Larisa Does Everyman

I finally finished Everyman. It was truly one of the scariest and most depressing books I’ve ever read. It really did give me nightmares – no, not of the Stephen King variety – more like the existential variety. it’s basically about a guy who is sort of fixated on death. He gets old and regrets all the choices he made in his life, and then he dies.

I think Philip Roth probably wrote this book because he is getting old himself and thought he could conquer his fear of death by staring it in the face. It’s very real, very frightening, honest, and universal. I really didn’t want to keep reading it at first, but by the end, I have to respect his courage. Most books I read so I can escape from reality. This is not one of those books.

Now that’s over, I’m reading “The Wisdom of Solitude” about a lady zen master from Rhode Island who goes off into the New England woods by herself for 100 days for a spiritual retreat. So I’m not really sticking to my original list, but whatever. So that puts me at 3.5 versus only 2 for Samara. bwa ha ha ha ha.

Everyman

I’m about a third of the way through Everyman, by Philip Roth. I’ve heard of this guy before and I’m starting to think he’s kind of a big deal… pulitzer prizes and all! I also have another book by him called “the plot against america” but I haven’t read that yet (and may never depending on how I like the current one.

The book starts at a guy’s funeral, and then gets into all his other health complaints throughout his life. Happy! My first feeling about this book was that is was very masculine. I don’t know what that means, but I know it’s not the type of book I usually read – which is not a bad thing – I’m all for expanding my literary horizons. Death seems to be a major theme in this book. At one point it says “Should he ever write an autobiography, he’d call it ‘the life and death of a male body” since he is not religious at all and sees life as simply the life of a body. Women seem to be peripheral characters.

It’s really just the story of what appears to be an everyday guy – hence the title? Maybe the point is that we’re all just nothing special but we all have our stories nonetheless. Or we should get off our butts and do something worthwhile? I dunno… I’ve never been great at finding the meaning in books. However, I remember from my Medieval Literature class in college that there was a morality play called Everyman. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it is about a guy who is called by Death and he tries to avoid it – calling his family and friends, and material goods to help him. In the end, the only thing that will help him are his good deeds. So, let’s see how that ties in.

So far, quite depressing, but I will persevere!