Ask me about the work of Philip Roth

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I'm bored. Since I can't seem to get up the energy to actually do any work on my PhD, I might as well waste time constructively.

All questions considered.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:04 (6 years ago) Permalink

are you actually doing your phd on roth?

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:07 (6 years ago) Permalink

Yes.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:07 (6 years ago) Permalink

Which is the only Philip Roth book I have read? You get three guesses.

― chap (chap), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:08 (6 years ago) Permalink

More fond of Joseph Roth, actually.

― M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:09 (6 years ago) Permalink

What do you think is his best novel outside of the obvious ones (Goodbye Columbus, Portnoy's Complaint, American Pastoral, etc.)?

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:10 (6 years ago) Permalink

Dude, what is up with the Guston illustrations in "The Breast"?

― Candy: tastes like chicken, if chicken was a candy. (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:10 (6 years ago) Permalink

what do you think about the abruptness of some of his endings? my life as a man and american pastoral come immediately to mind, but if i had my library at hand i could probably come up with other examples.

also: letting go. this might be one of the most profoundly depressing books i've read. um... that's a comment, not a question. sorry.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:11 (6 years ago) Permalink

My history teacher at school encouraged me to read "Portnoy's Complaint". Is this sexual harrassment?

(same teacher also picked a class made up entirely of blonds - this was a boy's school btw)

― === temporary username === (Mark C), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:12 (6 years ago) Permalink

Yes: let's discuss this. I didn't like the ending of AP the first time I read it, but the second time through I thought it worked great.

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:13 (6 years ago) Permalink

Another vote for Joseph Roth. Read a couple of Philip's, didn't understand the appeal.

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:13 (6 years ago) Permalink

Strange that this thread should appear today when two women sitting opposite me this morning on the Tube were reading Roth novels (American Pastoral and Sabbath's Theater).

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:14 (6 years ago) Permalink

what does it say about a man if he intensely identifies with sabbath's theatre?

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:14 (6 years ago) Permalink

that he fucks a lot and plays with puppets?

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:15 (6 years ago) Permalink

haha

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:15 (6 years ago) Permalink

actually, letting go sort of suddenly finishes (if "suddenly" can be applied to something 400+ pages) as well.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:15 (6 years ago) Permalink

if only!

xpost

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:16 (6 years ago) Permalink

yeah I haven't read My Life as a Man, Letting Go, or the baseball one b/c I've heard nothing but awful things about them.

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:16 (6 years ago) Permalink

Let me catch up!

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:17 (6 years ago) Permalink

chap: Portnoy's Complaint?
Hurting: I say five definite masterpieces: Portnoy, The Ghost Writer, The Counterlife, Patrimony, and Sabbath's Theater.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:18 (6 years ago) Permalink

if you've got the interest and the time, then i'd recommend taking a look at my life as a man. it's not a great book, but there's great stuff occasionally and stuff that a fan of roth would find interesting.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:18 (6 years ago) Permalink

(plus franny glass and lane coutell briefly appear in it, which was a totally unexpected burst of playfulness for me.)

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:23 (6 years ago) Permalink

[internet back up]

Austin: Guston's illustrations are probably the best thing about that book! He and Roth were friends at the time (they both lived in Woodstock for a couple of years; PG encouraged Roth's 'playful', anarchic side--good in theory, didn't make for good books: The Breast, Our Gang, The Great American Novel).

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:23 (6 years ago) Permalink

Yeah, I love that weird name-drop! xpost

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:24 (6 years ago) Permalink

(plus franny glass and lane coutell briefly appear in it, which was a totally unexpected burst of playfulness for me.)
-- lauren (warmleatherett...), January 23rd, 2007.

Wait, really? No way!

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:24 (6 years ago) Permalink

Lauren: I hear you with the abrupt endings, but the ending to MLAAM is great!

Um, more on that in a bit.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:25 (6 years ago) Permalink

yes. it's very well-done, too. g00blar, do you know if there's any secret history behind that?

xpost

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:26 (6 years ago) Permalink

xpost - i'm don't think the abruptness is a bad thing across the board. i'm more curious about it than anything, since it seems to be somewhat of a patttern.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:27 (6 years ago) Permalink

Mark: How strongly were you encouraged? Was it: "Read Portnoy's Complaint and then come and see me?"

Jess: It means you're desperately resentful of being socialized all your life, and really would like to break through everything in a shitstorm of rage, masturbation, pointless alcoholism, and grave-pissing.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:28 (6 years ago) Permalink

better get my ass to a graveyard

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:30 (6 years ago) Permalink

This just occurred to me after reading that piece about the pot-smoking ex-orthodox-Jew in the New Yorker -- do you think there's a wider theme in contemporary Jewish literature of overly-self-conscious transgression, perhaps having something to do with the combination of guilt, sarcasm and lack of a hell-sized threat of damnation in Jewish culture?

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:31 (6 years ago) Permalink

that's a great piece. my father and i were discussing it last night. it's definitely part of a larger tradition.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:32 (6 years ago) Permalink

Speaking of graves, why does Sabbath wank on that chunker's grave?

