Ask me about the work of Philip Roth

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

Thanks a lot!

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?

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

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

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

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).

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.

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.

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

I'm assuming Roth wrote them from the heart.

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?

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.

"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

Oi! My question first.

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

whats ur opinion of the assfucking scene in the humbling

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.

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

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)

Patrimony is better than many of his novels.

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

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.

I'm sure I have!

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Damn.

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.

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