Roth is undeniably a great novelist but like Updike, he is utterly uninterested if not blind to any desire other than male heterosexual passion. And yet the life of anyone living in the world Roth inhabits, educated, liberal, upper middle class, is peopled with men (and women) whose desires are other than heteronormative. It’s why I have always found Roth’s human comedy incomplete and that is an artistic loss for all of us.
10
Yes, sadly the word "heteronormative" also appears not once in the many works of Balzac's Human Comedy.
11
I don't understand why people criticize a novelist for *not* including something in their work. They write what they know, what they can write authentically and brilliantly about--not what they don't have true insight into. Why should a novelist be expected to write about all human experiences, or a particular subset of them? No one understands all minds, all experiences. What you don't find in one author's work, you can find in another.
78
That was very well put, and precisely expresses my thoughts on the subject.
Mr. Roth, if you might read your article's comments, PLEASE look into the fact (as Mark Twain, Freud, Derek Jacobi/John Gielgud/Jeremy Irons/Mark Rylance etc., David McCullough, etc., etc. believe) that Shakespeare was the nom de plume of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. (Thus Greenblatt's book is one long million-dollar-payout-to-the-author lie.) The endless proofs connecting Oxford to Shakespeare are thrilling; to know who/why "Shake-speare" was he, finally to know (vs. the silly paper-thin biography of "the Stratford guy" who spelled his name differently each time he signed, who left no books upon his death), who our bard is/was/is, is really fun and rich. (Oxford's father died when Oxford was about 12 or 13; and his mother remarried soon after. Sound familiar? It's clear to me that the pain/angst he felt over that was the driving emotional Why re. why he wrote Hamlet.) Anyway. Because you are you, I know you would thrill to read about the man, the human being, who was Shakespeare. Ogburn's The Mysterious Shakespeare (for which David McCullough wrote a jacket blurb) and also The Shakespeare Guide to Italy by Richard Roe (which proves the obvious, that Shakespeare had to have visited the Italian cities where he set his Italian plays; something "the Stratford guy" never did, and which Oxford did, quite publicly) would be a solid start. I was a skeptic before I read the Ogburn book; I blindly believed the Stratford/Greenblatt guy was Shakespeare. That book changed me.
1
Can't say I was surprised to read that Mr. Roth is ambivalent bordering on sympathetic to the men caught up in the #metoo movement. Desire is one of many human emotions. We can apply Roth's logic to all emotions. We can, for example, point out that the "intensity" of hate led to one of the worst crimes of all time -- the Holocaust. Is Roth suggesting that we just sigh and say, "I too have had hate in my heart and so I am not "astonished" by Germany's final solution"? If hate that leads to murder is a crime, then why is it when desire leads to sexual assault and/or harassment not also considered a crime? Is this why systematic rape is one of the first weapons to be deployed during war?
I want an answer Mr. Roth. However, I am certain that I won't get one.
88
I didn't at all read "sympathy" into his reply to the question, only that he has described reality. Everyone knows that sex makes (many) men crazy. Acknowledging that biological fact doesn't imply approval of assault and harassment.
120
Yes. He did not really seem to understand that the question concerned women, rather than men. I admire him in a lot of ways, but that is a major blind spot of his. As others have pointed out.
9
May I humbly suggest that there is no reverse "intersectionality" possible between the torments of "tumescent men" (and the abuses of power they lead some of them to perpetrate) and the Nazi ideology (and the devastation it inflicted on tens of millions of humans and even on the shaky identity of homo sapiens)?
6
His way with words as he answers inquiries makes me realize how ignorant I am. But I will read his revised Wikipedia page. To be 85 or any age and to be able to sit and read what a joy. But to have the ability to connect the present with historical similarities that lead him to further exploration must be rare. I certainly hope he has others with whom to share his revelations
12
Wonderful. I wish him well on his journey and thank him for his artistry and wise thoughts.
6
hi Phillip: guess what? I am not one of yr. dead friends! I'm living in a geezer home and just had my 89th birthday.
Glad to know you're well, and getting your reading done! xo Marianne
5
I’ve never read Philip Roth or have particularly cared to. However, his decision to retire from writing makes me think there might be something to him. I know many academics who keep writing books long after they have anything original to say. They die in harness with stylus in hand. For me, writing is strenuous. I keep thinking even during sleep. So at my age, 71, it’s not a good idea. When your time is up it’s up. Even Einstein knew that. He said that the intensity of thought while creating the general theory of relativity was so great that he could no longer engage in it. It was something for younger men. Paul Krugman has said the same thing. There is something to be said for George Bush who, after having a failed presidency, took up water color painting. In some ways this is preferable to Jimmy Carter’s reaction to his failure—to keep on trying. Timing is everything. We all have to sense when it is time to leave things to the next generation. Would someone please whisper that in Hillary Clinton’s ear?
8
Reading Philip Roth is like seeing a Woody Allen movie. It isn't very interesting if you don't have their sexual hangups.
2
To quote Lady Brett Ashley, “What rot!”
9
Mm, I could think of some other reasons you might not find their work interesting. The rest of us, hangups or no, are grateful for their work. Good luck with your benign, hangup-free art.
13
I wish Mr. Roth was still writing. Perhaps he would consider becoming a Times columnist. No on the editorial page has described Trump as succinctly and as well as this :
"...a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac."
29
Reviewing Philip Roth's bibliography, I note that I have read only two of his novels: "Portnoy's Complaint" and "Goodbye Columbus", both of which I found to be fascinating reading. I write this letter to respectfluly challenge Mr. Roth, one of our country's noted creative intellectuals, to explain and explore his statement: "[President] Trump ... is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac." President Trump has competed one full year of a very successful presidency, in my opinion, and has been subjected to the most biased, unfounded and unfair personal attacks I have ever seen. Fraud? Wrong, he has completed or made progress on EVERY campaign promise he made. Black unemployment is now at record lows ever recorded, and more good jobs are heading back to our shores. Evil? Only if you support terrorism or gangsters. Megalomaniac? He donates his full salary back to the government (to the Park Service this quarter). The miners of West Virginia really love President Trump, however, and I would caution you to learn their opinions before you toss out any more vague, unfounded character assassination of our President.
Thank you Mr Roth for your deeply satisfying, superb and timely books. I was especially moved by the thought provoking American Pastoral and The Plot to Kill America.
4
This is beautiful, elegiac, not sure why but it reminds me of a rare good dream I had many years ago in which I was in a setting from a Cezanne painting of southern France. There was music, maybe Faure requiem.
4
I love his books. it was so important to have him explains the joy of greeting each day with pleasure of another day at his age and well this waa a wonderful interview and his opinions not altered And write his opinuona
2
Roth in his mid 80's still has his writing chops. You go man!
3
Having read a handful of his works, I always come back to his Letting Go. Reading it in college was a mindblower about what literature can be. He is a true giant in my opinion. I keep a copy of Letting Go close by when I need to be reminded of his genius.
1
I would love to have Mr. Roth beat the odds and be with America for many more years. I am concerned that he does not do any exercise. Get out and walk.
2
I really wish Phillip Roth would continue writing. Maybe he continues to write and will continue to publish as Zuckerman.
I agree that the American experience is uniquely crazy, but it is the job of the writer to bring sense to nonsense and create meaning. The challenge is to remain clear-headed in the hullabaloo.