― caek (caek), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:33 (6 years ago) Permalink

Definitely, although Roth has a lot to do with that.

All of the 'thou shalt nots', all of the pressures to be a good child, all of the pressures to assimilate (thinking American-Jewish, obvs.), etc. Of course I can't think of any good examples at the moment. Augie March, I guess.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:34 (6 years ago) Permalink

Sabbath wants to BUST OUT.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:34 (6 years ago) Permalink

I'll have to read the New Yorker piece.

Lauren I'm looking for the Salinger stuff (I think I remember some book I have talking about it), but I'm pretty sure it's basically random.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:36 (6 years ago) Permalink

sheila levine is dead and living in manhattan is kind of a female portnoy, i guess. it was reprinted a while back and might be of interest to fans of jewish neurosis lit.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:38 (6 years ago) Permalink

I have only read Sabbath's Theater, but I did like it. If I want to read another, but don't want to read a series of books to get all the necessary background, which should I read? Is this even possible?

Which Roth book is Sigorney Weaver reading in The Ice Storm?

― caek (caek), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:42 (6 years ago) Permalink

possibilities include portnoy's complaint, goodbye columbus, the plot against america, or american pastoral.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:44 (6 years ago) Permalink

Yeah, read The Ghost Writer. It's amazing. Short, funny, sad, and sort of perfect. It's the first of the Zuckerman books, so if you do want to continue on to the others, you've got a background (not that the others don't stand on their own).

and

No fucking idea.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:44 (6 years ago) Permalink

The Prague Orgy and The Counterlife are my favorites. The former is one of the four or five best short novels of the 20th century.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:45 (6 years ago) Permalink

It is amazing, but, again, TGW (also novella-sized) pwns it.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:47 (6 years ago) Permalink

the baseball one, the grat american novel, is fab - very playful

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 19:41 (6 years ago) Permalink

sheila levine is awesome.

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 21:59 (6 years ago) Permalink

Was Philip Roth really an assassin for the CIA?

― milo z (mlp), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 22:01 (6 years ago) Permalink

Is he primarily a Jewish writer or an American writer?

― Eazy (Eazy), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 22:09 (6 years ago) Permalink

He's said it in countless interviews: American.

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 22:10 (6 years ago) Permalink

I may have talked about this before, but one thing I now appreciate about Roth is that he's one of few people who are willing to talk about writing on a really practical level, rather than making it all come off a bit mystical and airy. He came up to Columbia to talk to a couple classes after The Plot Against America, and in one of them someone was trying to ask after the thematic purpose of that scene where the kid's locked in the bathroom, and the neighbor's mother is trying to help him get out -- like is this meant to be about captivity and freedom? an ineffectual savior? And Roth's mindblowing answer was basically that he'd gotten to the end, where the mother dies, and then -- he said it like this was really clever -- realized that her death would have more impact if she'd actually been in a scene before. I'm still amazed by that answer.

Other thing that weirded me out: I was trying to ask him about the "collaborator" roles in that book, like how he saw them on a spectrum from just villainous to maybe deluded and used, and his answer was more or less "Oh, they're just bad people. They're the bad guys."

I dunno, it's possible he just thought we were all really stupid? (The real amazement of the thing was that after the class, my friend David approached, made friends with, and apparently now occasionally hangs out with Roth.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 23:34 (6 years ago) Permalink

Never read him. Should I go ahead and read The Plot Against America (which I bought on a whim a few weeks ago) or would something like Sabbath's Theater or American Pastoral be a better introduction?

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 23:50 (6 years ago) Permalink

there is something really weird about when she was good - what is it?

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 00:04 (6 years ago) Permalink

Nabisco, those are great anecdotes--I'd love to hear him speak; his Reading Myself and Others, which is essentially a collection of interviews and essays, is amazing. He's always been a really interesting critic of his own work. I think it's less a case that he thought you were all stupid and more that he's thought through these things so thoroughly (both how a novel should be put together, and the history of American Jews and the Holocaust), that at the point of composition, the collaborators were just the bad guys.

Marmot, The Plot Against America's probably a good place to start, yeah. Really gripping, and (naturally) broad in its scope (reaching into American history). It isn't what I'd call a typical Roth book--it veers into 'counterfactual history', but it's not that much of a departure. It's also the only book in which he explores childhood (his own, actually) for an extended amount of pages, which is what makes the book great, I think.

Jhoshea, When She Was Good is mostly 'weird' because Roth is totally (and consciously) writing outside of what he knows. He's a Jewish guy from New Jersey writing about a young Christian girl in the midwest trapped in a totally deterministic world--as if he was trying to be Thomas Wolfe or Sherwood Anderson or something. It's better than most people give it credit for, but it's really not very good, Roth-wise.

― g00blar (gooblar), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 00:34 (6 years ago) Permalink

Oh yeah, and Marmot: Sabbath's Theater is amazing, but I'd definitely not recommend it be your first Roth. It is an intense, angry, over-the-top book totally centered on an outrageous, hateful, totally transgressive and rage-filled protagonist. It's insane in its committment to everything unsocialized, distasteful, and primal--I think it's a masterpiece, but it's not for the faint of heart.

