Pocos autores alcanzan el dominio de la narrativa como Philip Roth. Hasta ahora, he leído varias de sus obras y creo que puedo establecer una distinción entre ellas. Aunque su voz y estilo son evidentes en todas, existe una corriente de novelas vinculadas a hechos históricos. En estas, el texto se genera para cubrir esos hechos y, aunque Roth se permite liberar su narrativa, se encuentra con ciertos límites. Titles like the so-called American Trilogy, consisting of The Plot Against America, American Pastoral, and I Married a Communist, are of great importance in Roth's work.

Other titles allow for the development of his narrative, irony, and even a lack of respect for social taboos. These are perhaps the most genuine works, where the author expresses himself more forcefully. Among these, I personally highlight Portnoy's Complaint, which is the funniest novel I have ever read.

Very much in that line, but undoubtedly bittered by the passage of time, we have Sabbath's Theater. Sabbath is an old and decrepit puppeteer, but above all, sexually promiscuous with all women (except his own). He will be involved in a journey of knowledge like so many others in the history of literature. It is not the journey itself that will satisfy the reader. It is the breakdown of social taboos, prejudices, and conventionalisms. Roth is read like erotic products are consumed, seeking something more than just an intellectual and/or artistic challenge.

Of all that can be extracted from this work of Roth, I would especially emphasize his ability to anticipate the movement of the offended. A way of living life so opposed to what, at least, was his literature.

The stars I gave to this novel are an average between the beginning and the end of the book. At the start, the novel is pornography. Philip Roth has always dealt with the theme of sex as an antidote to the obsessive thought of death in his works, starting from Portnoy's Complaint. But in this work, he exceeds in a depraved and vulgar eroticism. (For example, for those who have read it, the full transcription of the phone call made by Sabbath to the student and recorded by her, which cost Professor Sabbath his job at school: it is completely useless for the purposes of the novel and is only an expression of gratuitous vulgarity from a pornographic film).

The final part, especially the last 100 pages, is very beautiful, 5 stars.

The tombstone that Mickey Sabbath wants to be written for him reads as follows:

Morris Sabbath “Mickey”

Loved Pimp, Seducer,

Sodomizer and Exploiter of Women,

Destroyer of Morality, Corrupter of Youth,

Wife Killer

Suicide.

Mickey Sabbath is a Rothian character difficult to forget: a 64-year-old former puppeteer, failed professionally and humanly, a man who brings suffering to all those who live close to him - to his wives, to the few friends who still remain to him - because of the incurable perversion and amorality of his thought, translated into a way of life, centered on "one must dedicate oneself to fucking in the same way that a monk dedicates himself to God...". Here then is Sabbath "loved pimp, seducer, sodomizer and exploiter of women, destroyer of morality, corrupter of youth..."

The only thing that the cynical manipulator Mickey Sabbath cannot overcome is the death of his older brother Morty, shot down in an air battle during the Second World War. Morty, the eldest son, the much-loved son of his parents whose lives were destroyed from the moment they received the news of his death. Morty, the playmate, the defender of the younger brother from the abuses of the older ones, the example of morality and education, who died as a hero. How to defend oneself from the pain? By running away, boarding a ship, traveling around the world, visiting a different brothel in every port, and then creating a puppet theater company, because they are not like the people who walk or run, they "fly, rotate and levitate". The puppet theater as a representation of the tragicomic theater of life. A life marked by so many losses: the disappearance of the first wife, the alcohol abuse of the second wife, the expulsion from school, the death of Drenka, the Croatian lover with whom he put into practice the maxim mentioned above.... Since childhood, Mickey Sabbath has accumulated misfortunes, disappointments, sufferings, defeats that explain the extreme decision, the last of the terms used for his tombstone: "Suicide". But Mickey Sabbath is not linear: his has been "a truly human life", made up of "Still defeats! Still disappointments! Still deceptions! Still solitude! Still arthritis! Still missionaries! If God wills, still pussy! Still disastrous involvements in anything. For the sheer sensation of being tumultuously alive...".

His is our "filthy" life, nothing more.

It took me an eternity to finish reading Sabbath's Theater, and it was perhaps my tenth Roth novel.

