Pam Thurschwell on Philip Roth

I stumbled upon this commentary only yesterday.

Bellow's auto-fiction

"In Saul's case, auto-fiction gave rise to weeklong bouts of sleepless anxiety about lawsuits (he made last-minute proof changes, he asked people to sign waivers) — plus family troubles (with father and eldest brother), broken or suspended friendships, the deepening rancour of ex-wives and ex-lovers, and above all the indecipherable disquiet of children. It is morally treacherous ground, and Bellow himself thought the question 'diabolically complex'. Diabolically complex, and — I would've thought — fatally self-shackling. Fiction is freedom? Well, the life-writer seems to be crying out for boundaries and impediments and restraints. Crying out for them — nevertheless inviting them in."

~~ from Inside Story: A Novel by Martin Amis

Philip Roth will never die

For Esquire, Erin Somers wrote about her "Wild Weekend at the Philip Roth Festival."

acquired again

Daniel Ross Goodman added this postscript to his opinion piece that the authorized Philip Roth biography should not be judged by its author or subject, and that readers and scholars ought to have access to the book.

Postscript: On May 17^th, it was announced that Skyhorse Publishing had acquired Philip Roth: The Biography, and that it intends to begin distributing it in paperback, e-book, and audiobook formats on June 15. Informing the press of its decision, Tom Lyons, the president of Skyhorse, stated that “a biography must be judged by the quality of the writing, the importance of the subject matter, and the value of the scholarship,” and that its editors had concluded that [Blake] Bailey’s book met these criteria. “This is obviously an important and comprehensive book about an author The New Yorker called a ‘literary genius,’ said Lyons. “I’m proud to publish it.”

Read more at the paper of moderately capitalist record.

Although I don't plan on reading the Roth biography—frankly, the reviews and hooplah are enough—I'm glad I stuck with Bailey's earlier Charles Jackson biography, a book I came to because I appreciated his even earlier biography of Richard Yates. Of course, it's unlikely that I would have begun the Jackson biography so soon after the news broke, but I was past a hundred pages in and rather than turn off the professional sporting event or toss the Woody Allen dvds, I read on. The book, and Jackson's life, would appeal to anyone interested in alcoholism, AA, fleeting fame, literary obscurity, writers in Hollywood, pre-Stonewall sexual identities, the American 20th century, small town life, Shakespeare's influence on an American writer, and much much more.

The Vying Animal

"The Vying Animal" is another fun take on Philip Roth and his biography.

body snatching

And then Nicole Krauss accused her dear, deceased friend Philip Roth of body snatching, but her words also remind me of my greatness (or I should say, her words remind me of what a pathetic, lost, irredeemable Duffleman I am): 

"The best and bravest writers are savage in their self-cannibalisation, and supply their alter egos with the most difficult versions of themselves, filling them with weakness, loading them with humiliations, highlighting their loserdom, their losses, their lostness."

Philip Roth on Blake Bailey

Enjoy a fun role reversal from the grave; in Harper's Magazine, it's Joshua Cohen on Blake Bailey's new biography of Philip Roth.

caretaker

"The two met in 1999, when Roth called Murdock to chat about fixing up the old stone walls. Murdock had worked for a number of famous people in the area — the actor Sam Waterston, the Muppets puppeteer and actor Frank Oz — but Roth’s call awed him. A lifelong reader, particularly fond of the novelists Larry McMurtry and Elmore Leonard, Murdock had always dreamed of working for a writer. He’d read some of Roth’s books, and disliked all of them except Patrimony, Roth’s 1991 memoir about the death of his father, Herman. Even so, Murdock just couldn’t believe who he was talking to. When he got over the shock and began the work, he found that he and Roth got along just fine. By the end of the summer, Roth asked him to be the property’s caretaker."