― g00blar (gooblar), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 00:37 (6 years ago) Permalink

The problem with TPAA is that none of the characters is especially interesting, unlike, say, Sabbath or Lena in The Counterlife.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 01:53 (6 years ago) Permalink

I have to say Sabbath still sounds right up my alley.

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 01:56 (6 years ago) Permalink

But I was actually disappointed -- both in the book and in his lecture -- about the collaborators as just bad guys. I mean, this has a little to do with the characters in that book not being hugely interesting: those "collaborators" are an opportunity to take a pretty complex look at character, and all the very human reasons people get into those positions, so it seems a bit lazy to just say "they're bad." (Especially since that's not the argument that needs to be made; of course readers are going to understand they're "bad"; the impulses behind it are probably more interesting, and the only ones he allows are "vanity" and "greed.")

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 01:59 (6 years ago) Permalink

can you talk a bit about everyman?

― pinkmoose (jacklove), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 04:07 (6 years ago) Permalink

the zuckerman about him being sick is pretty awful -- the others are teh awesome though.

also TPAA seemed to have plenty of interesting characters, but only gently interesting. some of the family scenes were pretty exquisitely rendered. as to the collaborators, i mean, they weren't really in any way the center of the book -- what i liked most about the whole way it worked through was the way the "plot" was so much and so little at once, just a step away from what it was and so REALLY just a step away from what it was... the commonplacing of the counterfactual -- seemed like a sideswipe at radical zionist types in the service of rendering the memoiresqe portion more true and vivid -- how it *felt* to be assimilating.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 04:11 (6 years ago) Permalink

ok so here's the question: does the anatomy lesson have any redeeming qualities at all, and what the hell are they?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 04:13 (6 years ago) Permalink

also how much do you think american pastoral really should be read as an answer book to updike?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 04:14 (6 years ago) Permalink

i don't think the characters in TPAA are supposed to be "interesting" the way the ones in other roth novels are - it's much more mundane and prosaic almost until the very end, which makes the last 15 pages of nonstop melodrama easier to take.

actually, i think one of the things i liked most about the book was its almost worshipful attitude toward FDR - pretty uncool these days, and strangely touching in a hard-to-define way.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 09:01 (6 years ago) Permalink

Anthony: Everyman is a short, spare, death-obsessed book. It's in some way 'inspired' by the medieval morality play of the same name, but only insofar as both books are about 'how to die'. I found it a little disappointing; I thought keeping the protagonist nameless was a mistake, and part of an overall thinness of character. He didn't get my belief as easily as he should have. That said, Roth at this point in his career is such a good writer, that it's still a great book. He's just head and shoulders above most everyone else that disappointing for him is still an achievement.

― g00blar (gooblar), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 10:37 (6 years ago) Permalink

Sterling, I think The Anatomy Lesson has a LOT of redeeming qualities--ok, so it's probably the worst of the Zuckerman books (actually, no, I'll take it easily over I Married a Communist), but that's not saying much!

I love particularly the last 50-75 pages of that book, from the ridiculous argument with Milton Appel, to the impersonation of the pornographer on the plane, to the GREBT graveyard scene, to the end when he's wandering around the hospital (as a patient), still wanting to be a doctor.

What's great is that the nature of Zuckerman's problem throughout is pretty vague. He's got horrible, chronic pain--from what? He doesn't know. He can't write. Why? He doesn't know. There are lots of reasons given by other characters, but essentially the causes are left unknown. But that doesn't make the pain, or the inability to write, any less real. It makes it MORE maddening in the fact that you don't even know why it's happening. That struck me as a very clever central premise for a book.

― g00blar (gooblar), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 10:46 (6 years ago) Permalink

I thought the characters in The Plot Against America and especially American Pastoral were quite interesting, eastcoast jewish lower middle class members of parents generation. in fact they all come from the exact same milleu as my father in law, so one of many things I got from these books was insight into my parents time and experience. Maybe it's an age thing.

Still my favorite Roth is probably Goodbye Columbus and the vintage short story "Defender of the Faith." Tried to read The Ghost Writer back in the early 80s and hurled it @ the wall.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 11:37 (6 years ago) Permalink

Re: FDR attitude

This is, actually, to be found in a lot of Roth books. I think it's Zuckerman who remembers fondly and with nostalgia his parents taking the kids up to a train station to witness FDR's coffin be taken through.

― g00blar (gooblar), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 12:42 (6 years ago) Permalink

Marmot, I asked a friend of mine to get me started with Roth, and he gave me Sabbath's Theater. As g00blar says, it's demanding and moving, but it didn't feel like hard work to me. I give it A++++++ WOULD READ AGAIN (hence my question to g00blar about where to go next), so if you like the sound of it then I say go with it.

g00blar: thanks for the Ghost Writer recommendation. It's in my Amazon shopping cart, and I'll post back here if I have any questions. I'm currently plodding through a copy of the Master and Margarita with terrible typography though, so that could take a while. Don't disappear in the meantime! This is a great thread!

