Happy Birthday, Philip Roth (Part 2)

I've been meaning to update this blog regarding my reading of Philip Roth's repertoire in chronological order, but I decided to wait until today because it happens to be his 75th birthday. Three quarters of a decade with Philip Roth, and almost half a decade of writing novels. Who else can claim to have done that, and so well? Anyhow, I promised I'd update this every five books or so. Next on my list were:

The Breast: As Mendelson suggested last time, this is pretty slight, even for a novella of barely 80 pages. It's one of those books that literally begs comparison to other literary works--in this case, we're talking about "The Metamorphosis." In Roth's book, Professor David Alan Kepesh wakes up one day to discover that he has turned into a gigantic breast with 3-inch nipples. Never mind the fact that even imagining this takes a lot of work (how does he even move around, or talk, or do anything at all?), the point is basically that it's about this English professor full of all these fancy conceits who finds himself suddenly prey to a ridiculous situation that is in no way enjoyable, if only because he can't distance himself from it. It's an interesting way to go about the topic, basically acknowledging not only the ridiculousness but also the lack of originality of such a situation. I think Roth's main point in writing this novel, as is often the case, is that he gets a chance to talk about several of his literary heroes at length: not only Kafka, but also Nikolai Gogol, whose short story "The Nose" is often mentioned. I don't think this is a particularly successful or entertaining novella, and it definitely overstays its welcome, even at 80 pages. Still, I guess it's clever, for what it is.

The Professor of Desire: Honestly, I can't even remember this novel very well at this point. It's more of Kepesh--although I guess the part about him becoming a breast is ignored--basically rambling about Kafka while dealing with an evil, pot-smoking ex-wife and a comparatively decent second wife. This is all stuff Roth has dealt with before, although in this case it ends more optimistically than any other book of his I can think of. There's a funny episode where Kepesh dreams about meeting some whore that Kafka had sex with (Kepesh is a Kafka scholar, I guess). There's also some interesting digressions where he has very debased relationships with a couple of Swedish women, and also a part where he imagines writing a course syllabus for a fictional class on "desire." Hence the title. Other than that, there's nothing new to offer.

The Dying Animal: Of all the Kepesh novels, this is probably my favorite, although I am inherently critical of any author, I don't care how good, who brings out the, "I have an incurable disease" card at any point. This book is once again narrated by Kepesh, still an English professor and now known about town as somewhat of a public intellectual and cultural critic. He is also single again. He uses his fame to entice his young students, most of whom are less than a third of his age, into having sex with them (this usually happens after the class is over, of course). The book deals with his relationship with a Latina student, Consuela Castillo, and their relationship, as is always the case with Roth, is debased and filled with a lot of frank sex talk: I think particularly of a graphic scene in which Roth describes the 72-year old professor throat-fucking a 24-year old college senior. This is, as you would guess, pretty strange. Still, this short book gives Roth time to talk at length about the hypocrisies that are inherent in so-called monogamous relationships, and it's hard to disagree.

The Great American Novel: This book is not really appreciated by Roth purists, and I can see why. For one, it isn't about Roth's standard subject matter: it's about baseball. And yet, it's about as close to pure fantasy as Roth ever got. It is the very definition of self-indulgence, as one would expect from any book with a title like The Great American Novel. In fact, I'd have to say in form and tone it's closer to something like the movie Major League than it is to anything else in Roth's repertoire. Narrated by a fictional, legendary sports columnist/Hemingway buddy named Word Smith (yeah, that's about as subtle as this book gets), it describes the rise and fall of the (completely fictional) Patriot League, particularly the Ruppert Mundys, whose team members are all very bizarre and frequently have no limbs. It's this lavish fantasy of cripples, midgets, and foreigners playing baseball set against a backdrop of war and later McCarthyism, the force that ultimately brings down the League and erases it from historical record (Word Smith is supposed to be writing this as the last person who remembers, but no one dares publish his book for fear of being labeled a communist). I know a lot of people don't like this book, but I thought it was hilarious, even if there are very few points where I felt I was really learning much about either baseball or human existence. I would recommend this only for Roth purists, people who like baseball, or people who like that Abbott & Costello "Who's On First" routine. It's at about that level.

My Life As A Man: To date, this is my favorite thing that Roth has written, and it's certainly the most emotionally taxing. The book is structured in a bizarre fashion: it starts off with two short stories supposedly written by Peter Tarnopol, yet another English professor, who lives in New York. After we get those two (admittedly excellently written) stories, we enter into what is supposed to be an "autobiography" written by Tarnopol. Part of the fascination in reading this book is looking at Tarnopol's life and observing what parts he chose to put in his short stories and how he chose to change them (side note: Tarnopol's alter ego is Nathan Zuckerman, the main character of most of Philip Roth's novels for the remainder of his career). It's difficult to say which part of the book I enjoyed the most, as like Portnoy's Complaint, it is not really written in a linear fashion: it's basically grouped according to certain individuals that mattered in Tarnopol's life, including his horrid ex-wife Maureen Tarnopol, one of the most evil creations in the history of literature, his psychiatrist, and his new wife. The book is frighteningly dense and offers no easy answers or solutions. He even includes excerpts from a diary of Maureen's, which I don't really want to give away. It's really just amazing, really thoughtful stuff. Roth's grasp of dialogue has never been better, and for once his descriptions of world events don't seem naive and silly.

So that's it for now. Coming up next is his collection of non-fiction essays, Reading Myself & Others, followed by the beginnings of a long slog through all the Zuckerman books, starting with The Ghost Writer, and then Zuckerman Bound, The Anatomy Lesson, and The Prague Orgy. I'm excited.