There was truly a captivating moment in Sabbath's conversation with Fish towards the end of the book. A moment that brought together a whole bunch of other moments that I had liked and made them shine. Sabbath is attempting to get Fish to remember him. To hear him say, "Mickey. Morty. Yetta. Sam," to hear him say, "I was there. I swear. I remember. We were all alive." What a modest ambition - trying to obtain that from the old man - but it means everything.

The parts of the book that I liked the best were all in Zuckerman's voice rather than Sabbath's. Maybe there is little difference. Maybe there is every difference but it doesn't matter.

It's as if Zuckerman's perspective offers a unique lens through which to view the events and characters. Sabbath's voice, while powerful in its own right, perhaps lacks the certain nuance or detachment that Zuckerman's provides.

Yet, both voices contribute to the rich tapestry of the novel, adding depth and complexity to the story. Whether it's Sabbath's passionate outbursts or Zuckerman's more measured reflections, each voice has its own charm and significance.

In the end, it's the combination of these voices and the moments they create that make Sabbath's Theater such a memorable read.

Accidenti, c’è sempre qualcosa che ti costringe a vivere!

There is always something that forces you to live!

Un unico riflettore a illuminare la scena e sul palco lui, Mickey Sabbath. A single spotlight illuminates the stage and there he is, Mickey Sabbath.

Burattinaio fallito ed erotomane incallito, pur trovandosi alle soglie della vecchiaia non rinuncia a soddisfare ogni desiderio e voglia più sfrenata. A failed puppeteer and an incorrigible erotomaniac, even on the threshold of old age, he does not give up satisfying every most unrestrained desire and whim.

Se nonché la sua amante di vecchia data muore. And if, in addition, his long-time lover dies.

E Sabbath precipita in un vortice delirante, vaga a ritroso nei ricordi, tormentato dai fantasmi del passato che attendono il momento della sua dipartita, il suo pirotecnico atto finale. And Sabbath plunges into a delirious vortex, wanders backwards in memories, tormented by the ghosts of the past that await the moment of his departure, his pyrotechnic final act.

Uno dei libri più rothiani che io abbia letto finora (e ormai sono a quota 5 per questo scrittore). It is one of the most Rothian books I have read so far (and I am already up to number 5 for this writer).

È un soliloquio indecente e dissacrante, che procede a rotta di collo tra flussi di coscienza, brutali passaggi dalla terza alla prima persona singolare, stralci epistolari e note a piè di pagina che riportano sconce conversazioni telefoniche. It is an indecent and sacrilegious soliloquy that proceeds at breakneck speed between streams of consciousness, brutal passages from the third to the first person singular, snippets of letters and footnotes that report sordid telephone conversations.

Questo libro, ricchissimo dal punto di vista linguistico, è nientedimeno che un attacco diretto al decoro e al convenzionalismo. This book, extremely rich from a linguistic point of view, is nothing less than a direct attack on decorum and conventionalism.

Eppure, nel suo essere scomodo e sgradevole, al pari di qualunque altro antieroe mai creato da Philip Roth, Sabbath si conquista la nostra simpatia. And yet, in its being uncomfortable and unpleasant, like any other antihero ever created by Philip Roth, Sabbath wins our sympathy.

Si parla addosso, fa di tutto per farsi odiare, si rende ridicolo e ricerca il sollievo della morte, ma suo malgrado non cessa mai di essere vivo in tutta la sua umana debolezza e umanissimo squallore. He talks all over the place, does everything to be hated, makes himself ridiculous and seeks the relief of death, but malgré lui he never ceases to be alive in all his human weakness and most human squalor.

Arrivati a questo punto però devo dirvelo: non lo ritengo un titolo adatto ad un primo incontro con questo autore. Having come to this point, however, I must tell you: I do not consider it a title suitable for a first encounter with this author.

È un romanzo estremamente ripiegato su se stesso, dove si procede più per sproloqui surreali che non per veri eventi narrativi e se ancora non avete assaggiato la scorrettezza rothiana, potrebbe essere un viaggio estenuante. It is an extremely self-reflective novel, where one proceeds more by means of surreal tirades than by means of true narrative events and if you have not yet sampled the Rothian incorrectness, it could be an exhausting journey.

Per chi invece è già stato ammaliato dal buon Phil, procedete senza timore. For those who have already been charmed by good old Phil, proceed without fear.

"We have no measure because suffering has no measure: there are hundreds and thousands of ways in which we can suffer!"