Many recent novels attempting to create meaning in the chaos of post-modernity are dreadfully boring. Phillip Roth's were not. He has the unique talent for creating engaging, meaningful art.
2
Recently upon seeing the chess movie "Pawn Sacrifice" (definitely worth viewing) about the Spassky-Fisher rivalry, I Googled the two to see what came after their historic match. Fisher soon retired, probably in early or mid thirties (chess players peak around the same age as mathematicians and football players), but as Internet chess took off, was identified by his style as playing pseudonymously on the Web, his games meticulously studied by grandmasters.
In other words: Mr. Roth, you can have your cake and eat it, both well-earned. You've earned your retirement, but you are completely free, utterly liberated, to explore whole new realms of creativity, perhaps surpassing your earlier works.
Adopt a nom de plume, start writing your next chapters, in which you should have great success. When they turn out to be masterpieces, nothing wrong with claiming them.
3
Mr. McGrath neglected to mention one of Philip Roth's greatest novels, "The Human Stain!" Nevertheless, I must say, our Giant of Letters could write on a paper napkin or simply tweet a message and the mastery of his literary confections rival all of the great minds of the twentieth century in fiction or non-fiction. His flashes of brilliance are irresistible and always enlightening.
7
I've always disliked his work He is a misogynist, it shows through in everything he writes, I always felt profoundly sorry for him.
5
Thank you Philip Roth, for the pleasure of reading your books, for every word you have ever written.
9
It is inspiring to hear from a true American sage, and comforting to know we still have one.
6
What a delicious pleasure and a bit gloomy that he stopped writing because he thought he would fall short of himself and diminish his established reputation, the illusion of immortality.
Is this not the superlative response to the age-old small talk “What have you been reading later?”? An answer to aspire to!
5
As I contemplate Trump America it strikes me that we need Phillip Roth more then ever.
Journalism and the world of political science can’t begin to address the damage being wrought by this president; only a fictionalized gem from a writer of Roth’s skill and imagination could hope to explore the wreckage and, perhaps, to identify shards upon which to rebuild.
Can Roth please coax out one last effort?
4
I've enjoyed every Philip Roth interview I've seen or read including this one
There is a great interview David Remnick did with him at the Connecticut house that you can see online
I still remember Roth talking about the huge controversy after the publication of Portnoy's Complaint, particularly from many in the Jewish community. Roth said he was walking through the Upper West Side one morning when a man across the street saw him and shouted "Leave it alone Portnoy!"
5
A "YIDDISHA COUP" PAR EXCELLENCE! I am in rapture with tears running down my cheeks,reading this deadly honest revelation of one of the most creative, courageous, brilliant, male minds who ever put pen to paper, brush to canvas, chisel to marble, hand to clay_on par with Leonardo, Picasso, Rodin, and Shakespeare.In this delicious peek into his brain,he illuminates for us a perfectly wonderful snapshot of all the hot issues currently rattling the planet.As an 85 year old woman, who also wakes up each day delighted to still be alive, I read this with a female point of view_ opposite in sexual feelings and thoughts (but equal in intensity, desire, and a need for raw honesty); and high five to Roth's thoughts on current politics. If he doesn't finally get the Nobel for literature, we should boycott it!
41
Much like this interview as I do most of Roth's work. especially that pertaining to male desire and our wounded narcissism when we don't get our way with women as we used to with our mothers! HA!
7
Two things which are related struck me in this interview. 1. an interview to have real value has to be face to face and the answers must come fast, w. spontaneity, without much thinking. the interviewer must also be able to see the message in the interviewee's eyes, his body language. So by not doing that Roth is protecting himself. Also the language must be simple, not elaborate. This shows ego, which is bad, artificial. 2. why did he stop writing? he says because he had the impression that his best work is behind him. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. There is no way to know, unless one continues writing. That also shows an ego problem. I speculate that, the combination of 1. and 2. is why he was not given the Nobel.
10
You sound as if you simply don’t like Mr. Roth, for whatever reason. If he had done the interview in person and simplified his language I bet you would have found reasons to dislike that also.
2
And who are you, oh wise one, and what are your accomplishments, to judge Philip Roth and his interviewer so harshly? I enjoyed the written interview very much and also the accompanying amazing pictures of Philip Roth. No self-protection there, and he's honest and engaging is his responses.
7
@Dr Z. People, of a certain age, have every right to retire. Without apology. Also, the "big guns" in any field, including the arts, tend to have a larger than average ego. Not all bad I should think.
as joyce was to Dublin- roth is to newark- and america! warts and all...
11
Dear Dirty Newark, oh city of my birth!
How strange this apology for Lindbergh--who as a hero was therefore more of a fraud than Trump who as the crass and vulgar businessman familiar to America is as advertised. Lindbergh--a eugenicist, a Nazi sympathizer, a pathological bigamist--was not known in his time for the vile person he truly was. Roth is overly impressed with athletic aviation and with midwestern-style handsomeness (see the Swede in American Pastoral). Nonetheless, it's always good to hear his voice on the page.
18
I think what you say about "overly impressed" is true. But I think the point he is making (responding to the question posed) is how much more bizarre it is that the American people would choose the patently offensive man, whose only claims to fame were wealth and TV fame, rather than the man with some true heroics to him.
7
Did you read the Plot Against America. If you haven't and it appears you haven't you don't know what you are talking about.
3
Stalling’s translation of Lucretius is in verse. Does Mr. Roth mean that of M.F. Smith, which is in prose?
Firstly and perhaps fawningly as some comments have put it I have always thought they Mr Roth deserves the prize for his deeply thought provoking novels that have tackled with great success and with his unique style the fundamental issues of our time . The Human Stain for instance is one of the truly great works on identity and unresolved race relations in our society ( to put it mildly ) that gave us Trump directly after Obama . Unfortunately almost half of his work concentrate on the erotic and consequently in the past this was thought to demean his work and deny him accolades that he should of achieved : the # me too movement has shown this theory baseless and that once again Mr. Roth was simply just way ahead of his time .
11
Your salient points are spot on!
1
So many commenters criticize Roth for, to use the old writer's saw, "writing what he knows." And what he knows, as a male, mean that he has not "shunned the hard facts in these fictions of why and how and when tumescent men do what they do."
I've never read Roth as making excuses for such behavior, only describing it — rather accurately, I might add.
It in no way minimizes the incumbency upon men to overcome the undeniable pressure of testosterone-fueled tumescence to acknowledge that pressure. A jerk is a jerk and a rapist is a rapist.
But I strongly urge readers to check out the remarkable interview with Griffin Hansbury, a female-to-male trans man who learned, first-hand, the surprising potency of testosterone. You can find it here: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/220/testosterone
5
thank you for this interview. I wish Roth could win the game and live forever. I will happily settle for whatever we get.
15
Literacy is its own reward. We despair our nation's failings and with good reasons, but in the end we endure and so do our artists. One can pick and choose, that's our prerogative. I have Bill Evans. You may have Saul Bellow. Roth endures, and that's enough.
6
I find almost all works of writers like Roth to be either boring or unreadable. I think they show off technical skills too much and choose too arcane theses. And I find the idea that fiction has "meaning" laughable.
But the word is a better place for their existence. We need such people. And once in a while I find a "high literary" book interesting.
