Everyman

The acclaimed novel abut getting old and about sickness. Inevitable but mostly denied. The is nothing nice when you reach the age which one thought would never become reality. Roth does not give you comfort, he does not give you a recipe to avoid this stage of life. He cannot! he is to old to hope for it. The novel start in a cemetery and concludes there. In between we are told about a moderately talented man, like us. Unlike most of us, he is a Jewish man as you can expect from a Roth novel. The sorrow of ageing is contrasted by his brother who is older, richer, happier. more generous and … healthier than him. There is no apparent merit which one gets sick and which one can have all the “pleasure” to help the other. Of course, on its way through life he found the love of his life but did not value it before he lost it. This is just an episode, not the almighty red thread of the story. All the various episode culminate in ageing, sickness and death.