About the Author

In the 1990s Philip Roth won America's four major literary awards in succession: the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995), and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for American Pastoral (1997). He won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for I Married a Communist (1998); in the same year he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House. Previously he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Counterlife (1986) and the National Book Award for his first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959). In 2000 he published The Human Stain, concluding a trilogy that depicts the ideological ethos of postwar America. For The Human Stain Roth received his second PEN/Faulkner Award as well as Britain's W. H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year. In 2001 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, given every six years "for the entire work of the recipient." In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians Award for "the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003& #151; 2004." In 2007 Roth received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Everyman.

4.5 2

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 4.5 (2 comments)

`
Inquisitor of Irony , August 08, 2012 (view all comments by Inquisitor of Irony)
I first read Sabbath's Theater--my first encounter with Roth, for that matter--when it was initially published in the late 90s. I thought that it was the funniest book that I had ever encountered. I laughed so much that my girlfriend could not wait for me to finish it and went to buy her own copy. I was at that age when I had life by the tail. I was just finishing my MA, I was entirely comfortable with my subject, I was in love with a girl to whom I would eventually become wed, the gym, my bicycle, Nietzsche, Foucault: hell, life in general. In short, in spite of having had a brain tumor and thus possessing an understanding of the precarity (if I may employ a neologism) of life, or perhaps precisely because of that fact, I felt as if nothing in the world could slow me down. I was the illusory master of my universe. In Roth, and to the extent that Mickey Sabbath appeared to me to be so entirely himself I simply found confirmation that such mastery was indeed possible. For there is no doubt that ST is a text of absolute unmitigated brilliance; and, it was so incredibly, side-splitting funny. Alas, having been thoroughly dethroned, Cronos having faced the Zeus that is life with all of its contingencies, I decided that I needed something a bit less morose than Iris Murdoch. Thus, I approached ST for the second time with a sense of great anticipation; I really needed something to lighten the load. In was during this encounter that I discovered what effect a true piece of art can impose upon its consumer. (I employ this term in the sense of taking into oneself and making a part of oneself, not in the sense of one who purchases things in a willy-nilly search for authenticity.) Indeed, 10 years, a proliferation of physical problems resulting from the earlier tumor, a divorce, and a 15 hour separation from my young child later, I discovered the "truth" of ST; it is one of the saddest works of fiction that I have ever encountered. Suddenly, Mikey Sabbath was a pitiful old man, thoroughly beaten by life. What I formerly perceived as his brilliant sense of humor was transformed into nothing more than a pervasive cynicism, which was absolutely necessary for him to hold on to, as it was his final impotent way in which to believe himself to exercise some control over the vicissitudes of life. In short, re-reading ST, in an entirely different situation elicited an entirely different, indeed, diametrically opposed, reaction from me. Rather than despair, however, I suddenly understood that I was in possession of a truly sublime work of art. I could not recommend this book any more forcefully. It should be mandatory reading for any educated person, as should the rest of Roth's considerable oeuvre.

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OneMansView , June 24, 2010 (view all comments by OneMansView)
Depth beyond the self-indulgence (4.25*s) This acclaimed novel by Roth is at times brilliant, provocative, entertaining, insightful, and certainly erotic, but it can also be tedious, repetitious, morose, and self-indulgent. Sixty-four-year-old Mickey Sabbath, a Jewish, unemployed arthritic puppeteer, has come to a point where he realizes that his life has been pretty much pointless and wasted. The death of his older brother Mort in WWII some fifty years prior seemed to unmoor him, leading to a life of drifting and marginal enterprises. The one constant in his life is his obsession with women, where his verbal abilities and aggressiveness have served him well. His Indecent Theater act on the streets of NYC with his finger puppeteering was especially effective in attracting intrigued females. The sudden end of his long standing, highly gratifying relationship with a married Croatian innkeeper and a fellow sexual adventurer Drenka has precipitated a crisis in his life. In the past, he has rebounded from failures with women. He drove his current wife to drink and into rehab and his first wife simply disappeared. But now as Mickey reflects on all of this history, he begins to really struggle with what the future holds for him. It may not be easy to journey with Mickey on his path of self-analysis; he is not even especially likeable. But for those who can get past the self-indulgent behavior, there is a lot of depth waiting to be plumbed. It might well take a reread to fully appreciate this book.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780679772590
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
08/06/1996
Publisher:
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
Series info:
Sabbath's Theater
Pages:
464
Height:
.99IN
Width:
5.12IN
Thickness:
1.00
Series:
Sabbath's Theater
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
1996
Series Volume:
104-96
UPC Code:
2800679772592
Author:
Philip Roth
Author:
Philip Roth
Subject:
Middle aged men
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
Middle aged men -- Psychology -- Fiction.
Subject:
Psychological fiction
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
American fiction (fictional works by one author)

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