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Title: Bloodless, unaffecting
Review: This wisp of a novel has little appeal stylistically -- it is coldly and generically written, like a manual -- and delivers mere crumbs to the emotion and intellect. The theme of human death is explored, but almost entirely without reference to human beings. Instead we get ponderous archetypes. I guess this is what passes for sophistication: We are all animals heading into nothingness. Thanks for the insight. Just off the top of my head, I would direct readers to Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler for a novel about dying that has blood running through its veins, or to Grace by Linn Ullman, which covers the subject with a radiance that is never sentimental. Neither of these books, or authors, will ever get the kind of fulsome praise you find for Roth on the rear flap of Everyman. Congratulations on all those awards; shame about the book.
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