preface: my two previous exposures to philip roth were 1) conversations with jacob and 2) an "exit ghost" review in the new yorker.
i really, REALLY hated nathan zuckerman (which...will be problematic as i read more PR), so i was glad he introduced the swede narrative and then disappeared. said narrative was really quite good, though roth's language jerked me out of the story a few times (what father remembers his daughter's infant body and thinks the word "cunt"?). does he hate women? he seems to hate women.
i agree that the zuckerman character is...problematic, and i've always been a bit baffled why the zuckerman-related books are roth's most praised. i came to the zuckerman books (e.g., _the ghost writer_, _zuckerman bound_)recently, and was left somewhat cold. _american pastoral_ was the first roth book i read, maybe 8 years ago, and while i remember really enjoying it (and don't really remember the zuckerman character, it's been that long), i don't know if my 29-year-old self would still love it as much.
for my money, if you're still interested in roth, go for the zuckerman-free _operation shylock_ or _the counterlife_.
I was always sure I wouldn't like Roth, 100% sure, so I never tried one of his books. (You could always try Cynthia Ozick or Grace Paley as a complement...) If I had time and resources I would pursue this line of thought I've had for a while about the entrenched separation of genders in post-WWII American fiction -- men writing for men, women writing for women, without a lot of overlap or cross-gender literary friendships, in distinction to possibly any previous period in the history of fiction. (Chapter 1 of dissertation: Playboy Magazine.) But I don't know if it's true, and all questions involving gender tend to break my brain and make me unhappy long before they yield any insight. Still, though: huge midcentury changes in gender roles, growth of middle class, economic prosperity coupled with threat of world ending -- I don't know what the biggest factors are. But I think there's a whole set of male authors from this period who are unpleasant and depressing, in different degrees, for today's women to read, and I've often wondered about it, because you don't get that from, say, Melville. Nor necessarily from Hemingway. But what twentysomething woman could stand to read a ton of John Updike? Yet he and Roth and Mailer and Saul Bellow (slightly different case) were all hugely popular and respected and emulated in the 60s and 70s...
humm, i'd like to get in on this but a) i've only thus far read roth's "Goodbye, Columbus" and b) it's new year's eve and i need to go master "guitar hero," yo. peace out... happy happy to you & the missus!
@jacob: i'm definitely still interested in roth, and will press on; per your suggestion, i'll probably go for shylock next.
@pica: but - shel silverstein wrote for playboy! i agree with you on the larger theory, though i confess that i've personally always shied away from the wanginess i get from both melville and hemingway (i have weird flashpoints, as i've mentioned before). i've never tried updike, though i suspect i would get that from him as well. since i am at the extreme end of the gender sensitivity, at least most of the time, maybe philip roth would bother you less than he bothers me? like i said, i did like the book - have been pushing it on joe, in fact. the men and the pushing!
@sara: unrelated to "guitar hero," mostly, but we have a wii now. borrowed wii.
hey...since some time has passed, what did you think of _american pastoral_?
ReplyDeletepreface: my two previous exposures to philip roth were 1) conversations with jacob and 2) an "exit ghost" review in the new yorker.
ReplyDeletei really, REALLY hated nathan zuckerman (which...will be problematic as i read more PR), so i was glad he introduced the swede narrative and then disappeared. said narrative was really quite good, though roth's language jerked me out of the story a few times (what father remembers his daughter's infant body and thinks the word "cunt"?). does he hate women? he seems to hate women.
i agree that the zuckerman character is...problematic, and i've always been a bit baffled why the zuckerman-related books are roth's most praised. i came to the zuckerman books (e.g., _the ghost writer_, _zuckerman bound_)recently, and was left somewhat cold. _american pastoral_ was the first roth book i read, maybe 8 years ago, and while i remember really enjoying it (and don't really remember the zuckerman character, it's been that long), i don't know if my 29-year-old self would still love it as much.
ReplyDeletefor my money, if you're still interested in roth, go for the zuckerman-free _operation shylock_ or _the counterlife_.
I was always sure I wouldn't like Roth, 100% sure, so I never tried one of his books. (You could always try Cynthia Ozick or Grace Paley as a complement...) If I had time and resources I would pursue this line of thought I've had for a while about the entrenched separation of genders in post-WWII American fiction -- men writing for men, women writing for women, without a lot of overlap or cross-gender literary friendships, in distinction to possibly any previous period in the history of fiction. (Chapter 1 of dissertation: Playboy Magazine.) But I don't know if it's true, and all questions involving gender tend to break my brain and make me unhappy long before they yield any insight. Still, though: huge midcentury changes in gender roles, growth of middle class, economic prosperity coupled with threat of world ending -- I don't know what the biggest factors are. But I think there's a whole set of male authors from this period who are unpleasant and depressing, in different degrees, for today's women to read, and I've often wondered about it, because you don't get that from, say, Melville. Nor necessarily from Hemingway. But what twentysomething woman could stand to read a ton of John Updike? Yet he and Roth and Mailer and Saul Bellow (slightly different case) were all hugely popular and respected and emulated in the 60s and 70s...
ReplyDeletehumm, i'd like to get in on this but a) i've only thus far read roth's "Goodbye, Columbus" and b) it's new year's eve and i need to go master "guitar hero," yo. peace out... happy happy to you & the missus!
ReplyDelete@jacob: i'm definitely still interested in roth, and will press on; per your suggestion, i'll probably go for shylock next.
ReplyDelete@pica: but - shel silverstein wrote for playboy! i agree with you on the larger theory, though i confess that i've personally always shied away from the wanginess i get from both melville and hemingway (i have weird flashpoints, as i've mentioned before). i've never tried updike, though i suspect i would get that from him as well. since i am at the extreme end of the gender sensitivity, at least most of the time, maybe philip roth would bother you less than he bothers me? like i said, i did like the book - have been pushing it on joe, in fact. the men and the pushing!
@sara: unrelated to "guitar hero," mostly, but we have a wii now. borrowed wii.