Philip Roth: Everyman

"Everyman" by Philip Roth is a short book, but intense, and gripping. you can feel Roth's personal struggle and involvement in the theme of aging and dying. the book is about a retired art director, who thinks he fullfills one of his retirement dreams when he moves out of NY to a house with a view to the ocean, and with an atelier room. painting and being at the ocean, that was his plan. only it doesn't work out: the place makes him face his loneliness, and the painting leads to being stuck in colours. here are 2 quotes:

"It had all come to nothing. It was though painting had been an exorcism. But designed to expel what malignancy? The oldest of self-delusions? Or had he run to painting to attempt to deliver himself from the knowledge that you are born to live and you die instead?
Nothing comes without risk, he thought, nothing, nothing - there's nothing that doesn't backfire, not even painting stupid pictures!"

and then, later, an ocean quote that made me think of lines from a friend, about the ocean and how it keeps changing, and still always will be there:

"How much time could you spend staring out at the ocean, even if it was the ocean you'd loved since you were a boy? .. He sat on one of benches that looked out on the beach and the sea, the stupendous sea that had been changing continuously without ever changing since he'd been a bony sea-battling boy."

& i just googled, and found this webpage with all his works: The Philip Roth Society