The Case of the Left Handed Book Blurb?

Just saw a blurb by Philip Roth regarding Robert Stone’s upcoming DEATH OF THE BLACK-HAIRED GIRL. The first thought that popped into my mind was: who the hell is Francois Maruiac? The second thought was: is this a left-handed blurb? Here read it for yourself:

“In his fiction, Robert Stone is immersed no less profoundly in envisioning the drama of human evil in action than was the great French Catholic novelist and Nobel Laureate, Francois Mauriac.

Not only with his brilliant new novel, Death of the Black-Haired Girl but from the early novels such as Dog Soldiers and A Flag at Sunrise down to later books like Damascus Gate and Bay of Souls, he has demonstrated again and again that he is no less a master than Mauriac of the tragic novel–of depicting the fatal inner workings of revenge, hatred, betrayal, and zealotry–and that, like Mauriac, he is the pitiless guardian of a cast of sufferers on whose tribulations he manages to bestow a kind of shattered mercy.”–Philip Roth

Now, this is unquestionably a rave. But who is it really a rave for? For Stone, a well-regarded novelist, or for Maruiac, a forgotten (by me, anyway) laureate? Yes, Roth calls the new book “brilliant,” but I read this and went straight to look up Maruiac on the web. I didn’t give Death of the Black-Haired Girl a second thought until after I’d investigated Maruiac.

Look how the second paragraph would read if you stripped out the mention of the older writer:

Not only with his brilliant new novel, Death of the Black-Haired Girl but from the early novels such as Dog Soldiers and A Flag at Sunrise down to later books like Damascus Gate and Bay of Souls, he has demonstrated again and again that he a master of the tragic novel–of depicting the fatal inner workings of revenge, hatred, betrayal, and zealotry–and that he is the pitiless guardian of a cast of sufferers on whose tribulations he manages to bestow a kind of shattered mercy.

Now that would be a total rave, with all the attention on Stone.

I’m sure Roth likes the new book and Stone. But I think his main objective may have been to revive interest in a personal favorite. On the other hand, he could, and probably is, just saying what he feels about both writers. Roth, in any case, may have stopped writing, but to me he remains as fascinating as ever.