Each to his own taste. I find equivalent creations in modern (classical) music and art absolutely enthralling. I think that is because while they may be, in their creator's verbal minds not to my taste, they have a life outside words.
2
Roth certainly does expose the less positive side of the male of the species, and to be fair that kind of exposure can be eye-opening for women. It's not the job of the novelist to sugar-coat anything. That said, and while I have greatly enjoyed some of his books, I find his obsessions tiresome. At his worst he is the literary-fiction equivalent of Woody Allen. And please, let's stop imagining that just because he's a very good and very popular writer, he shoudl get the Nobel Prize. That just shows provincialism. How many writers in other languages are we really familiar with?
18
You're right about the Nobel Prize . . . he's no Bob Dylan. Please.
1
From Mexico, thank you NYT, thank you, mr Roth, intelligence is not dead in the U.S. - this, too, shall pass.
30
How true the comparison between Lindbergh and trump, especially the brief but brilliant precis of our president: "Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac."
I might add The Plot Against America is one of the best and, sadly, most socially relevant novels I've read in many years (I read it for the first time about a year ago). Best of luck, Mr. Roth, with its adaptation.
15
I suggest supplementing the reading of this book with the late Ron Silver's excellent audiobook reading.
2
Ironic that you reference Ron Silver here. He came to understand the threat of the Left to Free Speech and also to Israel's existence. Mr. Roth, brilliant as he is, apparently cares about neither and has succunbed to Trump Derangement Syndrome.
"Goodbye, Columbus" is one of the greatest short stores ever written. He captured the characters perfectly!
9
"The Defender of the Faith," which appears in the same collection, is prescient in its argument against violence perpetrated on behalf of religion. One of my her favorite stories.
4
Fascinating interview. But there was nothing about Roth's personal life and relationships in his mid-80s or his feelings about women during this age of MeToo. This seemed a strange omission, since Roth was involved with Mia Farrow, whose son broke an investigative story on Harvey Weinstein's assaults on women in The New Yorker, following an expose in The Times. And he was married to the actress Claire Bloom. I'm assuming Roth put restraints on the questions that Mr. McGrath asked.
11
He doesn't want to be provocative anymore. He's just too old for it now.
Boy did Mr. Roth, one of the all-time greats, dodge a tough question on the Me2/TimesUp movement. (My guess is he's playing it safe after Claire Bloom controversy. His ego--like his talent--is substantial.
Anyway, his PC evocation of Mr. Coates now forces me to read the author (along with some others he cites). And to also check out FilmStruck again.
5
I don't see the reason for your cynicism.
5
I could not read more than a few of his works. I found them profoundly boring, like gazing into the navels of adolescent men forever fixated on their own sex organs, completely tone deaf as to the nature of women.
21
Yes, a lot of men and women are fascinated with their own sex organs, failing to understand each other...
To think America can contain both Roth and Trump.
10
As a graduate of Weequahic H.S. Newark, NJ, an avid reader of Mr. Roth for many years, I salute him for all his hard work. Thank you, Mr. Roth. I hope you reach 100 with all your marbles.
28
"Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac."
As good a description of our "president" as I have read in this newspaper.
70
Also good was this one from Carolyn Casey of Coyote Network News: “Trump is possessed by a cunning demonic retro-virus."
8
With this interview (which I thoroughly enjoyed reading) it is apparent that Roth still maintains his beautiful writing abilities. (How smart that HE recommended the E-mail exchange). I can only hope he will spin his remarks into some more of his thoughtful writings for our VERY worthwhile reading enjoyment(s).
13
From reading these honest, intelligent, heated, and fawning comments, it strikes me that, uh, people are different: Men don't understand women and vice-versa; in fact, to get right down to it, we don't even understand ourselves, do we? I'm constantly discovering yet more embarrassing things about myself; the inventory seems bottomless and is psychologically nauseating.
When young, though, I successfully repressed these personal facts. Ignorance is indeed bliss. Roth's novels shocked and dismayed me: Why is he dredging up that disgusting pile of our darkest secrets? Who needs or wants to hear that? Why not write of heroism, purity, and happiness in a just and noble setting? I guess it was the nascent Platonism in me: If it ain't nice or uplifting, avoid it. Throw it out. Never discuss it again. In the words of another Jew: "whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report ... think on these things." [abridged with Author's permission. Well, He didn't lightning-bolt my word-processor anyway.]
I never had a werewolf inside me urging me to attack women on moonlit nights in foggy forests. So I lack empathy for those that do. Roth is telling me that my personality is not the only possibility: Some men just can't stop thinking about the unsurpassable pleasures of sex.
Okay, Philip, people are different: You dragged me kicking and screaming into that painful realization. I still don't like it, though. Can't we all just be nice and happy? Roth says no.
25
was just thinking of Roth the other day, curiously. My first contact with him was in 1964 when a teacher read a story of his, not collected, sadly, as far as I know, called, Beyond The Last Rope. Perfect for a senstive 18 year old to hear. I've since read all his published work.
Roth put a lot on the table for America to look at, for Jews to look at, for men and women to look at, for writers to look at, and, of course, for all of his readers to look at as well. Any one of these accomplishments would be something to feel good about when reflecting on one's life. Put them all together they spell Roth.
Not bad, Phillip Roth. For a boy from Jersey, you done good.
26
I'm pretty sure Philip Roth's "still got it". What a read!
13
What are we to make of this NYT article ( September 17, 1996) concerning Claire Bloom’s thoughts on her husband from her memoir:
“In the book, Ms. Bloom describes Mr. Roth, who achieved early fame for ''Portnoy's Complaint'' and won the National Book Award last year for ''Sabbath's Theater,'' as a man filled with ''a deep and irrepressible rage'' toward women. Ms. Bloom says Mr. Roth forced her 18-year-old daughter by a previous marriage to move out of the house because he regarded the girl as a rival for her attention and because the girl's conversation ''bored'' him.
“Ms. Bloom contends that she nursed Mr. Roth through his period of highest literary attainment in the late 1970's and mid-80's, when he wrote such works as his trilogy, ''Zuckerman Bound,'' and ''The Counterlife,'' in which he named two characters ''Philip.'' But when she and Mr. Roth separated, sometime in late 1993 and early 1994, said Ms. Bloom, he sent her a bill fining her $62 billion -- a billion dollars for every year of her life -- because she refused to honor a prenuptial agreement. The agreement, she said, stipulated that Mr. Roth could terminate their marriage with no further responsibility to her and that their apartment and other possessions would revert to him.”
6
Suggest you read the novel that some suppose to be Roth's reply to Bloom called "I Married a Communist."
3
In 1996 Ms. Bloom could suggest that she nursed Philip Roth ".. his period of highest literary attainment in the late 1970's and mid-80's." However, I suspect few, including Ms. Bloom, predicted the excellence of the last 15+ years of his active writing career.
There was a time went I thought Roth's writing could only be fully appreciated by Jewish people raised in the mid-20th century New York metro area. A book club I belonged to read "Nemesis." One of the participants was a polio survivor. He said that Roth's description of a ward populated by young children in iron lungs spoke directly to him.
4
Nice to see the endangered species of a male actually supporting females. Why are so many millions of American men so spineless?
