Indignation

Indignation: anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment.

Indignation is also a novel written by Philip Roth.

I've had more spare time than I've had in quite a while - like a year! So I've needed something to do and I've started to read.

There is a small book store close to my house where you can buy and trade in your books. I decided to go in and find some books to read over the next couple weeks and Indignation was one that sounded good so I bought it.

I read it in two days.

I regret that I didn't just stop reading... I just kept thinking something would happen, but nothing ever did. To me, the book was written in segments that didn't really connect.

It's about a teenager that decided to leave home to get away from his nagging father. It's set during the Korean War and the teenager is focused on his studies so he can make his parents proud and so he won't be drafted as a soldier and have to go to war. While at college, he changed rooms three times because he couldn't handle his roommates. He also went on a date with a girl that ended in her giving him a blow job then he was too embarrassed to ask her out again. He got into an argument with the Dean because the Dean thought he was antisocial and the teenager (I honestly can't remember his name) thinks the Dean is making it up and has no right to pry into his life. During the argument, the teenager threw up over the chair he was in and the rug. He was rushed to the hospital and had his appendix removed. While in the hospital, the girl he went on a date with came to visit him and started to give him a hand job and a nurse saw (the college is against sexual contact, so they should be expelled) but the nurse didn't tell anyone. The teenager's mom came and visited him in the hospital and met the girl, but told him not to date her because she has a cut on her wrist and he shouldn't be dating someone who has tried to kill herself. He agrees, but tries to find the girl once he is released from the hospital, but she went home because she found out she was pregnant. The Dean ends up talking to the kid again and accused the teenager of impregnating her, but the teenager couldn't have because he is a virgin. Then somehow there is a panty raid and kids are being expelled and girls are going home, never to return to the college again. Then the president of the college talks to all the males and tells them they are wimps and the heroes are the soldiers in the war. Then somehow the teenager died and I guess the book was really a flashback of his life.

The narrator changes in the last chapter and I did not like it. It was like Roth forgot that he had to close the book so he gave a brief ending to the teenager's life as well as his parents. You never learn anything more about the girl he dated, or the school.

It was a well written book, but it was a weak story line. Roth could have gone deeper into the story and character, instead it was like he was hurrying to whip up a story to publish.