The immoderate trickster, the king of excesses, the sardonic puppet who shows his middle finger to America and its expectations, the troubled anti-hero, the impulse-driven failure. Mickey Sabbath,

"beloved, whore, seducer,

sodomist, persecutor of women,

destroyer of moral principles, corrupter of youth,

wife-killer,

suicide"

A failed suicide, because he cannot leave as long as there are still so many things he hates. A failure in everything, the opposite of "the rich and successful guy, quite profound and who is dynamite on the office phone. What other pretensions could America have from its Jews?"

Mickey wraps himself in the pretentious American flag and urinates on the grave of his beloved woman, as a sign of the most serious homage to his true soulmate, the Croatian who knew how to extract joy from life. It is not Sabbath and Drenka who are obscene, death is obscene.

The first hundred pages are pure pornography (I think that, beyond the ode to excesses, we also have a middle finger raised by Roth to the puritans who refused him the Nobel Prize because of his Portnoy's Complex: look, I can be much more obscene than that), then 300 pages of intellectual provocation with the cynical puppet, who goes to the end of the mental games, to finish with 100 pages of the deepest immersion in the human psyche and emotions, in the primordial suffering (the loss of his brother), which determines his excessive path, "the boldness that marked his life: the overwhelming desire to be elsewhere", to finally come to the surface equal to himself, full of revolt, of hate, of life.

No writer has come close, yet, for me, to Philip Roth. And he has hit me again against all the walls of my mind with this book.

Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater is a work that truly drags you into the belly of the beast. Morris “Mickey” Sabbath, a character who wishes to be remembered by a litany of negative descriptors such as Whoremonger, Seducer, Sodomist, Abuser of Women, Destroyer of Morals, Ensnarer of Youth, Uxoricide, and Suicide (though perhaps not the last one, and the second to last being an open question). In fact, Sabbath is so many negative things that before making a selection, one is invited to add any terms one likes to denigrate, curse, describe, or simply shout at this failed, pathetic, or just bad male adult. Given that the name “Sabbath” is a jarring reminder that he is a Jewish character, some might even indulge in Antisemitism. However, it should be noted that he is no banker, only incidentally miserly, and never one to join any kind of international anything.

At his best, Philip Roth writes not just fine stories but necessary literature. Had he not written The Human Stain or the rest of the American Trilogy, American literature would be missing something important. And had he not written Sabbath’s Theater, we may have been spared something unrelenting, unblinking, and something that not even Dante detailed in his Inferno.
I hereby invent, in Roth’s name, several good things this book achieves. Doubtless, Roth had none of them in mind, but something good must be found to counter the vileness that is Mickey Sabbath.
1. **Sex Education in schools**: More than anything, Mickey is a sex-addicted onanist. Like all addicts, he is a liar and will commit any mental gymnastics or petty crime to justify and protect his behaviors. He has no problem drawing women into his fantasy, but they represent a hierarchy of masturbation, rather like the difficulty factor in competitive swimming. The women have only incidental personalities and, on occasion, some emotional value, only as they have value to him. Never does it matter what value they have to themselves. He can form emotional attachments, but they last only as they serve his selfish desires. Men do not excite his fantasies. Outside of his family, all long dead, none exist as people in his world. What might Sex Education have done? At most, and only if he got it when he was still young enough to accept the authority of his teachers, he might have learned that sex with another person in the room means having some sense of that person and their needs.
2. **Mental Health**: Morris “Mickey” Sabbath is a walking advertisement for a national need to better identify and treat the mentally ill. He is very good at claiming responsibility for his actions, but that is also part of his act. We may argue as much as we like over the costs and the victims he leaves in his wake, but clearly an isolated and treated Mickey “Sabbath” would impose fewer expenses on the rest of us.
3. **Speaking of argue**: Within the 450 pages of this book are thousands of pages in student essays. A student who cannot get ten pages out of a seducer of women who is also a master puppeteer needs to go back to junior high. The fact that we meet him suffering from arthritis of the hands, and yet that never seems to keep him from jerking his joint, should be good for a 20-page end-of-semester project. More advanced students may want to deal with his - she is there and she is not - ghost of his mother, family, and other character traits about not being able to let go of the dead. The fact that every major character has suffered some major trauma and the list of student perennials keeps growing.
Another safe bet is that some reviewer has declared that this is just the author indulging himself. Almost every author gets that charge. I do not accept it. Philip Roth frequently makes it clear that for him, writing is a terrible, demanding profession. He rarely writes Happily Ever After stories and as such must struggle to ensure that his characters and his story line match. Plotting is difficult because he is addressing difficult thoughts.
In Mickey Sabbath, Roth has taken on and, in detail, the mental gyrations of a sick mind. The reader is set up with possible excuses and hints of the human inside, but every time we will be forced to confront, take your pick, evil or sickness, easily both. Roth is an honest reporter expecting us to penetrate the tricks and the lies. Roth had to struggle with this thing of his creation, but having created Mickey Sabbath, Roth follows where this twisted mind must needs go.
It is on you if you care to travel this far and this long into darkness.

