Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. It hits too close to home. This may be the most hilarious book I've ever read. Certainly one of my favs from Philip Roth. Read the experience of a boob academic manifest all of his greatest fears as he transforms into a human, female breast.
Sweet justice if you've ever been to college and came across at least one probably more than one boob professor. Highly recommend this book.
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I lost a friend over this book because they couldn't understand why I thought it was funny. Might want to keep your opinions to yourself after reading it, if you think it's a funny book. One person found this helpful. The allusions to Kafka's "Metamorphosis" in comparison to this work seem a little easy and not altogether reliable--yes, there is a transformation, but the result of the transformation goes a little more in the way of Gogol's "The Nose," how the aftermath becomes more comical and grounded in social satire, than through the family exploration of Kafka.
The Breast - Wikipedia
Trumbo may be a little more heavy-handed, but the lack of limbs in Kepesh when he transforms into a gigantic mammory gland, and his limited perception of and contact with the outside world, make this work more akin to Trumbo with a sprinkling of Gogol. Roth has an amazing handle of comedy on the page--a tough craft to master, mind you.
This read is very short and quick, but it sure gives you some images to haunt and humor you for a long time. Kepesh's sudden sexual voraciousness and his lapses into hysteria and out-and-out psychosis, all while burbling about as a giant breast in a makeshift bra in a hospital bed, are the very stuff of sexual revolution, the sensual and boundlessness of desire overtaking the stuffy life of the mind that Kepesh had allowed himself to fall into. A breast that cries and screams and develops a desire for women to use its nipple for their pleasure?
I would be surprised if no graphic novelist has considered making this work visual--that would be either a failure of imagination, or simply a certain amount of illiteracy. A good read that easily lends itself to more exploration of this master. Refreshingly enough, Roth refrains from turning "The Breast" into an extended pornographic joke.
Beauty and the Breast, a Literary Memoir by Merrill Joan Gerber
Instead, he spends his time exploring David's state of mind- how would you feel if you suddenly transformed into a giant mammary gland? First, David describes the experience of being a breast as though he does not quite believe it himself: Is it all a dream? How is he able to communicate with the others around him? Where'd his face go? Later, David's mentality changes, first to a perverted interest in a female nurse who washes him, then utter paranoia that he is under constant surveillance while in his hospital room, and finally a blatant refusal to accept his condition and the belief that he has gone mad.
Things degenerate to the point where Kepesh believes he cannot hear his doctors' actual diagnoses; because of his "insanity" he only hears what he wants to hear. Throughout all this, we see how David's wife, Claire, deals with her husband's new state, as well as the reactions from his father, his doctors and nurses, and his mentor, who collapses in giggles at the sight of David the Breast.
Is David really a breast? Or is he mentally insane? Is he really being watched? But the Kafka homage doesn't end there. Kepesh mentions strained relations with his father. Gregor's daddy wasn't a picnic either. Kepesh also calls the two hairs growing from his nipple his "antennae. To which his doctor, Dr.
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Klinger, replies, "The alphabet only has twenty-six letters. And there are four billion of us in need of initials for purposes of identification. It's certainly a concept film director Spike Jonze should contemplate following "Being John Malkovich" up with. It's a wild, short ride of a tale and one worth taking just for the sheer spectacle of it all. It is a trite attempt. Roth can do better. Essentially Philip Roth's apology for Portnoy's Complaint.
Worth reading for big Roth fans, otherwise don't waste your time. I will be giving this book away. It tries to be a story about the conflict between the intellectual the high and base instincts the low and comes off as an unentertaining story that is failed by page 5. Audible Audiobook Verified Purchase. It might not be his best work, but it is distinctly his in terms of writing style and topics it explores. Jan 23, Mark rated it did not like it Shelves: The titular tit is a tit. This has to be something from Roth's early days, thrust later on his publisher who, given Roth's previous track record, must have said, "Sure, why not?