7
I tip my hat to Roth who woke up one day and said I'm done. He earned the rest. He could have gone on writing, and it might have gotten worse. Bellow's last book stunk up the bookshelves. And as for the couple of "pretentious" sentences in this interview, as noted by some other commenter, no big deal. Roth was giving an interview, not writing literature. Lie in your hammock with a good book, sir. Total respect.
10
Yep, that's Trump!
Watch out for those tweets, Mr. Roth! (And don't be insulted when Trump says, "Philip who?" Your books are a few levels above Trump's reading level.)
9
Trump says he doesn't read books, so it's not a question of Trump's reading level (he apparently doesn't have one). Trump does watch a lot of TV, so he might catch some movie versions.
1
Initially, I was stunned that Roth would request, and that McGrath would agree to, an "interview" via email.
As it turns out, Roth still enjoys writing and does it well and seemed to welcome an opportunity to respond to questions about purpose in life in "retirement." Only now, he works in non-fiction.
And, oh, what a readling list!
12
I love the wisdoms shared in this brief interview. He’s a jewel on a sunny beach.
12
If Mr. Roth thinks that he has lost any of his verbal energy and talent, he is badly mistaken!:-)
11
Obviously, Phillip Roth can still write masterfully. We all play the same game with life, smiling each morning (if we're fortunate), counting on luck, and knowing it can all stop on a dime. But only Mr. Roth and few others could write it that way.
10
Roth’s remarks on ageing and death—the ultimate fate of us all--brings to mind a haunting thought, both humorous and touching, from his novel, The Anatomy Lesson. “His little mother, five feet two, had disappeared into the enormity of death. Probably the biggest thing she’d ever entered before was L. Bamberger’s department store on Market Street in Newark.”
19
Tom Cuddihy, what a wonderful line from Mr. Roth to start the day, enough to inspire this avid reader to purchase one of his novels; far different from some extraordinary literature culled at boarding-school in France, under the wise invisible tutelage of the nuns.
3
I love that excerpt, and I remember well Bamberger's in Newark. I have to say that back in old days, it did seem to be absolutely enormous. "Bam's Basement" had famous sales when I was around there in the sixties.
I think Roth returns occasionally to Newark, but I'm not sure how often he is there. I recall reading about a Roth celebration of his eightieth birthday at the Newark library with a bus tour of Roth landmarks.
I don't know if he ever spent any time at all in Branch Brook Park in North Newark (Forest Hill). It is not near his neighborhood at all, but while his luck is holding out, I would recommend to him that he come back to Newark in April to take a walk and see the Cherry Blossom festival there at the park. The initial 2000 cherry trees in the collection were donated by Caroline Bamberger Fuld, and Newark now claims to have more cherry trees than DC.
Most of the cherry trees are on the northern side of the park and in the area that runs into Belleville. The cherry trees in bloom are just beautiful, but one has to check the timing carefully to arrive just when they are in bloom. The festival itself is fun but awfully crowded... but, for a couple weeks in April, the park and tree collection is just a very lovely sight to see.
1
His words seem terribly belittling of the "little mother."
mr roth's reading habit is worth attention, the connections that send him here and there define "curriuculum" in the best sense...those who have had teachers who contributed to the development of those habits of mind that encourage and appreciated such journeys, are indeed fortunate, especially as age suggests alternatives to the intense pursuit of talents and the practice of disciplines that require youthful capacities.
7
I grew up on the same quiet country road in CT where Mr. Roth has his country home and did not come to appreciate his writings until quite recently, I’m ashamed to admit. He truly is the greatest American novelist of our time and it is astounding to me that the Nobel committee has continually failed to recognize this.
11
Rereading , rereading, rereading . It's all good but I want new, new Roth. I can not have that so I must say Thank you and reread another yet again.
6
Don't believe Roth on his continuing retirement for a second. He's just being steering the public award from premature word of his novel in progress on Trump.
I would relish Roth's novel about Trump, but I don't think he'll do that.
5
Alex, we should be so lucky!
2
Thank you for this wonderful and insightful article about this very significant American author who shared so much of himself. As a teenage boy in the Sixties, I cut my literary teeth on Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy's Complaint. It was a very different time for teenage boys 50-60 years ago and I am dismayed by the preachy political broadsides abusively hurled by some of the comments. Roth was the son of immigrants, a Jew in Newark growing up in an Anti-Semitic time and most assuredly not "upper-middle class". No big house, no Cadillac, no vacations in the Hamptons. And to those who judge him harshly, people of all genders have impulses and sadly, some cannot manage them well. He chose to write about that internal struggle. When I discovered Erica Jong in the 1970s, I immediately thought that Fear of Flying was the female version of a Philip Roth Novel.
6
Thanks creating an enjoyable piece - on the surface and in it's depths.
The decision to share what you are reading and how it unfolds is appreciated. I will start with "Personal Impressions".
To reciprocate, I offer:
Murray Stein's collection, "Jung on Evil". Since Jung never wrote specifically on evil, he collected excerpts from essays and letters, even to Freud.
That led me to read social science:
Dr. C Dweck's "Mindset". Apparently her students talked her into writing the piece and it's rippling through schools.
Next came M Wheatley's, "Leadership and the New Science". Her work moved me towards two other books by a positively provocative, recently passed fella, Dr. D Hawkins, "Power vs. Force" and "Transcending the Levels of Consciousness".
I might tackle Heidegger's "Being and Time", agin, in honor of all the thrown-ness that's about as history repeats itself so gloriously and ridiculously, and I'm not sure what makes me wait to reread Sun Tzu's "Art of War" again. I guess because I am not in politics or influential.
Humanity fascinates me, the spectrum of affect, from callous to caring, paranoid to anxious, sensation seeking to sensation avoiding, short sighted to big picture sighted, It's a product of biology and experience, so I might reread Fallon's "The Psychopath Inside", to explore the biology. I'd rather not relive the experience, but it isn't really my choice, is it?
Humble suggestion to Mr. Roth: Consider reading Stephen Harrod Buhner. My favorite is Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.
I make this suggestion because Buhner's work has opened up whole new vistas for me and I'd love nothing more than to share the pleasures of those vistas.
1
Delighted to come across this. What a treat, to read what he is doing and thinking now. He's just indispensable. I am sorry he is done writing, but of course, he's entitled to enjoy his retirement. Thank you NYT and thank you Philip Roth!
10
I am a former reader of this former novelist, having begun oh so many years ago with Goodbye Columbus ("Mr. Go-again," Brenda's diaphragm, and so on)...this novel "interview" alone was well-worth my subscription.
19
Not on the history reading list, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family is a 2008 book by Annette Gordon-Reed?
1
My favorite novelist, I am grateful to live in the same day as Mr.Roth. Beautiful, exquisitely written sentences in American Pastoral made me gasp out loud. His tribute to his father in Patrimony still have an effect on me.
I miss him terribly, and I would give anything for another book. But while he has certainly earned his freedom, we are poorer for it.
19
Excellent description of Roth's reading habits here--this made me want to read more Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin.
Fellow feminists: Try "Nemesis." I thought this was a beautiful book.
10
but why limit it to 'fellow feminists'? label, disposition, orientation comes before truth? come on. Akhmatova and Berlin would not approve either.
1
Some nuance got lost here. I addressed it to feminists who dismiss Roth's work in its totality because he doesn't give them the portrayals they want. I thought "Nemesis" might help them rethink their position. I happen to enjoy his books, yet I don't see any contradiction or need to reconcile being a feminist with his portrayals of men. That's all.