Obituary

Philip Roth died famous, rich, and successful by common definition. He wrote an amazingly long list of books which are at least good, and they are always readable. By editing Penguin's Writers from the Other Europe series, he provided a major service to readers in English, and literature more generally, by widening access to Bruno Schulz, Danilo Kis, Tadeusz Borowski, and others from Eastern Europe. Pretty sure the last Philip Roth novel I've read is I Married a Communist, recommended, and the last one I began but didn't finish was The Counterlife. I haven't read any of them the year they were published, and I liked The Human Stain more than American Pastoral. The one with an imagined Anne Frank in it is great, but the title escapes me. I never finished The Great American Novel, but I had a copy as a teenager, purchased from Encore Books in their dollar remainder section, and I remember references to Hemingway as "Hem" in the opening. I believe that Portnoy's Complaint was the first Roth novel I've read, and the memoir Patrimony has always been one of my favorites. For one or two singular books, he's not as great as Pynchon, Barth, Bellow, DeLillo, and, no doubt, a few of his other relative contemporaries, but as of this writing, it seems like his books will last much longer on the shelf of bookstores than these other big names. His novels with historical or cultural themes almost always have a clever angle. I remember reading that Roth said he left academia because professors "weren't serious," and that he stopped dating because it was too time-consuming: "woman need to be entertained." A funny anecdote that I know of is that he requested a biography of Amiri Baraka from its African-American author, and the writer sent it signed, "Take it easy on the brothers." Roth thought that was hilarious, but it also relates to why I don't like American Pastoral. Last, sure anyone can detest being labeled as a "black writer" or "Jewish writer," but it's best to prove it by your pages. Roth could have shown much more often in his writing, and much more clearly, that he understood what it's like to be an American who isn't Jewish after World War II, the time period almost all of his books take place in. He's dead now, and I can't tell you with certainty what happens to him or anyone else at this stage of existence. Which sometimes is considered not existing. I'd be shocked if I made it to 85. Rest in peace.

Philip Roth is dead, but you and I are still alive.

Kerouac, Fante, a few others dropped in without supporting detail

So I'm thirty-five pages from the end of Point Doom, the serial-killer novel I had to step back from, and twenty-six pages from the end of The Dharma Bums, the Kerouac does Zen and backpacking I sought safety in, and I just remembered that the two have also intersected within the text, and this could be another reason Fante drove me back to Kerouac.

Early on the gritty SoCal AA mystery, Fante's protagonist notes:

Jack Kerouac once wrote that "the only people for me are the mad ones. . . who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

That's crap, but thanks, Jack. For the last few years in New York I'd tried to be one of Jack's people. In my spare time I wrote a book of poems and, before he died, I had even worked with my dad, Jimmy Fiorella, and coauthored a couple of screenplays, but eventually I discovered the truth about Kerouac, that crap, and those people: most of them wind up in the bughouse or with a mouthful of broken teeth and a jar of Xanax. Or worse. They wind up OD'd and dead. (13)

Fante has a point about romanticizing alcoholism, drug abuse, unemployment, homelessness, and the rest of gritty reality that sets in when the candles burn down and away, but Kerouac of The Dharma Bums seems much more "chill" than this famous quotation suggests.

At this point, I must confess I took a break from "typing" this blog (et tu, Capote), and returned to the Kerouac, and so I'm now within twenty pages of the end.

Alas, I took two breaks, and now I'm finished the book. For the most part, I liked the mood of the book and the descriptions of nature, and even the wild, all-night party sections were okay although I'd recommend Pynchon's V for that kind of party scene.

Okay, back to Fante and then maybe Norman Rush, Philip Roth, or David Lodge comes next. These slightly higher-brow writers are ones I've also enjoyed reading in 2013, and this summer, I also read and liked very much the afore-dissed Truman Capote's "Children on their Birthdays."

Sorry I meander and weave and provide so little detail.

