Ask me about the work of Philip Roth

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.

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

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.

xpost

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).

Wait, really? No way!

Um, more on that in a bit.

xpost

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.

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.

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.

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

and

No fucking idea.

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.)

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.

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

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.

There's been a response:

http://quominus.org/archives/979

http://quominus.org/archives/981

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

???

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

What book's this? Would read.

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

It'd better answer my 2009 question.

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

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.”

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.

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).

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

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..

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

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

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

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

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

lol ismael

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

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

an Autobiography would be nice though!

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

himself?

too bad he already used the title The Dying Animal.

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.

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

everybody, leave Philip Roth ALONE

Leave him alone on his mountain in upstate New York!

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

http://www.historycommons.org/events-images/a589_rumsfeld_approves_memo_2050081722-7306.jpg

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.

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

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/

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

NIXON: Roth is a bad man. He’s a horrible moral leper.

http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/nixon-asked-haldeman-philip-roth

Funny. I'm reading the forced, confused When She Was Good.

can the next thread about gender issues also be titled "ask me about the work of philip roth"

That’s a blurb that would sell books: “‘well written but sickeningly filthy’ — H. R. Haldeman.”

I recently accused a writer of a particularly bad Tablet Mag piece of "masturbating into a piece of liver"

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/books/review/my-life-as-a-writer.html?src=me&ref=general

He comes across as a self important bore in that interview. Still, I definitely agree that measuring a literary work against some prefab ideological framework is not just boring but also isn't "reading" in the highest sense of the word. He makes this argument in a sort of self-serving way and with little awareness or sympathy for the reasons people feel compelled to call out instances where they feel a writer is perpetuating corrosive attitudes though, so fuck him.

i read Indignation recently after seeing the trailer for the movie. I couldn't make heads or tails what the thing was about, so I read it on a plane and enjoyed it quite a bit. Quick read. Saw that there's an American Pastoral movie coming out in October, bit of a longer book, thoughts on that one?