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    Letting Go
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    Letting Go
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    Letting Go
    Audiobook23 hours

    Letting Go

    Written by Philip Roth

    Narrated by Luke Daniels

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Letting Go is Philip Roth's first full-length novel, published just after Goodbye, Columbus, when he was twenty-nine. Set in 1950s Chicago, New York, and Iowa City, Letting Go presents as brilliant a fictional portrait as we have of a mid-century America defined by social and ethical constraints and by moral compulsions conspicuously different from those of today.
    Newly discharged from the Korean War army, reeling from his mother's recent death, freed from old attachments and hungrily seeking others, Gabe Wallach is drawn to Paul Herz, a fellow graduate student in literature, and to Libby, Paul's moody, intense wife. Gabe's desire to be connected to the ordered "world of feeling" that he finds in books is first tested vicariously by the anarchy of the Herzes' struggles with responsible adulthood and then by his own eager love affairs. Driven by the desire to live seriously and act generously, Gabe meets an impassable test in the person of Martha Reganhart, a spirited, outspoken, divorced mother of two, a formidable woman who, according to critic James Atlas, is masterfully portrayed with "depth and resonance."
    The complex liaison between Gabe and Martha and Gabe's moral enthusiasm for the trials of others are at the heart of this ambitious first novel.

    "[Roth] has the finest eye for the details of American life since Sinclair Lewis." - Stanley Edgar Hyman
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 15, 2009
    ISBN9781441801159
    Unavailable
    Letting Go
    Author

    Philip Roth

    PHILIP ROTH (1933–2018) won the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral in 1997. In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House and in 2002 the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, previously awarded to John Dos Passos, William Faulkner and Saul Bellow, among others. He twice won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians’ prize for “the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003–2004” and the W.H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year, making Roth the first writer in the forty-six-year history of the prize to win it twice. In 2005 Roth became the third living American writer to have his works published in a comprehensive, definitive edition by the Library of America. In 2011 he received the National Humanities Medal at the White House, and was later named the fourth recipient of the Man Booker International Prize. In 2012 he won Spain’s highest honor, the Prince of Asturias Award, and in 2013 he received France’s highest honor, Commander of the Legion of Honor.

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    Reviews for Letting Go

    3.5/5

    89 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A novel that examines the unintended consequences of...well, just living a life that, in the main is not vindictive, or violent, but....difficulties arise. This is not a deliberately shocking novel, but one that was a sign of more entertaining works to come.
    • 4/5
      The psychological tension builds in this novel, Roth's first, until it reaches a crescendo towards the end. Powerful stuff. Letting Go revolves around academics Gabe Wallach and Paul Herz. It explores religion, social class, relationships and social constraints in 1950s America.
    • 5/5
      So far as I can see I am the only one who thinks that this is the best book by Roth. I read it at least four times and I will read it ar least four times more.
    • 2/5
      You can sure tell this was early Roth.
    • 4/5
      So, this is the 23rd Philip Roth book that I have read, though it is his first novel. I have found that first novels are often radically different from the rest of an author's work, though in this case I wouldn't say that it was all that different from some of Roth's other novels. One obvious thing that sets "Letting Go" apart is it's length; it is much longer than his other books. I haven't actually compared page numbers, but even if it weren't actually longer it (though it was) it would still seem longer. There also seemed to be a lot of name dropping going on - several references to Proust, Henry James, and others: Proust is fast becoming one of my favorite authors (though my prose sadly does not reflect that) and I am going to give James another chance. I think the author referencing may be a way to add legitimacy or to show off, but that is forgivable certainly.I can't give the book a negative review - though I did find it to be tedious. I didn't really like any of the characters, though that doesn't really matter all that much. It did seem that the reader had to endure the same scenes repeatedly: Paul and Libby arguing over the same thing repeatedly, Gabe and Martha arguing over the same thing repeatedly, Gabe and Bigoness arguing over the same thing repeatedly, etc. I suppose the repetition drills in the fact that people often repeat themselves and do not often change or give in. I especially found the scenes with Bigoness to be difficult to get through; the character himself was annoying, and the confrontation with Gabe was frustrating.A lot of the territory staked out in this novel Roth explores again (and again) later on, and I enjoyed those books a great deal more. I generally prefer Roth's work more from the mid-70's onward. If I were ranking, I'd say that this is probably my 3rd or 4th least favorite Roth book (1st has to be "The Great American Novel" and 2nd has to be "Our Gang").Still though, it was an interesting book, and there is a lot of good stuff in it. In reply to arthurfrayn, the other reviewer of "Letting Go" here, I agree with you on all points. The characters all ring true more or less ; though there are things that today seem rather racist, sexist, and classist, I don't really fault Roth for them. I think this is a very good book - maybe as good or better than "Portnoy's Complaint," but not as good as most of his other work.