My view is let writers write whatever they want--
9
I first was introduced to Roth when I was lying in a military hospital in the late 60's. The book cart carried a number of dishelved looking books and magazines and I grabbed the first book off the top of the heap: "Call It Sleep" by Mr. Roth.
A wonderfully written fictional novel of a young Jewish boy coming of age in the early days of the immigrant invasion of New York. Admittedly I tucked that book in my personal belongings when I was shipped back stateside. I have it to this day.
10
Philip Roth (born in 1933 in the US) did not write Call It Sleep. That was written by Henry Roth, who was born in 1906 in Galicia and came to the US as a child.
15
Yes, a magnificent novel, but alas, Call It Sleep was written by Henry Roth.
4
Ooooh! Check the first name of the author of "Call It Sleep."
More than one Roth doth write.
Life is embarrassing, as one of Philip Roth's characters once astutely said. None of Henry Roth's characters ever said that, as well as I can remember.
2
PR is entertaining and profound. That " Goodbye Columbus" book and film starring Peter Benjamin and Jack Klugman and the book and movie " Portnoy's Complaint" are priceless fun and serious reality portrayals. I subsequently did skim American Pastoral and I married a communist, and hereby apologize for Maladapting to android torture .
2
Richard Benjamin, Henry Roth, anyone else we've missed?
1
My first exposure to Philip Roth was back in my junior year of high school when a classmate have me a copy of Portnoy's Complaint. It was a combination of subversive, pornographic, and hysterically funny.
There are scenes from that book that still make me laugh out loud when I conjure them in my mind. There are others that still make me cringe because reading that book as a 16 year old, so much of it seemed to be about me.
5
"gave" me a copy, not "have" me a copy...
Terrific. Give Roth a venue and he's off and running, thank goodness.
I want to go with the maestro's characterization of Trump as a figure from commedia dell’arte; but I find that my view of Trump is not nearly as humorously benevolent. I'm stuck with a Trump who is a dangerous amalgam of Richard Nixon and Richard III.
12
Mr Roth’s “...many dear dead friends” brought to mind St Exupéry’s “mes véritables amis morts,”—all the young pilots he had known lost in the early years of his and their mail route flying and in WWI. I was so young when I lost young friends and loved ones of my own and St Exupery’s kind compassionate words gave me permission to remain friends with them instead of following the then popular, the sooner-the-better route of “closure.” I love that Mr Roth treasures his “many dead friends”. We have alive friends and we have dead friends. Thinking of how one particular dead friend would so love this interview with Mr Roth, whose writing he adored, brings him back for just a second. And that is a marvel.
33
Lovely comment.
9
"The Plot Against America" was one of the first things I thought of when Trump was elected. Prescient indeed.
18
No, Trump is pro-Israel ( probably the only element in his favor). In this, he is turning the tide, gradually back into a more of a positive view of Israel. It was under Obama that I thought of the brilliance of Roth's "The Plot Against America" (and re-read it ), because, even though I am a life long Democrat and voted for Obama, twice. I railed against his anti-Israel tactics. In his second term, he was instrumental in turning the rest of the world, frighteningly, against Israel, the only democratic country in a sea of Muslim theocracies. In the process, he instigated and encouraged the rise in world-wide anti-Semitism. Hopefully, there will be a reckoning, now.
Too bad---re recent extraordinary revelations of gross sexual abuse by prominent men....this is the best this admired author can say?
“Men responsive to the insistent call of sexual pleasure, beset by shameful desires and the undauntedness of obsessive lusts, beguiled even by the lure of the taboo…”
Too bad with all his 'insight' into human nature, this admired author focuses on the physical, as if these men can’t control themselves. How banal.
Roth the great novelist might look beyond the physical component, and analyze the urge to dominate, control, and show superiority. And that might hide a feeling of inadequacy. Sounds like Trump, doesn't it? Defy taboos to demonstrate he’s not subject to society’s rules.
C'mon Roth, give it another try.
Btw, it was later revealed that the great hero Lindburgh was also an arrogant user of women. While married, he conducted long term affairs with a few German women at the same time, and fathered several children by them.
“Undauntedness of obsessive lusts”? Nice phrase. Not much insight.
26
Yes, narcissistic "urge to dominate, control & show superiority" is a decisive aspect of the sexual aggressions now being publicized, overlooked (at least in this interview) by Mr. Roth.
Unfortunately, this very omission amid weirdly turgid ways of saying "persistent lust," may speak volumes on the subject. In PR's novels, sexual power, prowess, adequacy/equipment are frequently connected to (or juxtaposed with), directly or indirectly, intellectual power, prowess, adequacy/equipment. (This may be connected to a Jewish obsession w/academic achievement, which culturally has made demonstrated brainpower the sine qua non of reproductive access/success, from Talmudic yeshiva (even today) to the traditional Jewish (esp. Jewish mother) report card fixation (dare I say "cathexis"), that sees life, esp. among males, as a perpetual brain contest (seriously, consider Talmudic debate in orthodox culture).
Other cultures compare sports cars, or wives' physiques/ages (Trump) for markers & assertions of males alpha-ness (& proxies for equipment size), in Jewish culture, typically academic achievement &/or that parlayed into financial prosperity, w/ these obviously sexually/reproductively rewarded.
In Jewish artistic and literary lives, the hyper-bourgeois ethos is rebelled against by channeling the impulses into cultural creativity (often incl. linguistic "urge to dominate, control & show superiority", competitively). Good, but slightly turgid prose, but perhaps fading self-awareness.
2
In other words, a major thrust of Jewish masculine ideals is proving one's smarts through mental contests, above all through school achievement (Norman Podhoretz recently celebrated his academic prowess & participation in Brooklyn street kid gangs in the same sentence, perhaps grounding his claim about neoconservatism "It is, at its best, exuberantly polemical and combative"; in "Indignation," Roth uses the same word describing gentile professors as "not as combative as the Jewish professors"). (Hence, enormous gravitation to law, medicine, and aforementioned Talmudic debate, the phenomenon of "my son the doctor.)
The occassional danger is whether such a cultural faith in competitive intellectual display is misplaced or exaggerated, whether mere cleverness (or sometimes even cunning) is substituted for intellect (I suspect the former may sometimes be handier in the courtroom or some school achievement). When showing cleverness is the aim, does truth always win? No.
Philip Roth is a great writer, but his writing shows a "male competitiveness" biased to deflect away from the critique Meredith calls for.
4
Speaking of neoconservatism, just consider the University of Chicago economics 'rational choice theory"/"human capital" movement. Its whole mission was to dazzle the world (esp. Nobel committees) by hyper-mathematization of its delusional premise that money is everything (or nearly everything) & drives the universe, that greed is virtue. The more abstruse the math (regardless of predictive or explanatory efficacy), the more 'impressive,' & admired, the more (ersatz) "nobel" prizes, & the more credence attached to hard-won degrees & grades that would open up banking sector jobs. That's to say, until Richard Thaler asserted from within their own club what opponents asserted all along - that it was hokum, just mathematically complex hokum agreeing with/validating mainstream cynicism -- to get his 'Nobel.' (Robert Fogel deserved his prize for showing that money is not in fact everything, and must be subordinate to higher priorities, a point Becker and Friedman would not, and could not, have acknowledged).
