Philip Roth at 80

by Jonathan Lethem, Hermione Lee, Alain Finkielkraut

On March 19, 2013, a distinguished group of writers and critics gathered at the Newark Museum’s Billy Johnson Auditorium in Newark, New Jersey, to celebrate the extraordinary career and lasting literary legacy of Philip Roth on the occasion of his 80th birthday. This keepsake volume gathers remarks from the evening’s speakers, a fitting tribute to the only living novelist whose work is collected in the Library of America series. Here you’ll find Jonathan Lethem, hilariously recounting his first consciousness-raising encounter with Roth’s work through the Kafkaesque novel The Breast; Hermione Lee, tracing the Shakespearian themes in Roth’s books, from Portnoy’s Complaint to The Humbling; Alain Finkielkraut, offering a deep reading of Roth’s final novel, Nemesis; Claudia Roth Pierpont, assessing Roth’s portrayal of women in such books as Sabbath’s Theater and The Human Stain; Edna O’Brien, recalling her long friendship with Roth; and the author himself, offering a quintessentially Rothian valediction.

74 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Jonathan Allen Lethem (born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer.

His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller.

In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship

Reviews

[Jeff Zell]

Philip Roth as the distinction of being on of the very few living writers who is collected in the Library of America Series. The Library of America arranged for five writers to speak about the impact of Roth and his work on their lives, personal and professional, on the occasion of Roth's 80th birthday. Each of the writers (Jonathan Lethem, Hermione Lee, Alain Finkielkraut, Claudia Roth Pierpont and Edna O'Brien) has a personal relationship with Roth of some kind or another and has made Roth's work a focus of their own work at some point. They provide an interesting introduction to the themes of Roth's 31 novels. Roth then responds. Most of his response is in the form of reading from a portion of Sabbath's Theatre pages 363-370. Roth lets his work speaks for himself.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is strictly for fans (I'm one) of Philip Roth, and consists of speeches given at a commemorative event in Newark, New Jersey. The speeches have some good insights (especially Claudia Roth Pierpont's (no relation) comments on Philip Roth's female characters), but it's Philip Roth's closing speech that saves this slim book from three stars. You may find much in these speeches meaningless if you haven't already read a bunch of Roth.

[Dallas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and worthy read.

[Vladimir Ghinculov · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume gathers speeches given in Newark on the occasion of Philip Roth's 80th birthday. The orators were Jonathan Lethem, Hermione Lee, Alain Finkielkraut (very insightful), Claudia Roth Pierpont (on Roth's complex female characters), Edna O'Brien and Philip Roth himself (what a treat!). Roth fans will love this little known gem of a book.

[Maryann Zulueta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Add five stars to my review