A guy awakes one morning to find himself changed into a femal Pre-read: A guy awakes one morning to find himself changed into a female breast. By the time Roth wrote "Conversion" he was more than capable of pulling off an absurdist story with a ripe underlying meaning.
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But this had nothing. Just a hundred fifty-five pound breast with an ego the size of Manhattan who lounges in a hammock berating those around him for the care they give. At one point near the end the breast laments: View all 15 comments. Apr 28, Hadrian rated it did not like it Shelves: What's the matter with you?
You don't publish this kind of thing under your own name, you put it on DeviantArt under the username BoobMan33 like everybody else. Feb 27, K. In Kafkaesque form, a man turns into a giant breast and somehow still continues to be a horny dick. This seems more like a story you write for yourself and never, ever, let it see the light of day. We all have those, Mr. Roth, but most of us have the good sense to, uh, keep it to ourselves. Proprio come accade ne Le metamorfosi di Kafka, dove il protagonista dell'opera kafkiana si tramuta in scarafaggio, anche qui si assiste a una metamorfosi, a una trasformazione di se stessi.
Proprio attraverso il tatto, percepisce tutte le sensazioni ed emozioni, compreso il piacere sessuale.
Il protagonista prova ad accettare questa situazione con la quale convive, ma fa fatica e non sempre gli risulta facile. Feb 04, Shannon rated it it was ok. I wonder if Philip Roth sat down and said "I want to write Metamorphosis again, but instead of the story being fascinating I'm going to make it mildly amusing. Oh, also, instead of a giant bug, my character is going to turn into a giant boob. I don't know how much of my moderate disliking of this had to do with the actual story, and how much had to do with the fact that I found the image of a giant consious boob repulsive.
That being said, I liked that the character figured, e I wonder if Philip Roth sat down and said "I want to write Metamorphosis again, but instead of the story being fascinating I'm going to make it mildly amusing. That being said, I liked that the character figured, eventually, that he was not in fact a giant boob but was just insane and thought he was a giant boob. I've clearly gone crazy". And I also liked when someone came to visit him and just laughed hysterically and left. Indecisa su cosa leggere ho afferrato questo piccolo volume dalla mia libreria e ho letto le prime righe per farmi un'idea dello stile di questo autore.
Premetto che non ho mai letto nulla di Roth ma che ero estremamente curiosa di approcciarmi a qualcuna delle sue opere. Devo ammettere che, inaspettatamente, ho trovato questo racconto molto interessante. Breve ma intenso, paradossale e grottesco, a tratti inquietante ed ironico. David Kepesh, docente di letteratura, si sveglia una mattina e scop Indecisa su cosa leggere ho afferrato questo piccolo volume dalla mia libreria e ho letto le prime righe per farmi un'idea dello stile di questo autore. O continuo a essere me stesso, o impazzisco — e poi muoio.
Che si tratti di un'allucinazione scaturita dal potere esercitato da Kafka, Gogol e Swift? Egli arriva addirittura a considerare la propria condizione fisica la sua grande opera d'arte. Se la grandezza degli autori sopra citati aveva permesso loro di immaginare l'incredibile, lui l'aveva realizzato. Geniale la parte dove il protagonista vive la trasformazione come un'allucinazione di un folle: There is lots of existential crisis, as well as discussions of what make a person a person and an individual May 24, bobbygw rated it really liked it Recommends it for: This is one of my favourite Roth fictions and has the sort of funny, mad, energetic exuberance of Portnoy's Complaint, while being much more absurd and surreal in its premise.
There is nothing else quite like it in Roth's oeuvre. From the opening line 'It began oddly. It is wondefully comica This is one of my favourite Roth fictions and has the sort of funny, mad, energetic exuberance of Portnoy's Complaint, while being much more absurd and surreal in its premise. It is wondefully comical, addresses both serious and fantastical issues, and all the while is utterly intriguing and intelligently done.
