| Everyman is a novel of Philip Roth. The title refers to | | | | - The protagonist who is a creative director |
| a mediaeval play under the same name, in synopsis: | | | | - The gravedigger |
| - here begins a treatise (tale) of how the high Father | | | | The career of the brother in the story is merely to |
| of Heaven sends Death to summon every creature | | | | show the spirit of the time; he works for Goldman |
| to come and give account of their lives in this world, | | | | Sachs. |
| told in the form of a morality play. (wikipedia) | | | | One of the last scenes of the hero, ex art director, |
| That gives some idea of the novel of Philip Roth. | | | | ex painter chatting with the gravedigger in the |
| Beside death, another important ingredient of the | | | | cemetery where his parents are buried is quite |
| story is disease. These two are sufficient to decide | | | | striking. If any scene in this book will survive in my |
| whether to read the book or not. | | | | memory it is most certainly this one. |
| The key phrase of the novel appears somewhere at | | | | Now in the Spanish version of the book, the title has |
| the end, when the hero re-contacted a few | | | | been changed to Elegy (by the translator: Jordi Fibla). |
| ex-colleagues by phone after years of silence to wish | | | | Why, I ask myself? |
| them luck. All, as himself, are suffering some kind of | | | | This is part of the Spanish culture I think. Titles of |
| illness. He phones them in an action when looking | | | | films and books are changed. Everyman could easily |
| back to his own life and trying to make-up some of | | | | have been translated (like it has been in German to: |
| the moral mistakes he had made in his life. Mistakes | | | | "Jederman"), but elegy seems what the book is |
| which were "inevitable." In that context the | | | | about, although the term elegy doesn't show up |
| protagonist utters: "old-age is not a battle, old age is | | | | never. |
| a massacre." | | | | The title however makes the topic of the book |
| There are two important careers pass in the story: | | | | more explicit. And that was not necessary, I think. |