The Humbling
I read "The Humbling", the thirtieth novel of the late Philip Roth (1933 -- May 22, 2018), after reading his "American Pastoral" and being greatly moved. Roth is a gifted and deservedly celebrated American novelist. As with any prolific writer, his work tends to be uneven. Although it is a lesser work of Roth, "The Humbling" is a short carefully constructed novel about the sadness of growing old, the never-ending power of human sexuality, and the difficulty of changing one's character.
The novel tells the story of Simon Axler, a highly regarded actor in his 60s. When he plays both Shakespeare's Macbeth and Prospero at the Kennedy Center, Axler realizes he is losing his skill and interest in being an actor. He suffers a severe depression with suicidal tendencies. Axler thinks about all the suicides in the plays he has performed over his career. He must check himself into a psychiatric institution and when, a month later, Axler is released, he loses his wife to divorce and becomes lost and alone. The early sections of the novel offer a compelling portrayal of a man who has lived for one thing in his life -- his acting career -- and is adrift when he loses it.
Axler is rescued by a 40ish academic woman, Pegeen, whom he knew as a baby when he was a young actor with Pegeen's parents. Pegeen is a lesbian who is coming out of a pair of unsatisfactory relationships, including a relationship with the dean at her college. Pegeen begins a relationship with Axler in an attempt to recast herself as a heterosexual. Axler dotes on Pegeen and buys her expensive, womanly clothes. Pegeen's parents warn her against the relationship and Axler has serious and increasing doubts. Yet with the apparent joy and meaning Pegeen brings to him, the relationship persists. As the relationship continues, Roth makes it increasingly clear that Pegeen cannot remain heterosexual. She introduces lesbian elements into her relationship with Axler, confesses to two relationships with women while seeing Axler, and ultimately introduces other women into their relationship. After Axler and Pegeen meet a drunk 28 year old woman in a bar and bring her home, the relationship quickly dissipates. Axler should have seen it coming, but he is devastated.
The novel includes a great deal of symbolism and allusion as the story develops to its crashing close. The characters are sketched quickly and well. The tone, as with much of Roth, includes elements of sadness, sarcasm, and mordancy. The title of the novel, "The Humbling" seems to me of several meanings regarding the character who is humbled and when the "humbling" occurs. At first thought, Axler is humbled when he finds he can no longer act and loses meaning for his life. But perhaps the defining moment of the tale occurs when Axler takes Pegeen for an expensive haircut as part of his efforts to remake her as a heterosexual. Roth describes this scene as follows
"He had never seen Pegeen look as disarmed as she did sitting in front of the chair in front of the mirror after her hair had been washed. He'd never before seen her look so weakened or so at a loss as to how to behave. The sight of her, silent, sheepish, sitting there at the edge of humiliation, unable even to look at her reflection, gave the haircut an entirely transformed meaning, igniting all his self-mistrust and causing him to wonder, as he had more than once, if he wasn't being blinded by a stupendous and desperate illusion. ...What if he proved to be no more than a brief male intrusion into a lesbian life?" (p.65)
Pegeen receives a humbling at Axler's hands, even as Axler is humbled by the loss of his acting ability and by the denouement of the story. Neither Axler nor Pegeen can give up the identity they have created for themselves and become something else. Both are humbled when they try to be a person other than the persons they are.
A short slight work, "The Humbling" still rewards reading.
Robin Friedman