David Kepesh, as the title of the novella makes clear, finds himself turning into a human breast, '[ Kafka's most famous and brilliant, The Metamorphosis Dover Thrift , in which Gregor Samsa struggles, denies, and agonises over coming to terms with his turning into a beetle, and Nikolai Gogol's The Nose, an equally absurd tale, in The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, where the character, Major Kovalyov, finds his nose abandons his face one day, and begins to assume a life of its own, much to Kovalyov's chagrin.
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Highly recommended for fans of the absurd, fantastical, and joyfully original fiction. I am the walrus, coo coo cachoo" An imaginative take on Kafka's Metamorphosis. Roth not only pays homage to Kafka, but in some ways offers a possible explanation to how Gregor Samsa found himself changed into a beetle. In The Breast , Kepesh eventually imagines that he has not morphed at all, but has suffered some sort of deep psychological breakdown, and only imagines he's a breast. A similar idea is often suggested by readers when trying to understand Kafka.
Recommended for Roth fans and Kafka fans. Maybe it doesn't matter at all.
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I think [reading]'s going to be cultic. I think always people will be reading [novels] but it will be a small group of people. Maybe more people than now read Latin poetry, but somewhere in that range To read a novel requires a certain amount of concentration, focus, devotion to the reading. If you read a novel in more than two weeks you don't read the novel really. So I think that kind of concentration and focus and attentiveness is hard to come by—it's hard to find huge numbers of people, large numbers of people, significant numbers of people, who have those qualities The book can't compete with the screen.
It couldn't compete [in the] beginning with the movie screen. It couldn't compete with the television screen, and it can't compete with the computer screen Now we have all those screens, so against all those screens a book couldn't measure up. Divertido cuento donde un profesor de universidad se convierte en pecho femenino.
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Dec 30, aPriL does feral sometimes rated it liked it Shelves: A college literature professor, David Kepesh, turns into a female breast that is 6 feet long and weighs pounds. He is placed in a hospital room on the 7th floor while doctors puzzle over his transformation. His girlfriend of three years, Claire loyally visits him everyday as does his father.
He is blind, but he can hear and speak through his navel. Since he cannot see, he tries to rationalize his condition in all kinds of ways that anyone would, including guessing he may be insane and st So. Since he cannot see, he tries to rationalize his condition in all kinds of ways that anyone would, including guessing he may be insane and studying Shakespeare. As it turns out, he actually is a large breast that has been put into a hammock for the duration.
He also is horny as hell, and demands his girlfriend wash his huge 5-inch nipple every visit, which stimulates him. He keeps trying to convince Claire to have vaginal sex with his nipple, which she won't do. He has a psychoanalyst, Dr. He is upset because his father stops kissing him goodbye. He is suspicious and paranoid about the possibility that he is on a TV display for the amusement of everyone. This is a short novella, thankfully.
It reads as stupid as my summary may have seemed. Obviously, it is Roth's continuation of the conversation that The Metamorphosis started. What is Roth trying to say? Your guess is as good as mine. Yeah, I thought of dozens of mammalian jokes. I decided to not go there. Jun 29, Wyatt rated it really liked it. He turns in a boob, literally.: This isn't a bad book to read when you're sitting around aimlessly for a few days as I am What's interesting is the tension between the absurdity of his reality and his tendency to want to think of his predicament as merely allegorical.
He has to cede to the logic of his health status and the reality checks of his doctor more than his literary He turns in a boob, literally.: He has to cede to the logic of his health status and the reality checks of his doctor more than his literary mind is comfortable with. It's another one of those books where a loving female looks past her man's major issue. Of course The Breast is metaphorical, but what's great is the extent to which Roth can convince you that it's not. Maybe, like a lot of Roth, it's about accepting age and disease, physical self-image, spikes a lulls in libido, work vs.
It's only lightly stated, but the character is the same guy from The Professor of Desire. And I shall commit literary sacrilege by declaring that I liked this more than Metamorphosis. On the face of it, Roth's David Kepesh turns into a 6 foot breast but the novella explores in detail his depraved psyche and not mere external reactions to it.