PS--I finished Fante's Point Doom; the final torture scenes were not nearly as harrowing as I'd anticipated (why I'd moved away from the book a few times toward the end). The ending includes the perfect set up for a sequel, but I hope Dan gets us another memoir or Bruno Dante novel. Chump Change and Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing, Drinking and Surviving remain my favorites.

Everyone Hem for Hump Day

Hump Day here, and I just spent the morning evaluating rough drafts of student writing. I imagine this life is similar to old Hemingway allowing his young son a glass of beer as Hem writes his stories and cultivates his fame in the cafes of Paris. Speaking of which, keep your eyes out for the new, expanded A Moveable Feast, which if I'm not mistaken is due to be published this week.

Christopher Hitchens--quite possibly the journalist satirized in the "Isaac Babel" chapter of Keith Gessen's debut novel, All the Sad, Young Literary Men--has a piece on the new version in the June 2009 issue of Atlantic Monthly: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/hemingway

The photograph of Hemingway as a young man is quite different from the grizzled, macho fellow we might imagine behind his words. I suspect a lot of us visualize Fitzgerald as a bit light in the loafers, but Hemingway allows us to imagine a fellow ready to wrestle bears, run with bulls, limp after the war, and well, Hem it all up you could say... to be honest, the seventy year old Philip Roth depicted on the back of the hardcover of Everyman looks like he could kick this young Hemingway's derriere. That's probably not the literary fame Phil Roth is looking for although I'm not certain he'd turn down the opportunity to get at one of these upstarts like Gessen, Franzen, Auster, Delillo... yikes! Even Delillo is a young one for Roth? Maybe not.

For some fun Philip Roth on Ernest Hemingway, check out the opening of Roth's The Great American Novel. In that Everyman's explicit focus is on the mortality and fear of death, I suppose we could call it commentary on The Old Man and the Sea... or just about every novel Hemingway wrote.

As you were, writer.

Independence Day

Independence Day by Richard Ford is the novel to begin reading now. It is far superior to The Sportswriter although this one is also quite good. You don't have to be a fan of books with funny sales scenes (in this case, real estate) or a fan of baseball hopeful of renewal via vicarious pilgrimmage to Cooperstown, New York. You don't even have to yearn for a great novel of South Jersey although I'm sure that thought is inspiring!

Last night, I glanced at a copy I own of The Lay of the Land, the third in his Frank Bascombe trilogy, but it didn't grab me. I'm finished Pop Apocalypse by Lee Konstantinou (and I do approve of his messages) and searching for another book to begin. So I'm between books and reading beginnings: Philip Roth's Everyman, Albert Camus's The Fall ( a reread after 20 years or so), and William Vollmann's Riding Toward Everywhere.

It looks like the Vollmann is taking the lead because he is writing about hobos and hitching and hauling ass across the West on freight trains. I'm early in the book, and I've learned Vollman has had a series of small strokes in his past, something not at all shocking when one considers his prolific output. I notice he is published by Ecco Press, and if I'm not mistaken I just read a nice, short article on David Halpern, who founded Ecco in the early seventies; the article is in the back of the most recent Poets and Writers. Halpern has had a life worth vicariously living too!

Back to Vollmann, I've always been interested in his writing career and amazing output although I have not read many of his novels. Ice Shirt is the only one I can remember reading cover to cover although I always check them out at the bookstore when I stumble upon another fat, Vollmann book. I've also always been intrigued by Deep Springs College in Deep Springs, California, and I know Vollmann studied there. A little like St. John's but much smaller, the school sounds like one of those very special places.

Anyway, so far, I appreciate Vollmann's honesty and humility in this book. He is 47 and he needs a bucket for a boost to catch a train; to understand their place on the rails, his friend has coined the term "fauxbeaux." Vollmann sounds fragile and humane. He has punched out 1000s of pages of prose and yet we don't here him brag or boast like various politicians or other celebrities. None of those smiling phonies would have the courage or capacity to live like Vollmann, and yet his voice too is but one among billions.

Does anyone hear a freight train in the distance???