― caek (caek), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 22:45 (6 years ago) Permalink

so if you like the sound of it then I say go with it.

How does it compare to stuff like Steppenwolf or The Stranger? The wiki makes it sound like a more extreme/depraved version of that kind of thing. Either way, I'll see if I can find it next time I'm in my local used book shop.

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 22:58 (6 years ago) Permalink

Marmot, I've never read Steppenwolf, but ST's not really anything like the Stranger. It's not spare at all--it's wild and wooly, long and loud, full of action, rage, and despair. It's a loud book centered on an astoundingly, shockingly disgusting central character bent on getting more disgusting.

Caek, that's great you're gonna read TGW! It's really nothing like Sabbath, but it's fantastic!

― g00blar (gooblar), Wednesday, 24 January 2007 23:39 (6 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

Londoners and Roth fans (and the unemployed): today, at 4pm, there'll be a screening of a recent interview with Roth (I think never before shown), as part of Jewish Book Week. It's at the Royal National Hotel, Bedford Way in Bloomsbury. It's free, and I'll be there!

― G00blar, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 10:07 (6 years ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

Damn. I thought it was somewhere on this thread that someone mentioned that PR actually admitted somewhere (a conference in france maybe?) that Operation Shylock was all made up. I mean, everybody knows it is, but I'm trying to track down Roth's admission. Anyone?

― G00blar, Tuesday, 31 July 2007 14:22 (5 years ago) Permalink

Re: The Ice Storm, IMDB says, 'The book Janey is reading while sitting on the water bed is "When She Was Good" by Philip Roth.'

― caek, Sunday, 5 August 2007 11:47 (5 years ago) Permalink

Did anyone ever think Operation Shylock might NOT have been made up???

― Hurting 2, Sunday, 5 August 2007 17:54 (5 years ago) Permalink

(not rhetorical question, I really don't know the history)

― Hurting 2, Sunday, 5 August 2007 17:55 (5 years ago) Permalink

i just started the plot against america! yesterday!

― s1ocki, Sunday, 5 August 2007 17:59 (5 years ago) Permalink

The Human Stain is awesome!

I haven't read Everyman, but does he end up realizing that Good Deeds are the only worthwhile pursuit? (like the medieval play)

― poortheatre, Sunday, 5 August 2007 18:16 (5 years ago) Permalink

can anyone point me to the new yorker article referenced above? or give more specific identifiers i could use to search for it?

-- A-ron Hubbard (Hurting)

― W i l l, Sunday, 5 August 2007 19:49 (5 years ago) Permalink

Did anyone ever think Operation Shylock might NOT have been made up???

Nah, no one did, which is sort of the interesting thing.* I mean, everybody knows it's fiction, but if Roth's never said so--if, in fact, he's sworn up and down that it's non-fiction--how, exactly, do we know? Because I have to write about this shit, it feels sort of unconsidered to just write: "Although Operation Shylock is subtitled 'A Confession', and claims to be a true story, c'maaaaaan."

*Mark Shechner, I think, has probably come closest to trying to take PR at his word--he basically ends up saying that at the end of the day it doesn't matter whether the book is a true account or not.

(But I don't really care about all this shit

― G00blar, Sunday, 5 August 2007 22:33 (5 years ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

Just started Ghost Writer. Roth really can turn a sentence around, can't he? Questions to follow.

― caek, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 08:45 (5 years ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

75 years old today.

― G00blar, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 09:42 (5 years ago) Permalink

I would have thought you'd had enough of him to last a lifetime!

― Masonic Boom, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 09:47 (5 years ago) Permalink

Yeah serious. In some ways, I'll never be free.

― G00blar, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 09:54 (5 years ago) Permalink

the day after Updike turned 76 huh

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 11:39 (5 years ago) Permalink

I read the Zuckerman Bound collection recently. despite upthread dissing The Anatomy lesson was my fav section

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 11:56 (5 years ago) Permalink

7 months pass...

If anyone wants to read me blabbing about Roth, this thing, which came out in July I think, is finally online.

― Manchego Bay (G00blar), Monday, 17 November 2008 15:37 (4 years ago) Permalink

― Manchego Bay (G00blar), Monday, 17 November 2008 15:41 (4 years ago) Permalink

3 months pass...

Roth to publish new novel this autumn, another novel next year.

― f f murray abraham (G00blar), Wednesday, 4 March 2009 19:03 (4 years ago) Permalink

“The Humbling,” which is scheduled for the fall, is a novel about an aging stage actor whose empty life is altered by “a counterplot of unusual erotic desire,” the publisher said. The company (which awarded its Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship to “Goodbye, Columbus” in 1959) will also release “Nemesis,” a work of fiction by Mr. Roth, above. Set in the summer of 1944, it tells of a polio epidemic and its effects on a closely knit Newark community and its children. That book is scheduled for publication in 2010.

tbh that description sounds like a Philip Roth madlib e.g. coming winter 2009 Philip Roth's "Words Like Arrows" interlaces the story of Daniel Lampel a blah blah blah In 1950s Weequahic blah blah blah overweening mother blah blah blah fictional small-town college blah blah blah parallels to current political situations blah blah blah

still excited though. i thought indignation was good, though hard not to compare with everyman just because of length and setting etc.

