The Final Bed
If I were looking for a pithy and summary allusion for Philip Roth's latest, Everyman, I might turn to Spinal Tap ("none more black"), Macbeth ("...a tale told by an idiot...signifying nothing") or my old man ("Getting old sucks."). That's right, Roth's doing mortality this time, and when he stares into the abyss he sees nothing. No blue lights. No redemption through the lives of his children. He is "assailed by remorse not just for this mistake but for all his mistakes, all the ineradicable, stupid, inescapable mistakes- swept away by the misery of his limitations yet acting as if life's every incomprehensible contingency were of his making." Old age means only that the body deteriorates in humiliating ways and you can no longer do the things that make life worth living. As religion is a child's game, death means only to lie in dirt as the flesh disintegrates and the skeleton awaits animals or tractors. No lessons to pass on. No words of encouragement. Only the glimmering memory of a young boy in the ocean riding waves and taking his body for granted, all that energy and no appreciation for it. At the end, one only wants to have another shot at it, to seduce one more short-skirted secretary, to run off to Paris with one more fashion model. This is an existentialism that comes too late. To stare into an unblinking and uncaring universe without flinching is to know that meaning is a human construct, a necessary delusion, a mythology we repeat like a mantra to make it seem grander than it is. It reminds me of Jake Barnes giving up any pursuit of life's meaning, and focusing only on how to live best in the world. To enjoy the warm sun on your back. The taste of a good beer and the exuberance of intoxication.

Roth's man is a prick of the first order and one it's hard to find any sympathy for as he laments at the end of his life. But the title transports the particular to the universal: if you live long enough, your body will humble you. If you look honestly at the gravedigger, you know he makes the only bed you'll ever have.