When cleverness is indifferent to truth, it becomes deviousness & cunning; folly, corruption & devastation are multiplied.
1
I vehemently disagree with Roth: he does still have it.
12
American Pastoral broke my heart...what an incredible book. It also made me love Newark, and made me forever an admirer of Philip Roth, the work and the man.
5
I am still laughing.
When a woman explains her discomfort with Roth's depiction of female characters, a man writes to explain why she is mostly wrong.
I am not a misandrist; I remain a happy wife of decades and the mother of two fine men. It's just frustrating that such a great novelist's portrayal of women is so disheartening.
27
How interesting that Mr. Roth reads little fiction anymore.
I have always found well written non-fiction to
be far more realistic about life than fiction.
4
From Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris":
(aspiring author) Gil: Would you read it?
Ernest Hemingway: Your novel?
Gil: Yeah, it's about 400 pages long, and I'm just looking for an opinion.
Ernest Hemingway: My opinion is I hate it.
Gil: Well you haven't even read it yet.
Ernest Hemingway: If it's bad, I'll hate it because I hate bad writing, and if it's good, I'll be envious and hate it all the more. You don't want the opinion of another writer.
See: "Anxiety of Influence," by Harold Bloom: Writers can be very competitive, with frail psyches. I don't know that this dynamic explains Mr. Roth's aversion to reading fiction, but could well be a factor. He is advised to reread Telemachus's (oedipal conflict resolving) reunion- reconciliation with Odysseus, when they slaughter (with bows and arrows, no less; you can't beat that!) the suitors!
Mr. Roth: you are officially a great writer, so relax. (Yes, I know: "Why didn't he capitalize g & w" you're thinking.)
See: Harold Bloom, "The Anxiety of Influence" on writers' competiveness, and oedipal issues, then read Telemachus's' Oedipus conflict resolving reunion/reconciliation with master yarn-weaver Odysseus (slaying the suitors with bows and arrows, no less!).
Relax, Mr. Roth: You're officially a "great writer." Posterity will decide whether to capitalize or not.
1
I'm a fan, but my God, can he be pretentious. "I am, as you indicate, no stranger as a novelist to the erotic furies." How can any human being not be embarrassed to write a sentence like that?
28
Because he's earned the right to say those words.
14
It's not pretentiousness, it's just the truth.
7
What a marvelous, articulate and thoughtful man is Mr. Roth. Thank you for this interview.
7
Thinking back to Roth's analysis of "W" as a man unqualified to run a hardware store, I've wondered what he would say about the present occupant of the oval office. Thank you for sharing his pithy thoughts.
6
We play football,
We play soccer,
We keep matzo
In our locker.
9
“He agreed to be interviewed but only if it could be done via email. He needed to take some time, he said, and think about what he wanted to say.”
A thoughtful man who prefers to reflect before commenting. I’m guessing Roth doesn’t have a Twitter handle.
51
Words. Ahhh. It's hard to believe that Roth and Trump are from the same species, and I only wonder what Vonnegut and Clemens would say about it.
42
Please encourage all your colleagues, Mr McGrath, to interview EVERYONE, via email - especially people like Roth, who's responses result in even more fabulous prose - and make you look like America's best interviewer (by accident?).
I am asking a calligrapher-pal of mine to make me a framed birthday present of Roth's description of our current POTUS.
47
We live in idiotic times, but then, as Americans, we always have. Roth, along with Saul Bellow, John Updike, Bernard Malamud, John Cheever, William Gaddis, Richard Yates, and a handful of others, compiled a rich chronicle of an America now dead and gone.
Their post-war America was by no means a perfect place (by no means!), but at least one in which it was possible to imagine a better time, and, in any case, the world they wrote about was beautifully imagined. Now, our literature, like our politics, is mostly cynical, ironic, and glib. Impossible to imagine any longer the great passion and artistry of Herzog or American Pastoral--that kind of commitment to craft and belief in the power of ideas is as antiquated as letter writing or conversation.
I anxiously await Bailey's biography (he wrote wonderfully of John Cheever) and Roth's long overdue Nobel Prize.
Thanks for this melancholy reminiscence.
75
Wonderfully said, George.
Really? Would this have applied to black people, this better time in the past?
2
At my fictional dinner part? Howard Fast, Joseph Heller, Chaim Potok, and of course Philip Roth. I was born in Newark. Went to school in Newark. I love his descriptions and his characterizations of Newark.
10
Thank you Charles McGrath for this wonderful, rich conversation with Phillip Roth. Thank you Mr Roth for your candor about your old age, and what you are making of it. Your recent 'book list' , and the route via which it came together for you, is an inspiration. And your description, Sir, of the erotic furies, is exactly right.
15
'No one could have imagined that the 21st-century catastrophe to befall the U.S.A., the most debasing of disasters, would appear not, say, in the terrifying guise of an Orwellian Big Brother but in the ominously ridiculous commedia dell’arte figure of the boastful buffoon'.
There are those who cannot pcture our present Commander in Chief as the Good Shepherd. As a short hand description, 'boastful buffoon' seems to fit well; he was pictured in tabloids even prior to his election as such.
Public remarks, such as those by Trump, Durbin, or now Roth bring to mind the old constraint on speech implied by 'Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?'
Choosing our leaders, we have not reached across the species barrier. However characterized, they have been human. Not long ago it was going around that the country might in fact be ungovernable. Leadership derives from factors such as consent or coercion. Power involves irrationality as much as sex does.
As we attend admiringly to the non-jackal leaders of earlier days, what can we conclude from the fact that our former greatness brought us here?
3
It takes a great writer to sum up precisely our predicament:
"Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac."
I wish there was some Twitter offshoot exclusively for writers of full sentences.
26
Roth has been called a misogynist, but he has taught me much about men.
He is probably my favorite author.
13
This is absolutely delightful.
10
Thank you for enabling us to hear Roth's thoughts on current events. I've been an avid reader of his work since I was a teenager and recently finished "The Plot Against America." Although our current circumstances are not identical, Roth chillingly presents how millions of people can be deluded into voting for a fascistic, nativist leader who preys upon their fears and basest instincts. If you read the recent NYT essay by Alexander Aciman about what's happening to the Jews in France, you know that this is possible in supposedly enlightened, democratic societies.
54
Mr. Roth says:
"“Pogrom” led me to find a recent book of interpretive history, Yuri Slezkine’s “The Jewish Century,” which argues that “the Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the 20th century, in particular, is the Jewish Century.”"
Indeed, UC Berkeley history professor Yuri Slezkine's "The Jewish Century" is one of the most informative books I've ever read.
10
It's not an "interview," it's an e-mail exchange, which makes it "correspondence."
12
Thank you, NYT, for starting my day well, alas, too briefly.
7
So Roth doesn't mention TV.....Or write about it.... That's wonderful...But what of those I in the vast wasteland who do?
2
It’s lovely to read Roth again. Thank you.
9
Fascinating to think that he lives in the same neighborhood as Pynchon (who hopefully is NOT retired) --- wonder if they ever run into each other on the street?
5
When does the Nobel prize come his way?