― schlump, Wednesday, 4 March 2009 19:37 (4 years ago) Permalink

How often do you read Roth? I've read eight-and-a-bit of his now. I feel a bit exhausted at the end of each one, so have to go through a good long rest period before trying him again. So while I think I'd be pretty happy to read no other authors ever again, I don't actually think it would raise my Roth rate very much

― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 4 March 2009 19:41 (4 years ago) Permalink

i think i read the few zuckermans i've gone through in fairly quick succession, but then they start fairly easily. a couple of his are more pageturning than others - the plot against america - but then i know i probably waited a while after the human stain. i'm a little sketchy on my tally of how many i've read because i've set aside a bunch half way through - my life as a man, portnoy, the third? zuckerman book with the zionism and the illness (so glad when i found out that other people couldn't motivate themselves to plough through it either). some of it's psychologically dense enough to feel like you need a rest, for sure.

― schlump, Wednesday, 4 March 2009 19:44 (4 years ago) Permalink

although unlike shipley and jordan and dom i have actually met whiney g weingarten in person for approx 45 seconds

― abebe¿abebe (and what), Wednesday, 4 March 2009 19:49 (4 years ago) Permalink

haw wrong thread!@!

― abebe¿abebe (and what), Wednesday, 4 March 2009 19:49 (4 years ago) Permalink

I'm obviously not a normal case, as I read little other than Roth for 4+ years (ok, I had to read a bunch of other stuff, but I had to *always* be reading/thinking about/writing on Roth). I don't feel exhausted at the end of a Roth book, no--although above, I think Laurel(?) said she thought his endings are weird, they tend to leave me exhilarated more than anything else. I guess I can understand that, if you were not a fan of his voice, the books could be exhausting, because that voice is so insistent, so persistent, that you'd just say 'enough already'. But I love his authorial voice, and I can open pretty much any of his books feel pretty much total trust in where that voice might take me.

― f f murray abraham (G00blar), Thursday, 5 March 2009 12:10 (4 years ago) Permalink

i really enjoyed that piece you linked, it's really insightful!!!

― urban-suburban hip-hop settings (hmmmm), Thursday, 5 March 2009 12:28 (4 years ago) Permalink

Thanks a lot!

― f f murray abraham (G00blar), Thursday, 5 March 2009 12:33 (4 years ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

I got Exit Ghost in hardback for £1 today (Union Street Poundland, all you Glasgowers - and perhaps other Poundlands across the country). I haven't read anything else by him though I've been meaning to, so 1. can I read this without reading the other Zuckerman books? and 2. if I can, is it a good idea?

― Like, (Expletive) my (expletive). (Merdeyeux), Monday, 18 May 2009 15:13 (4 years ago) Permalink

if i'm in the toon this week I'll definitely be going to the Poundland.

― languid samuel l. jackson (jim), Monday, 18 May 2009 15:33 (4 years ago) Permalink

Interesting fact: Philip Roth writes a lot about dick, and Philip Dick writes a lot about wrath.

― Subtlest Fart Joke (Oilyrags), Monday, 18 May 2009 17:57 (4 years ago) Permalink

1. yes
2. no, cause he wrote much better books than exit ghost

― Zeno, Monday, 18 May 2009 18:02 (4 years ago) Permalink

this, basically^

Exit Ghost has some good bits, and it's a great idea of a book, but Roth didn't do as much as he should of with the set-up, I thought. It wasn't funny enough, for one. (And what was with the ten pages out of nowhere on Plimpton?) It's by no means a bad book, though; Roth writes circles around most other authors so there's always pleasure to be found in his books (for me, at least).

― Bathtime at the Apollo (G00blar), Monday, 18 May 2009 19:06 (4 years ago) Permalink

Just picked up Zuckerman Bound secondhand. The Ghost Writer's a lovely, concise, subtle piece of work. Zuckerman Unbound is wildly solipsistic but funny and odd, especially the scenes with Alvin Pepler. The Anatomy Lesson seems to me completely pointless and rudderless but like G00blar says, there's pleasure to be found along the way. I'm hoping The Prague Orgy turns things around a bit. Reading The Anatomy Lesson, there's no way you'd predict the later Zuckerman masterpieces. Zuckerman (and by extension Roth) is so much better when he's observing and recording someone else's story rather than writing about himself, I think, although I haven't read The Counterlife or Exit Ghost yet.

Love this thread by the way G00blar. Perfect companion to my current Roth binge.

― Dorian (Dorianlynskey), Monday, 18 May 2009 19:45 (4 years ago) Permalink

Nice! Yeah, you should continue with the Prague Orgy and The Counterlife, the latter of which will give you ample time to compare Zuckerman writing about himself and writing about others. It's an astounding piece of work, Roth operating on all cylinders.

― Bathtime at the Apollo (G00blar), Monday, 18 May 2009 20:03 (4 years ago) Permalink

(And what was with the ten pages out of nowhere on Plimpton?)

