what is the best philip roth novel?

i want to know what to read next from him..

Of the recent ones, you can't go wrong with 'The Plot Against America', 'Everyman' or 'The Human Stain'. If you don't like those, then any Roth is unlikely to appeal.

I'm not if Portnoy is the best, but you should read it before the Zuckerman unbound sequence (Ghost Writer to Prague Orgy), which you should read before the later Zuckerman books (Pastoral to Stain). If you want a one-off, Sabbath and Shylock are both excellent.

I'm not _sure_ if Portnoy...

i did read american pastoral , thought it was a good storytelling, but i think, only from that example, that compared to bellow and updike,roth is the weakest of the three, while all of them are dealing with more or less the same issues.
bellow is the deepest,updike is the best in metaphors and dialouge.
i did like american pastoral, but the hysteric atmosphere, the long pointless paragraphs towards the end and the too american sense was a bit too much sometimes.

I think the last section of American Pastoral is weak, but the first two are just incredible.

American Pastoral, obv. Greatest Philip Roth novel.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Shit, I missed this thread. I say it divides up like this:

Masterpieces (in no particular order):
Portnoy's Complaint
The Ghost Writer
Sabbath's Theater
The Counterlife
Patrimony

Just-Shy-of-Masterpieces:
The Human Stain
Zuckerman Unbound
American Pastoral

Very, Very Good Books:
The Plot Against America
My Life As a Man
The Professor of Desire
The Anatomy Lesson
The Prague Orgy
Operation Shylock

I missed this poll. I would have thrown one in for Dying Animal. Of course, it relates back to a time when I was dating a professor of Creative writing/Poetry, so it was all very appropriate... hm. All his books are great. Go read The Breast, I laughed my ass off.

ha I just read that today. the cover was just a picture of a single big vertically-oriented breast, very odd and off-putting.

man, I just read Sabbath's v. recently and I completely loved it.

So how much does it matter to read the series books in order? The Roth books I've read and own are pretty random, but if it matters, I'll try to be a bit more conscious of what I read next, instead of just grabbing whatever sounds most appealing at the moment.

There's only one real interconnected sequence, and I read that out of order without feeling I was missing anything. Most of the books are independent of each other. That said, when I finish reading Roth's novels I'll probably read them all again in order, to see the development of his themes through his life.

Professor of Desire is the bomb.

Especially the second half!

^I'm reading it now and I'm into it.

portnoy probably,followed closely by sabbath

well,Ladbrokes.com, who previously guessed the nobel prize winner in the last 4 years,placing Roth as the winner in 2007...
http://www.ladbrokes.com/lbr_portal?action=go_home&LANG=en&STYLE=en&VIEW=uk&LAYOUT=default&retURL_g=http%5E//www.ladbrokes.com/lbr_sports?action=go_category%7Ecategory=SPECIALS

...it seems they were wrong this time...

JUST finished The Human Stain - JESUS CHRIST WHAT A NOVEL

otm

yeah, probably his best.
though
JUST finished The Ghost Writer - JESUS CHRIST WHAT A NOVEL

I've only read Goodbye and Everyman, and liked the latter a lot. WHAT AN ENDING

i read the ghost writer last year, MAN IT WAS PRETTY OKAY

the next two zuckerman books i read those too THEY WERE SORT OF ALRIGHT I GUESS

i read that wwii alternate history one more recently IVE READ BETTER NOVELS

His best novels:

The Counterlife
The Ghost Writer
The Prague Orgy

but those late nineties novels have extraordinary things.

Patrimony is of my favorite non-fiction books by anybody.

i had what i thought was a great idea for a novel once, until 10 seconds on google informed me it was 'the ghost writer.' :(

EVERYMAN definitely a fav, if only for so succinctly doing everything i want/love from roth

PATRIMONY something i finally started reading a week or two ago, & have been distracted from but hope to return to at some point. start was sobering.

I have those three Zuckerman novels in a single volume. I pretty much read a Roth novel each fall, so time to do those.

I've got When She Was Good to start on the way home tonight. I HAVEN'T STARTED IT YET, GIVE ME A BREAK

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAAqiO_Z9Vs

for those whove been waiting to see Dakota fanning vomit in ewen mcgregors face

how does one fan vomit? :)

Another downtempo version of Mad World? How fresh.

American Pastoral