Axler

That's not to say that it isn't an enjoyable read: the prose is solid as usual, and there are nice touches peppered throughout the story, such as Axler's realization that it has been years since anyone's brought him a glass of water from the kitchen.

The Cult 2009

Axler has returned from the mental hospital and started a relationship with a former lesbian, Pegeen Mike, one of the most vividly perplexing characters Roth has portrayed.

Anna Dubenko: Exit Ghost, Enter Roth: A Review of The Humbling 2009

Axler is on the wrong end of an asymmetric relationship, the cruel asymmetry of need, and the fantasy underpinning it is the one that, without ever being woken from his dream-like, ghost-like state, he allows himself to nurture: that, at this late stage, things might turn out all right.

Gordon Brown, Charlie Whelan and Me 2009

Things happen to Axler, and Axler makes things happen.

Jesse Kornbluth: Philip Roth's The Humbling Is, At 140 Pages, His Best Book In Years 2009

Axler is on the wrong end of an asymmetric relationship, the cruel asymmetry of need, and the fantasy underpinning it is the one that, without ever being woken from his dream-like, ghost-like state, he allows himself to nurture: that, at this late stage, things might turn out all right.

The clan Amis 2009

When instructed, like a kindergartner, to draw a picture with crayons, Axler draws a picture of himself drawing a picture: "A picture [...] of a man who has broken down and who commits himself to a psychiatric hospital and goes to art therapy and is asked by the therapist to draw a picture."

Anna Dubenko: Exit Ghost, Enter Roth: A Review of The Humbling 2009

Like Gregor Samsa, we meet Simon Axler at the start of his transformation -- rather than waking up a giant insect, Axler has ceased to be a good actor.

Anna Dubenko: Exit Ghost, Enter Roth: A Review of The Humbling 2009

Axler commits himself to the hospital fully acknowledging that he never intended to go through with suicide.

Anna Dubenko: Exit Ghost, Enter Roth: A Review of The Humbling 2009

In fact, the first act of this tragedy reads almost like a travesty of Roth's own oeuvre: of course Axler's wife flees to California and of course Axler is too cowardly to follow her departure with suicide, "the gun as sequel to the wife."

Anna Dubenko: Exit Ghost, Enter Roth: A Review of The Humbling 2009

Axler is on the wrong end of an asymmetric relationship, the cruel asymmetry of need, and the fantasy underpinning it is the one that, without ever being woken from his dream-like, ghost-like state, he allows himself to nurture: that, at this late stage, things might turn out all right.

Smoking Guns and the Morality of Parliamentary Privilege 2009