I'm assuming Roth wrote them from the heart.

― Eazy, Monday, 18 May 2009 20:19 (4 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

I recently ploughed through Operation Shylock and am nearing the end of The Counterlife. Both books feature extended sequences in Israel that start off plausibly enough, before descending to a greater or lesser extent into something less like farce and more like an extended Jewish in-joke. My question is: what is the goyische reader supposed to take from these bits?

― Ismael Klata, Friday, 16 October 2009 13:58 (3 years ago) Permalink

I enjoyed this Roth interview in today's Times. It doesn't go into great depth, but I liked the bits about his method.

He seems agreeably free of pretension, interested above all in good stories - which makes my question more of a puzzle to me, really. I love nabisco's story upthread about the mother in The Plot Against America, it's a little hard to reconcile that with the in-jokes and self-referencey bits that have plagues the ones I've read recently.

― Ismael Klata, Saturday, 17 October 2009 12:18 (3 years ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

"If you read a novel in more than two weeks you don't read the novel really."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/26/philip-roth-novel-minority-cult

discuss

― peter falk's panther burns (schlump), Thursday, 12 November 2009 17:52 (3 years ago) Permalink

Oi! My question first.

― Ismael Klata, Thursday, 12 November 2009 17:56 (3 years ago) Permalink

i read the human stain in under 2 weeks because i wanted it to be over

― harbl, Thursday, 12 November 2009 17:56 (3 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

whats ur opinion of the assfucking scene in the humbling

― johnny crunch, Saturday, 10 April 2010 23:35 (3 years ago) Permalink

just read the humbling ... not very good? i dunno, the beginning had potential, but the relationship with Pegeen was uhhhh. And I've liked these last few shorter novels, Indignation, Exit Ghost, Everyman, etc. But this one just seemed pointless.

― tylerw, Sunday, 11 April 2010 01:30 (3 years ago) Permalink

what do we think of The Ghost Writer? Just finished. Not sure I want any more Zuckerman.

― quincie, Sunday, 11 April 2010 02:20 (3 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

if i pick up patrimony as something to just zip through on autopilot will i enjoy it? i heard good things a while ago and my interest is piqued, never having read any of his autobio stuff, and despite having a few of the bigger novels still waiting (eg Sabbath's)

― devoted to boats (schlump), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 13:31 (1 year ago) Permalink

Patrimony is better than many of his novels.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 13:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

I'm trying to think if I've read any better delineations of the father-son relationship.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 13:35 (1 year ago) Permalink

i wonder if i might've read you enthusing about it here before. it's been a while since i've read one of the novels, really, so am ready for something. thanks for the rec.

― devoted to boats (schlump), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 13:45 (1 year ago) Permalink

I'm sure I have!

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 13:54 (1 year ago) Permalink

10 months pass...

Just finished I Married a Communist, and American Pastoral before that. And of course I'll go ahead and read Human Stain next, just to finish up the trio. I actually really enjoyed Communist, even though it garners no mention in this thread other than g00blar saying it's the worst of the Zuckermans!

― Mad God 40/40 (Z S), Wednesday, 9 May 2012 17:16 (1 year ago) Permalink

I Married A Communist includes a reference to two gangsters named Big Pussy and Little Pussy, a year before The Sopranos began.

― caro's johnson (Eazy), Thursday, 10 May 2012 16:10 (1 year ago) Permalink

i used to feel like american pastoral was the best book i ever read. now i rate a couple things above it, but it's still in my top 5 of all time.

― Mordy, Thursday, 10 May 2012 19:30 (1 year ago) Permalink

I've twice tried I Married A Communist and given up in boredom within fifty pages or so. It's very odd, I've never remotely had that problem with any of his other stuff.

― Ismael Klata, Thursday, 10 May 2012 19:42 (1 year ago) Permalink

I love I Married a Communist. No way the worst of the Zuckermans. Better than The Human Stain, The Anatomy Lesson and The Prague Orgy for starters. Maybe it's just because I'm fascinated by the Red Scare but I couldn't see why it was so disliked.

Recently read Nemesis, which I adored - his best since American Pastoral imo. Would rather read about wartime New Jersey than horny old writers any day.

Re: Ismael's 2009 question, my Jewish grandfather lived in Israel and I've been there a couple of times so the themes in The Counterlife resonated with me even though it's mostly huge chunks of debate crowbarred into the mouths of thinly drawn characters. What really struck (and depressed) me was how little the debate has changed since he wrote it.

― Get wolves (DL), Thursday, 10 May 2012 20:08 (1 year ago) Permalink

3 months pass...

One for Barthes, Alfred and anyone else who's down on authorial intent.

My interlocutor was told by the “English Wikipedia Administrator”—in a letter dated August 25th and addressed to my interlocutor—that I, Roth, was not a credible source: “I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,” writes the Wikipedia Administrator—“but we require secondary sources.”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/09/an-open-letter-to-wikipedia.html

― Get wolves (DL), Friday, 7 September 2012 17:03 (8 months ago) Permalink

Damn.

