“Everyman” opens with the funeral of an unnamed protagonist: a restrained event populated mostly by silence, which the reader experiences as an outsider. Philip Roth uses this starting point to barrage the reader with illnesses, failed marriages, and death, and tell the life of the deceased, unnamed man, focusing solely on his darkest moments. The novel draws inspiration from the 15th century morality play “The Summoning of Everyman,” in which God tallies a man’s good and evil deeds to determine his salvation. Roth similarly seeks to measure the worth of man, in accordance to his sins and moral failures. Despite the bleak stage Roth gives him, the reader is able to identify with the protagonist. This is “Everyman’s” greatest success: the universality of the human weaknesses it describes. We are the everyman.Like most of Roth’s works, “Everyman” is constructed flawlessly, carefully releasing information about the protagonist’s life until the funeral’s silences acquire deep meaning. Roth’s prose flows very smoothly, and allows you to know the main character, but never to enter his mind. Like God’s judgment in the original passion play, Roth welcomes the reader to measure the value of the everyman’s life with no room for subjectivity. “Everyman” is not a perfect book, but it is definitely another triumph by one of the essential writers of our time.
Highly Recommended (A-)
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