Everyman
(Philip Roth)
Everyman is Philip Roth's 2006 offering. A little book, it begins with the protagonist's funeral and ends with his death. The character doesn't have a name. He is Everyman. Everyman was the name of his father's jewelry store. After the eulogies, the mourners leave the old cemetery and the reader is left with the corpse and the narrator. The reader comes to know this very human being, a successful commercial artist who had been married and divorced three times. We are with him through all his hospital stays: a hernia at 9, a ruptured appendix in his 30s and endless heart surgeries from his mid 60s until the final operation. We meet a man who is continually falling prey to his sexual urges, a character in the style of Roth heroes Alex Portnoy, David Kepesh and Mickey Sabbath. His mishandling of relationships reminds one of Peter Tarnopol from My Life as a Man. But this hero is different; he is old and unwell. He is coming to terms with his character, his weaknesses, his approaching death and with life itself. A telling moment comes shortly before the end. He visits the old cemetery to see his parents' graves and meets the gravedigger, a man of 58 whose son helps him with the harder earth (our hero's sons have almost no contact with him). The man gives a detailed description on the art of grave-digging. The protagonist tips him with two fifty dollar bills, as if to say, "When my turn comes, do a good job". Just as the English would pay the executioner to sharpen the axe before beheading them. On the last page, when death does come, the hero is ready and so is the reader. A very enjoyable read.
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