The Humbling
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''The Humbling'' is a novel by
Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophicall ...
published in the fall of 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is Roth's 30th book and concerns "an aging stage actor whose empty life is altered by a 'counterplot of unusual erotic desire'."


Plot


Part one

Simon Axler is a famed sexagenarian stage actor who suddenly and inexplicably loses his gift. His weak attempts at portraying
Prospero Prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him (with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda) to se ...
and Macbeth on stage at the
Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...
in Washington, D.C., lead to poor reviews, sending Axler into a profound depression and causing him to give up acting and contemplate suicide with a shotgun he keeps in his attic. His wife, Victoria, a former ballerina, is unable to deal with Axler's depression and moves to California, where their son lives. Axler checks himself into a psychiatric hospital on the advice of his physician and stays there for 26 days. In the hospital, Axler meets another patient, Sybil Van Buren, who tells him about catching her second husband sexually abusing her young daughter. She expresses shame at not immediately reporting her husband or removing him from the home and admits to attempting suicide. Sybil asks Axler whether he would be willing to kill her husband and he tells her he fears he would "botch the job". Months after his stint in the hospital, Axler's agent, Jerry Oppenheim, visits him at his
upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...
home to tell him about an offer to play James Tyrone in '' Long Day's Journey into Night''. Axler refuses, fearing another failure. In the
fan mail Fan mail is mail sent to a public figure, especially a celebrity, by their admirers or " fans". In return for a fan's support and admiration, public figures may send an autographed poster, photo, reply letter or note thanking their fans for th ...
Oppenheim brings, Axler finds a letter from Sybil, thanking him for listening to her problems in the hospital. She says she did not recognize him at the time but decided to write him after catching one of his old movies on TV.


Part two

Pegeen Mike Stapleford, the 40-year-old daughter of two actors he performed with around the time she was born, pays Axler a visit at his house. Pegeen has just moved nearby to work as a professor at a Vermont women's college after ending a six-year relationship with a woman who decided to undergo
sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and a ...
to become a man. Pegeen's job was secured after she slept with the school's "smitten" dean, Louise Renner. Simon and Pegeen begin an affair despite Pegeen's having lived as a lesbian for the previous 17 years. Louise is furious that Pegeen has broken off their relationship and begins stalking her. Months later, Louise calls Pegeen's parents in Lansing, Michigan, to tell them that their daughter is now sleeping with Axler. Pegeen is distressed that her parents have learned about the relationship she wanted kept secret. Her father, Asa, tells her he disapproves because of the age difference but Simon suspects he merely envies his professional success. Asa directs community theater in Michigan.


Part three

Axler reads in the local newspaper that Sybil has shot and killed her estranged husband. He contacts Sybil's sister and offers to help with her murder defense. One night, Pegeen "offers" Axler a 19-year-old college student of her acquaintance named Lara. Lara becomes a fantasy of his and a character in Pegeen's sexual role-playing. Soon after, while Axler and Pegeen are dining out, he notices Tracy, a young woman getting drunk at the restaurant bar, and they take her home for a threesome. Afterward, Axler asks her why she agreed to go home with them, and she admits she recognized him as a famous actor. After this adventure, Axler feels rejuvenated and decides he wants to perform in ''Long Day's Journey'' after all. He also decides that he wants to father a child with Pegeen and visits a fertility specialist without telling her. Two weeks later, Pegeen ends their relationship, telling Axler she "made a mistake." He accuses her of leaving him to be with Tracy and believes Pegeen's parents have turned her against him. He calls her parents, shouting at them in an angry tirade. After the call, Axler kills himself with his shotgun.