"It is a miracle if we don't all die because of our always understanding too late. But in fact, we die of that, of that alone."

This profound statement reflects on the consequences of our delayed understanding. We often find ourselves in situations where we realize the truth or the importance of something only after it is too late. This delay can have far-reaching and sometimes fatal consequences.

It makes us question how many opportunities we have missed, how many relationships we have damaged, and how many mistakes we have made due to our lack of timely understanding. Maybe if we were more perceptive and quicker to understand, we could avoid some of these tragedies.

However, it is also a reminder that life is full of uncertainties and that we cannot always predict or control everything. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we may still find ourselves in situations where we understand too late. But perhaps the key is to learn from these experiences and strive to be more aware and understanding in the future.

**The Tragedy of an Old Satyr**

Philip Roth once again offers an excellent demonstration. His greatest merit, for me, is to carry through the bets he makes in every book to their extreme consequences. Even here, where the subject matter is grave and heavy, and where the protagonist seems to want to attract our contempt: Sabbath is an old, ugly, and cynical satyr, false, squalid, amoral (more than immoral), racist, self-indulgent, egoistic, degraded, and perverse. Roth's pen does very well here too, creating the life of the character like a puzzle to be reconstructed, alternating lexical games (notable the one on the misspelled acronym, it should be SABBATH, but it is written SASSARH) and streams of consciousness (these less successful), passing the narration from the first to the third person, always maintaining a remarkable narrative tension that keeps us hooked on a frankly disgusting character. Perhaps the ending exceeds in the hyper-symbolic baroque (Sabbath urinating on the grave of the nymphomaniac lover wrapped in the Stars and Stripes with a kippah on his head), but the underlying theme remains fascinating: in the end, does Sabbath always pretend? Is the sincerity of emotions and feelings now impossible for him? Even in the face of suicide, he finally wonders, "But am I not playing? Even now?"

Roth's exploration of such a complex and unlikable character forces us to confront our own notions of morality, authenticity, and the human condition. It makes us question whether we are truly capable of seeing beyond the surface and understanding the deeper motives and struggles that drive people like Sabbath.

The story is a powerful reminder that even the most repulsive individuals may have hidden depths and that our judgments should not be too hasty or one-sided.

It is extremely rare to encounter a character of the caliber of Morris Sabbath. In fact, I would say almost never. Who is this man? Easily put, he is an old lecher, cynical, depraved, perverted, and completely egoistic, living only for himself and caring about nothing else but himself.

But... but... but... However, just a few pages later, Roth sketches the profile of an extraordinarily deep man, of his profound wounds, of a character who perhaps has made cynicism a mask to hide his own feelings. Who is Sabbath? Is he the completely free man who laughs at all those who live as slaves to habits and social moralism, or just a simple man who, like so many others, lives as a slave to his own demons? Is he an individual to be despised or understood? A person to be judged not with a superficial gaze, but with the attention of someone who wants to discover the other while avoiding every prejudice? I have never before encountered a character like this.

It makes one wonder about the complexity of human nature and how easily we can misjudge others based on initial impressions. Sabbath's character challenges us to look deeper and question our own assumptions.

Quanta roba, questo romanzo. QUANTA ROBA. It's truly a remarkable piece of work.

I made it. I reached the end. My head is exploding, and I feel an urgent need to pick up a trashy book right now to compensate for the enormous effort of following Sabbath... eh, Roth.