7
I enjoyed his eloquent remarks regarding male sexual desire which, especially as a gay man, I've had to confront as every man has since early puberty and beyond. The "erotic furies" as he calls them beleaguer us all, even to the point of lunacy, a word he also uses. But as an older man myself I can quietly view driven "tumescent men" with great compassion and hope that they will try to channel their passion and what Roth also calls our guilt inducing "shameful desires" and "obsessive lusts" into more gentlemanly pursuits, such as male camaraderie, fellow feeling and compassion for all--and I mean all--our fellow sentient beings.
29
The greatest writer of today not writing today.
16
His comparison of Colonel Lindbergh with Trump was telling. Trump is a draft-dodger and a coward.
18
I just sent a message that I've read most of his books and something I wrote about"Trump's IQ..being...IniQuitous"
Do you need more info?
Thanx, Alex
1
Incredibly unsatisfactory comments on the #MeToo movement. His response to the question is as if he has written about a species of mammal from the zoo, a filthy reptile that he has done the dirty thankless work of writing about. Own up to it, you are one of "those men" you wrote about, and you should do more now than say you aren't surprised. Pathetic response.
54
PR does not deserve this kind of condemnation. His response was acute.
8
With the greatest possible respect, and recognizing the importance of the MeToo movement, why is Philip Roth responsible for providing a commentary on the sexual peccadilloes of (actual, living) piggish men? Novelists write from experience, of course, but mostly from what they imagine and concoct--the novel, after all, is an art form, not a sociology text. Roth wrote eloquently about what he knew and imagined and could write about ("could" in italics of emphasis). He's under no obligation--aesthetic, moral, or otherwise--to have "satisfactory" (in your opinion) views on MeToo.
What was wrong with Shakespeare that he didn't condemn the Babington Plot! See what I mean?
21
For starters, there is no extant text of anyone asking Shakespeare about the Babington plot.
My G-d!
Bob Dylan got a Nobel Prize.
He didn't.
26
Knowing Roth is enjoying his retirement by such active reading is better than getting another novel from him when he knows it isn't in him. Power to his wisdom wrought by good, hard work and age. Other writers might learn by example.
22
American Pastoralmis the Great American Novel. A magnificent achievement.
3
Maybe the last of his kind in some respects, at least on this side of the Atlantic. We no longer nurture the ambitious novelists as we once did - those that dedicate a life to the heavy lift of literary excellence. Franzen, Eugenides and other capable writers often go long stretches between publications.
Thank you, Mr. Roth. I've read most of your work. I stumbled on a copy of "Survival in Auschwitz" at a used bookstore, which contained your interview with Primo Levi. It put me on a path of WW2 study that I'm still on.
The accolades might seem superfluous after a lifetime of achievement, but no one is more deserving. You're an international treasure.
51
American Pastoral is the great American novel.
5
You should read Roth’s Great American Novel, a hilarious take-off on baseball and wordsmithing.
I'll take whatever writing Mr. Roth wants to do. All of those answers were bursts of humanity, genuine and insightful, and reminded me of his extraordinary compassion for his characters. Ah, I confess -- this is silly rambling in the hopes that my very favorite writer might get a glimpse of how much I love him. Thank you for everything, Philip Roth.
12
Thank you for publishing this interview. For anyone who isn't a Roth fan, read American Pastoral, which is a vivid, real, heartbreaking story of what it means to be a parent and a person who just wants to do the right thing. Read The Human Stain, which tells us what happens when a mob mentality and personal aggrandizement gang up on a hapless citizen. Read Patrimony, which tells us about fathers and sons. And, as the article says, read The Plot Against America, which is ongoing now. Beyond his writing, I'm taken with Roth's non-fiction reading list. The next Nobel belongs to him.
18
I have read perhaps two-thirds of Mr. Roth's works (thank you LOA). I am parceling the rest out across my own retirement.
They are all to be treasured and re-read. However, I must confess that I have a special place in my heart for "Goodbye Columbus." Thank you, Philip Roth.
5
I enjoyed reading this article. It made me laugh and ponder. I'm especially grateful to the reading list.
Thank you.
9
As I read through his list of recently read books, my smile grew wider - Coates, Greenblatt and Springsteen. Thank-you, Philip Roth. As readers we get consumed in your works. The main character in American Pastoral wanders about like Johnny Appleseed in complete bliss one moment, but then tries to reason with his anarchist outlaw daughter the next. We go from page to page and read about our own country seemingly for the first time. That is a treasure.
6
there is little or even less I can add to the comments by some very thoughtful observers (other than hit 'recommend' on every mention of Nobel or Stockholm). my bookshelves are dominated by his work and I re-read each to see what I missed the first few times.
to my fellow weequahic alumnus, I wish you good health, continued fulfillment and an equal portion of the joy you've allowed me to have as a reader
13
Interesting and enjoyable. But is it an interview? The stress on that word is surely "inter". That is, the next question being prompted by what has been said in reply to the previous one: dialogue as a version of taking a line out for a walk.
1
In 2016, it had been 23 years since an American writer had won the Nobel Prize in Literature - the 1993 laureate was Toni Morrison. There was speculation that it was finally Roth's year - then late gossip circulated that 81 year old Don DeLillo would be the winner.
For years, Roth spend the Nobel announcement day at his agent's office, waiting to see if the Nobel Committee would phone to tell him he had won.
It must have been a huge shock when the American writer who won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature was Bob Dylan.
I would have asked Roth about that.
5
What is your source for Roth waiting around his agent's office "for years"?
2
@Larry D
I hope you don't call yourself a Philip Roth fan if you haven't heard this before. From Emma Brockes, in The Guardian, "For years, the story goes, Roth would make the trip into New York to wait in his agent's office for the call, a rough publicity schedule ready to be printed and activated. There he would sit, in a meeting room presumably prepared with refreshments, and at the end of the day, make the long, sad trip back to Connecticut." Google this story and its been reported, with variations, in over 30 reliable newspapers for at least a decade. Roth publicly lusted for the Nobel Prize for decades and was repeatedly thwarted. Harold Pinter, Doris Lessing and Bob Dylan all provide a map for how to win the Literature Nobel - appear not to care about it. In Dylan's case, win the prize and continue to ignore it. The Nobel committee is rumored to have seen Roth as 'grasping' and it's been written they have enjoyed snubbing Roth repeatedly in the most public way imaginable. Me, my vote for an American novelist goes to Don DeLillo - who isn't that enamored of Roth himself.
Magnificent journalism ! Magnificent subject ! Magnificent illustration of the benefits of examining your life ! I think it was Socrates who said, " The unexamined life isn't worth living. "
2
Such a pleasure to read the thoughts of someone who thinks in elegantly worded paragraphs.
At 13 I read Portnoy’s Complaint (hiding in the bathroom). My father caught me and raised hell with the aunt who’d left it laying around where I could find it. High drama! Anyway, it was way over my head — the urgent and irrational male sexuality Roth references in this piece scared me and scarred me. The Monkey? Is that what we were to men? Later I read and adored Goodbye Columbus, but I still had issues with Brenda. THe male gaze maybe.
16
One of his most chilling depictions of women was Lucy in 'When She Was Good'. I have always liked Mr. Roth's writing, but it was obvious to me that his women were behind a screen in his mind, and their natures were obscured to him.
I think that obscurity laid a shadow across his understanding of men as well. His objects of desire were not clear to him, and the nature of the desire became one dimensional.
