L’ULTIMA COSA BELLA SULLA FACCIA DELLA TERRA

John Turturro brings to life the theatrical Mickey Sabbath. The flag that accompanied the corpse of his brother Morty home, found in a box at Fish's house.

Don't judge Sabbath too harshly, Reader. Neither his tumultuous inner monologue, nor his excess of self-subversion, nor years of reading about death, nor the bitter experience of tribulations, losses, adversities, and pain make it any easier for a man like that (or perhaps for any man) to use his brain when faced with an offer like that, let alone when it's repeatedly insisted upon by a girl who is a third of his age and has a dental occlusion like Gene Tierney in "Laura".

Eugen Lennhoff's "Die Freimaurer, 1932" adds a touch of mystery.

Morris “Mickey” Sabbath, a larger-than-life colossus just over five feet tall, with hands disfigured by painful arthritis - the same hands that have earned him a living for years, through street theater and puppets controlled by his own fingers - a sixty-four-year-old still capable of immediate and powerful erections, avid for life yet in search of death, hungry for sex. He tells his story and is told in a perfect blend of first and third person, narrator and I-narrator, in this extraordinary world-novel that has little in common with other world-novels but transmits a truly authentic and immense universe. More than one world is revealed every time a character from Sabbath's life appears on the scene, whether it's his first wife Nikki, or his second Roseanna, or the Croatian Drenka, the love of his life, his sex partner for encounters, threesomes, and jealousy, all alternating, not excluding the nightly masturbations with which Sabbath honors her grave. It happens with the fleeting Madeleine who, in just a few pages, leaves an indelible mark and is probably my favorite among the favorites. Mickey Sabbath emerges from this whirlwind danse macabre to engrave himself immortal and indelible in my memory, in my heart, to celebrate my most fundamental and important love that feeds on this beauty.

Eugen Lennhoff's "Die Freimaurer, 1932" again.

Nothing happens and yet everything happens. We laugh and we cry, we dance and we take walks, we are enchanted and dragged along, we thank the Jews for existing, for their irreverent humor, we bless sex at all hours and in all latitudes, but even more so at all ages, never missing an opportunity. Orgasmic sex, liberating sex, irreverent sex, transgressive sex, joyous sex, unrestrained sex, because when Mickey and Drenka have sex, they put their hearts into it, they give their all, the ultimate expression of love.
If Mickey Sabbath didn't exist, he would have to be invented: because as selfish, irritating, provocative, and infantile as he may be, I have loved him deeply, I have embraced him, he has become my hero, he has become me as I read him.
A hero who knows how to live his total isolation - and it couldn't be otherwise, his rebellious amorality condemns him to a life of solitude, certainly not allowing him to find affiliates. On the other hand, as we know, "isolation is the best preparation for death" that we know. Roth has him accompanied in his terrible pilgrimage by the memory of his older brother who died as a boy in the war - the flag episode, ah - and by the memory/phantom of his mother. Master Roth condenses all his literary wisdom here, managing to never be morbid or monotonous even in the face of the repeated scenes of unrestrained sex, even the most bizarre ones, giving us four hundred and some pages that are an unforgettable and magnificent emotional (and mental) whirlwind.
Sabbath or the Swede of the Pastoral? But why do I have to choose! I hold them both tightly, both of them in my heart, firmly planted in my soul.

"The purity, the monstrous purity of his pain was a novelty, and made any pain previously experienced seem like an imitation of pain. This was that violent and passionate feeling, the worst, invented to torment only one species, the animal that remembers, the animal endowed with memory."

The image of Mickey Sabbath lingers in our minds, a complex and unforgettable character in the world of literature.

His story is a testament to the power of human emotions and the search for meaning in a chaotic world.

As we follow his journey, we are drawn into a web of love, loss, and longing.

Mickey Sabbath may be a flawed hero, but he is a hero nonetheless, one who challenges us to look at our own lives and question what truly matters.

