The Dying Animal

The Dying Animal (2001) is a novel runs by the United States writer Philip Roth.  It says that the history of Professor David Kepesh of superior literature, that is famous for welcomes a spectacle of radio of literature-themed.  Despite his implicit cultural ancestry, Kepesh at last is destroyed by his inability to understand the emotional engagement.  The Dying Animal is the third book in a collection painting the life of the fictitious professor; the novels preceding are The Breast (1972) and The Professor of Desire (1977). 

Plot Summary

Kepesh is fascinated by the appearance of the young beautiful Consuela Castillo, a student in one of his courses.  An erotic liaison is formed between the two; Kepesh becomes obsessively enamoured of the breasts of his lovers, a developed mascot in the preceding novels.  Despite his feverish devotedness to Consuela, the sexually fortuitous professor maintains a simultaneous matter with a preceding lover, now divorced.  It is also hesitating to expose itself to the meticulous examination or to the mockery that could follow by an introduction to the family of Consuela.  It is implied that it fears that such a meeting would expose the gap of age implausible in their relation.  Finally, Kepesh limit their relation to the physics instead of embarking on deeper arrangement. 

To the final one, Kepesh is destroyed by his indecision, the senescence fear, his lust and his jealousy.  Consuela never finds afterward a lover that can show the same level of devotedness to his body as Kepesh had done.  After some years of separation, Consuela asks David to take nude photographs of her because she will lose one of its breasts to a mastectomy of economy of life.

Most of the editions post a cover picture, Le Grand nu (1919) by Amedeo Modigliani.  In the novel, Consuela sends Kepesh a postcard depicting Le grand nu, and the conjectures of Kepesh that the face in the picture is his alter ego.