As disturbing as it may be, this book is a masterpiece. It's the story of Sabbath, a former New York puppeteer with a sharp tongue, cynical and vulgar, and the crisis he descends into upon the death of his most beloved mistress. All 480 pages are inside Sabbath's mind - the mind of a perverse, nymphomaniac, pretentious, and repulsive old and dirty man - and it's incredible how quickly one comes to hate him at first and then empathize. His characterization is masterful: the nuances that Roth manages to give to the character are insane. Even when he lies, because he's so good at painting all the nuances, you know he's doing it. But it's not just that: the relationships he has with other characters are also described in a way that never loses sight of the point of view, which is Sabbath's, and he can never, ever, ever be objective.

The sex. Let's talk about the sex. This book is full of it, from the initial scene to the final one. It's the thing that bothered me the most in the whole book - me, who is used to puritanical texts - but it has its reason in the fact that for Sabbath, sex plays a fundamental role in all areas of his life. If Roth had only mentioned it and never described it so deeply, it wouldn't have been the same. Anyway, YUCK. There, I've relieved myself.

It's a heavy book. It is because living in the mind of someone like Sabbath, following his ramblings, facing grief, mistakes, choices, and his thoughts without a filter that is the narrator weighs one down. But I recommend it: in the disintegration of a person, I found so much liberation.

Yes, Mickey Sabbath is indeed a rather revolting individual. And it is true that this book delves right to the extreme in terms of sexual perversion, with some arguing that it even crosses the line. However, one must consider this: Isn't Mickey's misdirected mourning for his mother, his brother, his first wife, and his longtime lover and last true love - isn't he simply an exaggerated version of our own egos? (This is obviously speaking more to the male audience, but perhaps the fantasies of Mickey's women also strike a chord with female readers?)

There are passages of remarkable beauty in Sabbath's Theater. My favorite phrase was "while nonexistent to one another, unreal spectres compared to whoever sabotaged the sacred trust". Who else writes like this today? It's truly astonishing. And the stream of consciousness section in the middle? The vaudeville in the cemetery at the end of the first half and the second half of the book, the hilarious betting on blood pressure at the in-patient mental facility, the heartbreaking letter of Roseanne to her father and Mickey's reply from her father in Hell - it's all pure genius! One can't help but laugh at Mickey's antics in Debbie's bedroom, as sick as they may be, because they are truly comical. This is like Humbert Humbert Unbound. It is Herzog completely unwound and free. It is all of us with no filters, nothing to lose, and utterly unrestrained. And yet, Mickey does truly love Drenka until the bitter end, and that love, despite its perversity and baseness, is truly reciprocal. To me, anyway, it is very beautiful. I believe that is the deeper message here: humans are complex beings who can be simultaneously reprehensible and endearingly pathetic, as contradictory as a black and white world might wish it to be.

This is truly one of Roth's greatest works. The deliberate contrast between the "Swede" Lvov in American Pastoral as the nearly perfect Everyman and the reprehensible Mickey Sabbath is evident. Roth has stated that Sabbath's Theater is his favorite among all the masterpieces he has written.

RIP (1933 - 2018). One of America's literary giants has left us.

One word of warning: Philip Roth's novel Sabbath Theater is NOT for everyone.

Some people will not be able to make it past the first 20 pages before they set the book down, go take a cold shower, and watch some Disney classic. Others who make it past the first 20 pages may drop off after 70 pages. This novel reminds me of seeing people go to a cinema, watch the first half hour of a movie, then see them sneak out before halfway.

Why? Because Mickey Sabbath -- the novel's libidinous antihero -- is quite possibly one of the most unlikeable characters created in the fiction in the past 20 years. Sabbath makes Humbert Humbert seem like Sesame Street.

However, it may take a certain type of reader to finish Sabbath's Theater, and another kind to enjoy it -- I guess I fall into the latter. While the novel's sexual perversity at times is extremely distasteful, and Roth's character is a complete misogynist -- controlling women like his puppet's in his Indecent Theater -- this novel is strikingly brilliant.

It seems as a cry of sexual frustration during the onset of old age, but Roth offers an amazing meditation on loss. Sabbath and others lose control as death begins to surround them. And how the human race as a whole is imperfect and disgusting; while others hide this, Sabbath embraces it. He tears down social norms, antagonizing all around him to find a meaning in life, a reason to continue. Yet what does he find?

Extremely hard book to recommend, while probably my favourite Roth novel yet. It makes you think deeply about life, death, and the human condition.