Reviews for Nemesis

The average rating for Nemesis based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-07-17 00:00:00 Mark Locaparra With "Nemesis" Philip Roth presents another masterpiece in terms of linguistic brilliance, composition and the creation of a lasting effect on the reader. The story takes place in 1944. In Europe and the Pacific the world war raged. In the summer of 1944, a polio epidemic broke out in Newark, New York. (Poliomyelitis) It was the strongest epidemic in eleven years. Philip Roth has written a very exciting and tragic story. You can follow the story breathlessly as a reader and the reader witnesses the inner conflict that Bucky Cantor has with god. Philip Roth names his novel after the Greek goddess of revenge 'Nemesis' A very haunting book that makes you thinks about destiny. For me an absolutely readable story, in very well-kept language!

Review # 2 was written on 2014-06-25 00:00:00 Ross Mccuistion I have been thinking about what makes some books stay in my memory... ... even long after I returned them to a library in a town from which I moved away some ten years ago? And why others just fade away to the extent that I could possibly read them again without ever recognising that I have actually met the characters before? Or to the extent that I buy a new copy because I have forgotten I own one already? Philip Roth's "Nemesis" is one of those books I remember with force after ten years, and I know why as well. The topic is heartbreaking, and very realistic: a polio epidemic in the 1940s, and how it affects the characters over the course of their lives. As such, it is nothing out of the ordinary, just well-written, good, vintage Philip Roth. But when I come to the last page, the book closes the circle of the story with - yes! - a memory of the main character from before the the epidemic, and it evokes this picture in me of all the hopes, dreams, ideas we have when we are young, when our life is still a novel to be written by us, and we imagine it to be a heroic tale with a happy beginning, middle and end (although we don't think of the end, of course, and of the fact that the novel would be outrageously bad, from a literary standpoint!). The main character's early memory, dating before the tragedy unfolds, is of powerful vitality, and it emphasises the impact of the main theme of the later plot, - both physical and mental loss. It is so incredibly sad to read about the young person the main character remembers, and to imagine what comes afterwards, - his failure to cope with the realities of life, his Nemesis, as the title of the novel indicates, referring to ancient Greek drama, where heroes were first put on stage to act out our ideal of a perfect life. In fact, that very last sentence of the book has more than one reference to ancient Greek idealism, as it shows the Olympic, athletic act of throwing a javelin, carried out by a body not yet destroyed by polio. It demonstrates the treacherous belief in humankind's perfectibility that so often is followed by Nemesis' entrance on the stage: "Running with the javelin aloft, stretching his throwing arm back behind his body, bringing the throwing arm through to release the javelin high over his shoulder ' and releasing it then like an explosion ' he seemed to us invincible." The novel closes on that word: invincible... - a sad counterweight to the story of defeat. Invincible, invincible, invincible - that is what made me remember this novel so clearly. It is like the slave standing behind the almighty emperor whispering "Memento mori". And yet, the memory of that moment of invincibility is beautiful! And it made the novel memorable as well. The power of words to conjure up dreams...