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{"id":1833,"date":"2007-02-07T21:13:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T21:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2007\/02\/1833\/"},"modified":"2007-02-07T21:13:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-07T21:13:00","slug":"1833","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2007\/02\/1833.html","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER<\/strong>: Philip Roth\u2019s most recent novel, Everyman<\/em>, is excellent. Ratty <\/a>vets his books before I read them, and she singled this one out as action I should get in on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u2026 well, it\u2019s sort of the miniature Sabbath\u2019s Theater<\/em>. That\u2019s just not possible, really: Sabbath\u2019s Theater<\/em> is Roth\u2019s masterwork (so far), a novel completely one-step-beyond\u2013not a \u201cgood Roth novel,\u201d but a great thing in the world. It\u2019s devastating, and its length is part of how it gets its effects. Everyman<\/em> is necessarily diminished by the contrast. But the themes, and the musicality of the writing, are similar: Everyman<\/em> has the same rhythm of crescendo and new movement, or diminuendo and new movement, or repeated motif. Its structure isn\u2019t dependent on plot, on causal connection, but on a rhythm of intensity, relief, and exhaustion.<\/p>\n

When Ratty told me about the explanation of the title (it\u2019s the name of the jewelry store owned by the protagonist\u2019s father), I was skeptical. Why would you need an explanation? Either the book earns the archetypal title or it doesn\u2019t. But when I got to the passage where the store gets named, it was really powerful: commerce vs death (diamonds are forever), assimilation vs outsider status (if you call yourself \u201ceveryman,\u201d maybe every man will buy from you), an attempt to resolve all the conflicts on both the ethnic and the metaphysical levels of the American Dream.<\/p>\n

I really, really liked this.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"