Philip Roth, Part 3

I managed to read five more books in a far shorter period of time, mainly because unlike last time I didn't have to wait for inter-library loans. Anyhow, I'm 15 books in now: more than halfway there and 4/9 of my way through the Zuckerman saga. It occurred to me that this might have been more interesting if I had devoted a post to each of the books but some of the books aren't really worth that--although, I should add, some of them are worth far more than that. I'll try to keep my comments to a minimum, but hey! If you want to see me talk for a really long time about Philip Roth, come see my symposium project in late April.

Reading Myself and Others: This is Roth's first piece of non-fiction, basically a collection of random things written since Goodbye, Columbus, including several meditations on writing about and receiving criticism from Jews, dissertations on his work and others' (Alan Lelchuk, Kafka, Milan Kundera), a few angry political essays and some memoirs. All of this is pretty iffy and even slighter than I could have possibly imagined: what's more, reading Roth talk about his own work is somehow unbearable, especially considering he already does enough of that in his fiction. He loves comparing himself to Kafka, which I already knew, but I didn't know he would compare himself in such a favorable way. This is not the self-deprecating Roth as I have come to know and understand him. It's like he's writing a college thesis on himself. However, his ending essay on Kafka is probably the best part of the collection and definitely worth buying the book for. In it, he imagines the author surviving tuberculosis and escaping the Nazis only to become an English teacher in New Jersey. I'm not sure what purpose it serves, but maybe it was a way for Roth to foist some sort of happy ending on one of his gloomier heroes. I don't know why anyone would read through this unless they would read everything else by Roth.

The Ghost Writer: And so it begins...kind of. Nathan Zuckerman popped up earlier as the hero of Peter Tarnopol's two short stories in My Life As A Man, but the relationship between that Zuckerman and this one seems to be only tangential, I think. Their parents have different careers, anyway. It's a weird way to start such a saga: Zuckerman, fresh off of his first novel, a great literary success, is invited to stay at the house of his literary hero E.I. Lonoff (Saul Bellow? I don't really know). Lonoff lives in isolation out in the woods somewhere, with only his wife and a young, pretty student to keep him company. The first part of the book is basically a conversation between the two, with Lonoff bemoaning the fact that he has substituted real experience for writing and how he wishes he could have that time back, while Zuckerman lavishes all sorts of praise on Lonoff. They also talk a lot about Henry James and Kafka, of course. Lonoff's wife freaks out at one point due to his passive-aggressive behavior, and then they all go to bed. While lying in bed, there is an arresting chapter (included in Norton's Postmodern Literature anthology) where he imagines that the pretty young woman is the surviving Anne Frank, who changed her name and moved to America to become a writer. It's one of the saddest and most bizarre things Roth has ever written. The whole book is sort of in that tone, however: sad, uncertain, resigned to the limits of true human interaction. It's all arrestingly portrayed, even if you don't get much sense of Zuckerman as a character yet. That comes later.

Zuckerman Unbound: This book takes place 10 years or so after the first one did, with Zuckerman fresh off the success of his book Carnovksy, which describes the masturbatory adventures of a Jewish kid from New Jersey. Sound familiar? Basically, this whole book is Roth trying to come to terms with his newfound fame, and his rationale for why he doesn't enjoy it as much as one would think, given that he is now independently wealthy. The publishing of Carnovksy, despite its success, is the beginning of the end. He loses his second wife, Laura, who views the novel as the final salvo against their marriage; his father has a stroke and dies, his last word being to his son, "Bastard," while his mother tries to fight off anxious reporters wondering about what she thinks being portrayed in such an unflattering light; he is hounded by the press and dates a famous actress on the side; and he receives threatening phone calls from parties unknown, although perhaps they come from a former quiz kid who keeps hounding Zuckerman outside his apartment. In the end he does indeed become "unbound," and I guess what we're supposed to come away with is that, despite whatever happens to him, he doesn't really seem to grow. Hell, he doesn't seem to even write anything anymore.

The Anatomy Lesson: At this point, Zuckerman still hasn't written a novel after Carnovksy, the reason being that he has just recently developed intense back pain that greatly inhibits his ability to sit down at the typewriter and write for any extended period of time. He tries seeking medical help, but there seems to be no physical cause to the pain: his therapist seems to think it's all in his head. Nevertheless, he is trapped by this intense pain, to the point where he can't even dictate his writing to anyone else. Instead, he decides to spend his time doing copious amounts of pain-killing drugs (weed, vodka, cocaine, lots of percodan) and carrying about with four mistresses who cook him food and occasionally have sex with him. Being estranged from his family (his mother dies of a tumor early in the novel), and already being called a has-been, Zuckerman sinks deeper and deeper into a mid-life crisis, eventually deciding to re-enroll into the University of Chicago, this time as a medical student. He reasons that obstetricians, unlike famous authors, don't get criticized for doing their job well. However, as we see, this doesn't help him very much. Amongst Roth's most emotionally taxing works, this is high up there with My Life As A Man. It's also probably my favorite of the trilogy, in that it is his most darkly funny, his most provocative, and his least politically naive book. I especially like the exchange he has with an enemy critic. Let's just say it's not what I expected.

The Prague Orgy: This is a brief novella that was appended to the end of Zuckerman Bound, making it somewhat like the literary equivalent of a new single a band would put on a greatest hits album just so you would buy the thing. It's definitely worth it, however: it's sort of Roth's attempt at The Trial in the way that The Breast was his "The Metamorphosis." It's much better than The Breast, however. Roth turns the previous three novels' arguments on his head. After spending all this time complaining about how American critics attack his book for not being socially conscious enough, Zuckerman travels to Czechoslovakia, where that sort of thing regularly gets people killed. It gives Zuckerman an opportunity to be grateful about something for once in his life. The goal of Zuckerman's trip is to reclaim a bunch of manuscripts written by a Czech author's (Milan Kundera) father, which are being hostage by the author's wife, who he left long ago. The wife, Olga, latches onto Zuckerman and wants him to marry her so she can leave her home, which has devolved into a thuggish police state. There is an orgy, as the title suggests, although surprisingly Zuckerman deigns from participating in it: the message is that in a place where literature, theater and film are so highly regulated, sex is about the only activity one can do, although even that is changing. It's one of Roth's funniest books, in a Kafka sort of way, and the ending is a pitch perfect end to the first trilogy, as well as a perfect lead-in to The Counterlife. My only question: when did Zuckerman's back get better?

Next on my agenda: I demolish the rest of the Zuckerman novels, which will probably take a bit more time. In order, they are The Counterlife, American Pastoral, I Married a Communist, The Human Stain, and finally Exit Ghost, which I just read Barack Obama has been reading recently.

I'm halfway done, and it's only going to get better from here.