― Mr. Que, Friday, 7 September 2012 17:06 (8 months ago) Permalink

If you haven't read the Human Stain Roth's letter contains a shitload of spoilers BTW. Fascinating if you have though - I always thought the "spooks" misunderstanding was a weak premise - I didn't realise it was true.

― Get wolves (DL), Friday, 7 September 2012 17:17 (8 months ago) Permalink

Comments
1 comment |

PHILIP! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE MORE! YOU'VE BEEN ISOLATED IN THE COUNTRY FOR TOO LONG!!!! GO GET LAID!!!!
Posted 9/7/2012, 1:04:00pm by comancheria

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 7 September 2012 17:31 (8 months ago) Permalink

Good to read something new from Roth. He was at a pace of a novella per year in the late 2000s. I was wondering if he was still writing.

― Earth, Wind & Fire & Alabama (Eazy), Friday, 7 September 2012 18:17 (8 months ago) Permalink

There's been a response:

http://quominus.org/archives/979

http://quominus.org/archives/981

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 16 September 2012 20:42 (8 months ago) Permalink

Good to read something new from Roth. He was at a pace of a novella per year in the late 2000s. I was wondering if he was still writing.

― Earth, Wind & Fire & Alabama (Eazy), Friday, September 7, 2012 7:17 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

???

― just sayin, Sunday, 16 September 2012 21:01 (8 months ago) Permalink

does gooblar still post under some name? i saw his book in the library

― thomp, Sunday, 16 September 2012 21:26 (8 months ago) Permalink

What book's this? Would read.

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, 16 September 2012 21:29 (8 months ago) Permalink

g00blar, d4v1d. the major phases of philip roth (london: continuum, 2011)

― thomp, Sunday, 16 September 2012 21:40 (8 months ago) Permalink

It'd better answer my 2009 question.

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, 16 September 2012 21:45 (8 months ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

i read the human stain in under 2 weeks because i wanted it to be over

― harbl, Thursday, 12 November 2009 17:56 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wtf

― Blue Collar Retail Assistant (Dwight Yorke), Thursday, 4 October 2012 13:12 (7 months ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

ruh roh

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/09/philip_roth_im_done/

Philip Roth is calling it a career.
In an interview with a French publication called Les inRocks last month — which does not appear to have been reported in the United States — Roth, 78, said he has not written anything new in the last three years, and that he will not write another novel.
“To tell you the truth, I’m done,” Roth told the magazine, in the most definitive statement he has ever made about his future plans. “‘Nemesis’ will be my last book.”
(The interview is published in French; we used an Internet program to translate his quotes into English. We asked his publisher, Houghton Mifflin, for confirmation. They reached out to Roth this morning. “He said it was true,” said Lori Glazer, vice president and executive director of publicity.)
Roth said that at 74, realizing he was running out of years, he reread all his favorite novels, and then reread all his books in reverse chronological order. “I wanted to see if I had wasted my time writing,” he said. “And I thought it was rather successful. At the end of his life, the boxer Joe Louis said: “I did the best I could with what I had.” This is exactly what I would say of my work: I did the best I could with what I had.
“And after that, I decided that I was done with fiction. I do not want to read, to write more,” he said. “I have dedicated my life to the novel: I studied, I taught, I wrote and I read. With the exclusion of almost everything else. Enough is enough! I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced in my life.”

― but the boo boyz are getting to (Z S), Friday, 9 November 2012 17:42 (6 months ago) Permalink

as much as it it's a shame, cause a weaker Roth is still better than most writers, i don't think he can reinvent himself again to write a really great book. especially due to the fact that there is some truth to the claim that he writes the same novel again and again.

― nostormo, Friday, 9 November 2012 18:35 (6 months ago) Permalink

I have very little time for Roth's writing but I really respect this as an artistic decision (and not just because fewer new roth books might mean fewer longfrm pieces about how Important he is).

― of course you end up shazaming yourself (c sharp major), Friday, 9 November 2012 18:39 (6 months ago) Permalink

I have never objected when an artist announces retirement: it takes courage.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 November 2012 18:41 (6 months ago) Permalink

p.s this things should be taken with a grain of salt of course.
a person who wrote all his life, and books WERE his life, might say one thing, and do something else..

― nostormo, Friday, 9 November 2012 18:41 (6 months ago) Permalink

If true, I'm glad he bowed out with Nemesis rather than The Humbling.

― Deafening silence (DL), Friday, 9 November 2012 18:43 (6 months ago) Permalink

if true, does it mean he definitely wont win the nobel prize now?

― nostormo, Friday, 9 November 2012 18:45 (6 months ago) Permalink

Well, I doubt the Nobel committee would have The Humbling and Exit Ghost in mind when honoring him.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 November 2012 18:51 (6 months ago) Permalink

I had a little think about the most fitting way to pour one out, then decided it's probably best not to bother.

