Philip Roth... is awesome. discussion
Philip Roth doesn't read fiction anymore
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Sheila
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Aug 03, 2011 07:43AM
I read on the internet yesterday that in a June interview Philip Roth said he no longer read fiction. Can't says I blame him. I am nine years younger than he and the only current novel I have read is State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't up to The Patron Saint of Liars. It was like she was writing to sell. Is that why fiction these days is so bad?
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Try David Mitchell: "Cloud Atlas" or "The One Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet". The latter is as good as most anthing by Roth (except perhaps American Pastoral). Just discovered a new young writer named Simon Van Booy. His book of stories called "Love Begins in Winter" absolutely blew me away. And what about Franzen's "Freedom"?
I looked up Cloud Atlas at Amazon. Yawn -- no thanks! I believe pretensious (if I spelled it right), as one reviewer said, is a proper description. Now I only read two pages, but if the first two pages don't draw me, how am I to think the rest will. He doesn't even come close the Dear Philip. As to Franzen, I've checked him out at Amazon, too. Same reaction, more or less, yawn. I only have a limited amount of reading time in my life and I only waste it on the best fiction. Iris Murdock, Irene Nervinsky (?), Virginia Woolf, Kafka, Achebe and a few others,
My point was that it was a shame to give up reading contemporary fiction because of one book you found disappointing. What makes this book by Patchett less good than others by her you have read? Just curious.Clearly we have different tastes in contemporary fiction, which is just fine. I also enjoy Murdock , Woolf, and Kafka, but I can't help wondering why you didn't give up on Metamorphosis after two pages when you discovered it was about a guy who turned into a cockroach. Pretentious?
And yes, Patchett probably was writing to sell. That's what professional writers do. It's her way of making a living. You seem to be suggesting that the book would have been better if she were writing for some other reason. I wonder what that might be. It's surely what Iris Murdoch and Virginia Woolf did, though I'm not so sure about Kafka.
Metamorphosis is a fable. Of course, he didn't really turn into a cockroach. In fact, I have read it twice in two different translations. The more correct translation, I believe, say he turns into vermin. That put a whole nother twist on it, as my grandma would say. He was a leech; a flea, a rat, a bloodsucking something you can't get rid of. Though he thought he was doing good, he was actually sucking the life out of his family.As to Patchett, of course all good writers hope to earn a living, but they write what they write from their soul, not to SELL. Her Patron Saint of Liars and The Magician's Assistant had a quality, a simpleness that State of Wonder did not.
Sheila wrote: "Metamorphosis is a fable. Of course, he didn't really turn into a cockroach. In fact, I have read it twice in two different translations. The more correct translation, I believe, say he turns in..."Patchett is not a writer I've read yet, though I know she is considered excellent. I'll try to get around to checking out the titles you mentioned to see if I see the difference you detect.
I'm inviting you to be a friend so I'll know how to find you when I've read some Padgett, okay?
And by the way, Cloud Atlas is a fable also, and I think worth more than two pages.
Your comment caused a discussion between my 30 year old son and myself. He's an artist and doesn't read fiction, but he loves words. He didn't know the word pretentious, however, so we looked the precise definition. Pretentious-adj-self-important and affected-acting as though more important that is warranted-intended to seem to have a special quality or significance-forced or overly clever. This is what I thought when I read the two pages of Cloud Atlas, that he was trying too hard to be literary.As to Gregor turning into a bug, my son, Phillip, said is was a metaphor and I said it was an allegory. Well, Mr. Webster says he right. It was a good day, I learned the precise meaning of three words.
I accepted your friend request with pleasure. Have you read Philip Roth?
Sheila wrote: "Your comment caused a discussion between my 30 year old son and myself. He's an artist and doesn't read fiction, but he loves words. He didn't know the word pretentious, however, so we looked the..."Have read quite a bit of Roth. My favorites are A Human Stain and American Pastoral. I also enjoyed very much The Plot Against America, When She Was Good, Portnoy's Complaint (a long, long time ago), and his last three shorter works (forgot their titles). I found Sabbath's Theater repulsive, but enjoyed seeing how far he was willing to go in creating a repulsive character who is still totally understandable and human. How about you?
Incidentally, it seemed to me as I read Franzen's Freedom that he is the direct descendant of Roth--characters very flawed but very human. I know he made you yawn. Not me.
interesting discussion here. I'd say there is nothing metaphorical about Gregor's transformation into a bug in "The Metamorphoses." He literally turns into a bug in the story and the story is handled entirely realistically, with all the implications that follow from that transformation, however bizarre. Interpretations may regard the transformation metaphorically (he has been dehumanized by work, etc.)but there is no hint of the metaphor in the story itself, much to Kafka's credit. Gregor becomes a bug. No fable, no allegory, no symbolism, no metaphor, etc. These are terms that might be relevant to various interpretations of the story but not to the story itself which never presents itself as a literary device of any kind. Also I wonder if the story isn't meant to indicate the the family has sucked the life out of Gregor, rather than the other way around?
Gerald, have you read Indignation? It's one of my favorite. I found Sabbath's Theater repulsive, too. I didn't finish it. I yawn a lot. My mom always said I was lazy, but really I was just born tired. So unless a novel really grips me, I get tired.
Yes, I read Indignation, but for somr reason I have no memory of it.
The college boy was indignant that he had to attend church services at his college once a month for half an hour. It was such a small thing, but he was irate that this rule applied to him. He ended up getting kicked out of school because he would not follow the rule, which in no way harmed him. This made him eligible for the Korean War draft. He died in that war all because he was indignant and refused to do the one little thing which would have kept him alive. I thought about that concept for weeks after I read the book.
Now I remember. Thanks. I enjoy almost everything by Roth. I have a lot of his earlier work to catch up on. Found an autographed copy of "I Married a Communist" at a garage sale for $1! What are your favorite Roth books?
I've been pondering your question, and I've decided I can't chose. When She Was Good was special because it helped me understand my deceased sister and the fact that I did not really understand what was happening until the last page. She of the book, I forget the name now, her life and thoughts parallels my sister's life, so closely so that after I read it I realized that my sister's problems must have been organic. I read once that Philip's wife was the model for the book.
My Life As A Man is another magnificent Roth book, and involves a slightly-fictionalized re-telling of the man's tumultuous marriage to one Margaret Martinson, who was also the basis for The Monkey in Portnoy's Complaint. It's my personal favorite of Roth's novels (though I've only read about half of them). I find it funnier than Portnoy, darker than his four Nemeses, and more savage than anything else I've read by him save Sabbath's Theater (which I have tried, and failed, to read on three separate occasions, though I have reasons different than you might think--the novel has caused me, every time, without fail, to become very depressed whilst reading it, and I am thus forced to give up somewhere around page 250, for the simple sake of my sanity; it remains my favorite novel that I've never fully read). I highly recommend MLAAM to any Roth fan who hasn't read it yet. It's just...it's just terrific. And I think Our Gang is a neglected American comic masterpiece. If Portnoy was a Lenny Bruce performance, then Our Gang was a series of SNL skits, amped up a few degrees in intelligence and wit.
Jesse wrote: "My Life As A Man is another magnificent Roth book..."I could agree more regarding My Life as a Man -- really wonderful, definitely overlooked. But funnier than Portnoy? Come on. Is ANYTHING funnier than Portnoy?
Okay. Maybe--MAYBE--I got a little carried away with my praise for My Life As A Man. Portnoy will always remain Roth's best comic performance. But, man, MLAAM is still just SO GOOD.