Critical response

The reviews for ''The Humbling'' largely suggested that, after several books that had received high critical acclaim, Roth had taken a misstep, to be blamed in part on his extremely prolific output in recent years. In a highly critical piece for ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', William Skidelsky resoundingly panned the novel and called for Roth to slow down, declaring:
Roth's new novel is, by his standards, dismayingly poor...it can hardly be called a novel at all; it is more an old man's sexual fantasy dressed up in the garb of literature. There are, of course, redeeming features: an interesting initial conceit, the usual beautifully controlled writing. And the novel asks interesting questions about ageing and what it does to you. But these things aren't nearly enough to make up for the absurdity at its core.
Skidelsky concluded by remarking, "On reading such a piece of scandalous frippery, it is hard not to conclude that Roth, rather than forging furiously ahead, should indeed be slowing down a little. And perhaps he should be getting out of the house a bit more." In ''
Literary Review ''Literary Review'' is a British literary magazine founded in 1979 by Anne Smith, then head of the Department of English at the University of Edinburgh. Its offices are on Lexington Street in Soho. The magazine was edited for fourteen years by v ...
'',
Sam Leith Sam Leith (born 1 January 1974) is an English author, journalist and literary editor of ''The Spectator''. After an education at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford, Leith worked at the revived satirical magazine ''Punch'', before moving to the ' ...
wrote: "''The Humbling'' is just as its title suggests. Not the tragedy its protagonist might have hoped for – rather, a work of plaintive comedy." Further negative notices came from
Michiko Kakutani Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998. Early life ...
in the ''New York Times'', which criticized the novel as "an overstuffed short story... a slight, disposable work". Kakutani added that Roth seemed to be "...simply going through the motions of ticking off plot points on a spindly, ill-conceived outline." Mixed but slightly more positive notices were also forthcoming. ''The Daily Telegraph'', which despite also declaring the novel to be "slight", went on to praise ''The Humbling'' as a "grave—and important—novel... a fine, unsettling piece of writing that deserves its place in Roth’s canon... His new work will not detain you long, but it will linger." 2008 Booker Prize winner
Aravind Adiga Aravind Adiga (born 23 October 1974) is an Indian writer and journalist. His debut novel, '' The White Tiger'', won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Biography Early life and education Aravind Adiga was born in Madras (now Chennai) on 23 October 197 ...
in his review for ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' declared the novel to be "...the most entertaining depressing book you’ll read this year", comparing it to Roth's own highly praised ''
Sabbath's Theater ''Sabbath's Theater'' is a novel by Philip Roth about the exploits of 64-year-old Mickey Sabbath. It won the 1995 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. The cover is a detail of ''Sailor and Girl'' (1925) by German painter Otto Dix. Summary and t ...
'' and ''
The Human Stain ''The Human Stain'' is a novel by Philip Roth, published May 5, 2000. The book is set in Western Massachusetts in the late 1990s. It is narrated by 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appears in several earlier Roth novels, and who also fig ...
'', but went on to add caveats. Adiga, despite calling the novel "an original and unsettling book", also considered the novel "a failure", adding, "the language is vibrant, the sex is smutty, there are some lovely surprises in the narrative — yet, like ''
Everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...
'', it lacks the wider social engagement that made '' American Pastoral'' or ''
I Married a Communist ''I Married a Communist'' is a Philip Roth novel concerning the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, known as "Iron Rinn." The story is narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, and is one of a trio of Zuckerman novels Roth wrote in the 1990s depicting the postwar ...
'' so memorable. Like ''Everyman'', it is a voluptuous essay on extinction masquerading as a novel." One of the most positive reviews of the novel came from
Jesse Kornbluth Jesse may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jesse (biblical figure), father of David in the Bible. * Jesse (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Jesse (surname), a list of people Music * ''Jesse'' ( ...
who declared it "Roth's best work in years; sentence for sentence, paragraph for paragraph, he's still the most readable serious writer we've got." Kornbluth went on to praise numerous aspects of the novel summing up with what amounted to an open tribute to Roth and his writing: "This is a long way from the summer romance of ''Goodbye, Columbus''. But Philip Roth was 26 when he published that. He's 76 now. He's outlived all of his rivals. He's our most prominent novelist. And over 30 books, he's learned how to disturb us — and keep us reading. ''The Humbling'' is haunting proof."


Film adaptation

In December 2009, actor Al Pacino purchased the rights to the novel for the purposes of creating a film adaptation. The film, directed by
Barry Levinson Barry Lee Levinson (born April 6, 1942) is an American filmmaker, comedian and actor. Levinson's best-known works are mid-budget comedy drama and drama films such as '' Diner'' (1982); ''The Natural'' (1984); '' Good Morning, Vietnam'' (1987); ...
, was released in the USA on January 23, 2015.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Humbling 2009 American novels American novels adapted into films Novels by Philip Roth Theatre-fiction