― Ismael Klata, Friday, 9 November 2012 18:54 (6 months ago) Permalink

exit ghost is rad
this is like justin timberlake all over again

― absurdly pro-D (schlump), Friday, 9 November 2012 18:54 (6 months ago) Permalink

lol ismael

i really hope he circumvents this by just writing loads of non-fiction shit instead

― absurdly pro-D (schlump), Friday, 9 November 2012 18:55 (6 months ago) Permalink

as long as he wont "circumvents this by just writing loads of ~~non-fiction~~ shit instead"

― nostormo, Friday, 9 November 2012 18:59 (6 months ago) Permalink

an Autobiography would be nice though!

― nostormo, Friday, 9 November 2012 19:00 (6 months ago) Permalink

I wouldn't mind another Patrimony. Does he have another dying relative he can write about?

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 November 2012 19:01 (6 months ago) Permalink

himself?

― nostormo, Friday, 9 November 2012 19:01 (6 months ago) Permalink

too bad he already used the title The Dying Animal.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 November 2012 19:05 (6 months ago) Permalink

One of my favorite second winds. Still, what is the point of retiring publicly? Just don't write something. And then if you write something, no big deal.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 9 November 2012 19:37 (6 months ago) Permalink

i guess it's so that everyone will leave you alone for a while

― but the boo boyz are getting to (Z S), Friday, 9 November 2012 19:45 (6 months ago) Permalink

everybody, leave Philip Roth ALONE

― but the boo boyz are getting to (Z S), Friday, 9 November 2012 19:45 (6 months ago) Permalink

Leave him alone on his mountain in upstate New York!

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 November 2012 19:47 (6 months ago) Permalink

By coincidence Gooblar's book arrived at my house this week. It's so beautifully bubblewrapped, I haven't dared open it.

― Ismael Klata, Friday, 9 November 2012 20:03 (6 months ago) Permalink

Still, what is the point of retiring publicly?
Well, I guess if you get questions about it in an interview, you might as well say it? It's not like he issued a press release.
Didn't he a year or two ago say he'd stopped reading novels too? Some rubbish about how he "wised up", iirc. Not too long before that, he talked about how he was rereading all those old favorites that he'd not read in years.

Uh, anyways, _Nemesis_ was a good 'un. Is this the point where we should start coming up with dumbass interpretations of it? Polio represents fiction and the Newark community is Philip Roth, and Cantor is, uh, "Philip Roth" the author. Ahem, yeah, I'm no lit major obv.

I wonder what goes on in an aging, famous author's head. Could totally understand worrying about some asshole publishing the shit you're just messing around with at the moment.

― Øystein, Friday, 9 November 2012 21:23 (6 months ago) Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/books/struggle-over-philip-roth-reflects-on-putting-down-his-pen.html?hp&_r=0

― johnny crunch, Sunday, 18 November 2012 15:42 (6 months ago) Permalink

the idea of writing standing up (i think hemingway said he did it, too?) is bizarre to me, but i'm not getting much done these days sitting down so maybe i should try it.

― THAT IS ONE BIG PIZZA (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Sunday, 18 November 2012 16:05 (6 months ago) Permalink

not quite as bizarre as richard powers's admission that he wrote whole novels in bed, but i think if i tried that i'd just nap a lot.

― THAT IS ONE BIG PIZZA (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Sunday, 18 November 2012 16:06 (6 months ago) Permalink

Roth seems pretty happy with life, I can't begrudge him his retirement.

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, 18 November 2012 16:10 (6 months ago) Permalink

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 18 November 2012 16:12 (6 months ago) Permalink

like the article says, he had a better run in the last 15 years of his career than most writers get at any time, so yeah, enjoy playing with yr iphone phil, you earned it.

― THAT IS ONE BIG PIZZA (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Sunday, 18 November 2012 16:13 (6 months ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/03/philip-roth-eightieth-birthday-celebration.html?mbid=social_retweet

― your fretless ways (Eazy), Thursday, 21 March 2013 14:28 (2 months ago) Permalink

i think the doc is available here, though it seems 2 say 'technical difficulties when i try to play it just now

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/philip-roth/film-philip-roth-unmasked/2467/

it's v good, as one of the co-directors mentions, it's mostly just roth talking abt his books, etc, which i cld prob listen 2 for 10 hrs tbh

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/philip-roth/film-comment-william-karel-co-writer-co-director/2565/

― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:07 (1 month ago) Permalink

also roth's own reaction to the doc

AM: What did Roth think about the final cut?

WK: When we sent him the finished film, we were anxious to know what his reaction would be. He replied to us with this delightful note:

I just finished watching it through. It’s very sad, really, isn’t it? But it’s well done and you all should be congratulated for your infinite patience and hard work and tact and taste and intelligence. I think it’s a fair and accurate portrait of this guy, and I have no complaints. And Mia is gorgeous, even if she isn’t allowed to tell all of mankind what a sweetheart I am. I thank you, Livia, and William, my shaggy-bearded Mickey Sabbath look-a-like, for doing an honorable and honest job. I gave the last interview of my life to the New York Times yesterday, about my retirement, which should result in a long story in the paper before the week is out, and I made certain to tell them about the program and when it will be aired. The struggle with writing is over. Hallelujah. I’m a free man. Free at last.
–Philip Roth

― johnny crunch, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:07 (1 month ago) Permalink

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.