His story is a reminder that even in the darkest of times, there is always the possibility of finding beauty and love.

And as we turn the final page of this remarkable novel, we are left with a sense of wonder and a deep appreciation for the artistry of Philip Roth.

His ability to create such a vivid and engaging world, populated by unforgettable characters, is truly a gift.

And for that, we are grateful.

So, let us raise a glass to Mickey Sabbath, the ultimate anti-hero, and to the author who brought him to life.

May their stories continue to inspire us for generations to come.

Thank you, Philip Roth, for this unforgettable literary experience.

Long live Mickey Sabbath!

And long live great literature!

A man, now old and alone, wrapped in the flag of the United States, on a beach, in the evening, crying desperately for the death in a war that was fought when that old man was still a child, of the only person capable of living with him and loving him. Sabbath is everything in this moment. And this moment is capable, on its own, of making one understand life, which for many is dissipated, in the instant when it broke and never started again. He tried to shake his self. He felt that a power equal to the profound and deadly suffering was needed. He knew of the impotence of ordinary walking, of ordinary feeling, of ordinary acting. And he tried for an entire life. He challenged fate for an entire life. He rose up many times at every encounter with destiny and did so until the end. Sabbath is a hero.

I made a truly excellent choice in commemorating Philip Roth’s passing by rereading Sabbath’s Theater.

This novel represents the pinnacle of Roth’s utilization of the English language’s resources, particularly rhythm, before transitioning to a more subdued approach.

Just for its lists, this novel is well worth reading. No one crafts lists better than Roth, and he does so superbly in Sabbath’s Theater.

Some of them should be extracted and taught to creative writing students as they encompass all the elements of prose rhythm within the most ordinary of clauses.

The other Roth novels I’ve reread, mostly from the postmodernist era, did not fare nearly as well.

This is a remarkable tragicomedy about a not-so-great character, yet not at all the kind of “loser” on which so many contemporary novels overly rely.

This character works because he isn’t merely indecisive and lost; he acts and fantasizes boldly, even in his crudest moments, and there is a void at his core that doesn’t ennoble him but rather makes him burn out more brightly.

Here's what I penned about the novel upon my initial reading in 1995 when it was released:

Roth ultimately abandoned his postmodernism after pushing it beyond its logical extreme in the latter half of Operation Shylock: A Confession.

Along with his self-reflexiveness, much of his self-indulgence also departed, which is a great relief.

Not that Roth reverted to his early realism or altered his writing style. But he seems more vibrant than ever, more frenetic and yet more controlled, achieving the perfect balance that had eluded him for years.

The only word that encapsulates this incredible endeavor is “masterly.”

The novel is essentially a celebration of life at its extremes. The epigraph sets the stage: Prospero's “Every third thought shall be my grave.”

Roth as the Old Master, with death as the theme. Many reviewers compare this novel to Portnoy's Complaint, which is only fair in terms of energy.

There it was the energy of youth; here it is an energy that few writers of Roth's generation, and even fewer writers over 60 of any generation, seem to possess: the energy of confronting death.

It seems that Roth was striving to pack as much as possible into his sentences, which often meander on and on, yet have nothing Proustian about them.

It's simply that there's so much to convey about whatever is being discussed; Mickey Sabbath is on the verge, about to lose what little he has left after having lost so much.

There's no doubt he merits what he has, perhaps even more, but intertwined with his satyric nature is a life filled with some rather harsh blows.

He's despicable, as some reviewers have emphasized, but he's also highly sympathetic. I believe Roth intended him to be a different kind of Everyman, a man in the gutter with whom we can identify if we are willing to maintain an open mind and heart.

Perhaps that's what Roth wanted to make challenging about the novel: not the postmodernist playfulness of his recent works, but the struggle not to condemn Sabbath or pity him, but to identify with him, to discover a Sabbath within ourselves. For most people, there is little that is more arduous.