1
Thank you for this interview with one of our national treasures, as someone else already said. I had the pleasure one semester in the 1980's to be Mr. Roth's student. What a treat it was!
44
Like Sartre, he should reject the Nobel Prize. Why should he want to be in the company of Sinclair Lewis, Pearl Buck, and Bob Dylan?
1
What a treasure. Still writing, superbly. I marvel at how he strings words along. The eye and mind eagerly grab and linger with leisure on each phrase. Nobel. Pretty please.
59
What a lovely interlude on a sunny afternoon finding wisdom and subtle mirth amidst disdain for the abhorrent and even vile moment now cast on our lives...
thank you both for civility and nuance...would that we could all be so bemused by the absurdities of our world...
51
Very glad Mr. Roth is reading A.E. Stallings’s translation of Lucretius, but would suggest that he (or The Times) correct the description of it as a “prose” translation. One of the things that makes this translation outstanding is its use of the original meter.
14
If I may, Stallings rendered Lucretius's unrhymed Latin hexameters into "rhyming fourteeners" -- heptameter couplets -- in a kind of homage to Arthur Golding's 1567 version of Ovid. In other words, it's not exactly the "original meter." Anyway, I read Roth's "prose" descriptor as a savage underhanded crack and, accordingly, laughed out loud.
Roth, for me , is the greatest living American writer. I have read and re-read virtually every published word he’s ever written. Even his emails are a literary treasure. Now , that he no longer writes, i can turn to the next best thing - reading what he considers excellent non-fiction.
Thank you for the lovely interview.
78
Mr. Roth is a rare example of the prolific novelist that somehow managed to write compelling, thought provoking, relevant, insightful and hilarious novels...29 times.
14
It is refreshing to read his thoughts on his present insights, on himself. Maybe he could write his diaries, Ernst Junger did his in “Past the Seventies” in five volumes, kept writing up to 102 years old, priceless gift.
His journal would be most welcome by us, his readers, he still has it.
9
His obvious talents aside, what is impressive is that he not only knew (by his estimation, though perhaps not ours ) when to put the pen down. And that he actually did it. The greats, especially in their later years are not always the best self critics regardless of their medium.
16
He has that in common with Shakespeare, who also put his pen down at a much younger age.
Where are Roth's thoughts on the #metoo movement?
A few commenters mentions them.
I don't see them.
Were they excised from this interview?
16
Mr. Roth is not interested in women as subjects, and it was always clear to me.
7
The 6th question addresses this issue.
'He’s thoughtful but still, when he wants to be, very funny,' says writer Charles McGrath, who clearly believes being thoughtful & funny at the same time is a contradiction. That's really funny.
5
I would call Roth a "Great American" if that were not now a dubious honorific. May we as a nation live up to our inheritance of great American works.
I also would have asked about Mr. Roth's friendship with one of my favorite painters, Philip Guston. Also, having read some Zuckerman lately, what he thought of Updike's "Beck" novels... I love Updike, but it seemed he was "moving in" on Roth's "turf".
Thanks for a great interview, I look to many pleasant days reading PR's legacy of works.
7
If the vaudevillian’s “leave them asking for more” is the true measure of success then I’m standing in the audience yelling Encore! Roth’s mind is still putting out fresh ideas adroitly phrased. I know it has to stop sometime but...must it?
11
The Great American Novel was one of the funniest books ever written. Thank you, Mr. Roth, and long life!
8
Did you notice how the question about women coming forward on the issue of sexual harassment quickly turned into an answer about "men responsive to the insistent call of sexual pleasure"?
Thanks, Mr. Roth, for another example of how it's all about you. Somehow I thought you might deal with the destruction of women's lives.
A brilliant man who fails (again).
115
Even if the premise of the question had not been “you have often written in your novels about men in the grip of passion”, which obviously justifies an answer about how his novels have often been about men in the grip of passion, do you really think that a question about “women coming forward” is an invitation to reflect on the psychology of the women coming forward? Would you accept it if that were the answer? Certainly every time it’s been asked in recent months, the question about women coming forward has been intended and understood to be an invitation to reflect on the endless iniquity of men, and anything less than that has expelled the speaker from so-called polite society. This unnecessary outrage is unbecoming.
5
Not fair comment. I have read most of Philip Roth‘s great work. Roth is a great writer of spiritual depth, who exhibits deep psychological insight into his novels‘ characters. America and the world need the #Metoo movement and this movement‘s values of dignity and human inviolability. The violence of the predator upon the victim— primarily women or even girls (with Judge Roy Moore), but also with males (as with Kevin Spacey) — is a moral outrage and there must be strong, effective enforcement. The victims must be supported, and they are most brave, indeed. But Roth is a literary giant, and this interview is a welcome reunion with his voice.
4
No, what he is saying is that he writes to portray men in all their complexity -- the good, the bad, the indifferent. If you don't think that has taken some of the characters in his fiction to the point of theirs and others' destruction, you haven't been reading.
10
thanks mr. Roth, for the interview.
11
I understand that your version of Lindberg is fiction and I have not read it, but from reading your interview, I don't understand how Lindberg's being an American hero somehow negates the negative attributes listed, meaning he is fit to be President.
2
I think you best read the novel.
14
BB: Because you haven't read the book you don't realize that the portrait of Lindbergh as president is horrific and chilling in its own way. Nothing Roth says in this interview is to the contrary -- he merely points out the obvious truth that Trump has no such heroic achievement as Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in a single engine plane in his twenties.
30
I have read the book (with delight at the beauty of the writing and with rising horror as things slide inevitably downhill), and Lindbergh's heroism in aviation does *not* negate his anti-Semitism. They coexist. Trump's racism and prejudice coexist only with empty-headedness and empty-heartedness. Lindbergh, unlike Trump, had done something worthwhile, had some substance to him, but that doesn't mean he was fit to be president.
14
Wow.What a treat it would be to live inside Roth's head for just a day.
6
more, please!
especially the part "what have you been reading lately"
we will never know if he reads in paper or in elctronics ! thank gawd for that...
glad he found edna o'brien's joyce amusing, as it truly is.
oh, and thank you for his time being interviewed.
8
What Philip Roth does as a novelist, and I can’t think of another male novelist who has done it as well (Mann in “Death in Venice?” Mailer in “The Prisoner of Sex?” Tolstoy in “The Kreutzer Sonata?”) is describe old men’s agonizing sexual lust for younger women. See, God or biologic evolution or Fate screwed men up. Men stay sexually lusty far beyond any practical human need. Old men shouldn’t be lusting for younger women but throughout Roth’s books (see, for example, “Exit Ghost,” “The Dying Animal” and “Sabbath’s Theater”) old men are always in pathetic struggle with just this theme. Society goes crazy saying men shouldn’t be like this even though men are just like this. Women cry foul. Old men go berserk. Critics scold writing of the obscene and the tawdry. All the while, Philip Roth, with his novelist’s glimmering sharp and humorous eye for character and plot, imagines the sensation for us. Yes, I cannot think of another male novelist who has been so brave.
104
It's unfortunate that Phillip Roth, whose work I greatly admire, along with virtually all men on the planet overlooks completely the lust that older women may feel for young men. Recognition that lust is not gender-specific could give men and women a stronger base for love as well as friendship. Of course that would require more honesty among women about their sexual feelings.
5
Try Coetzee's Master of St. Petersburg too. You won't be disappointed.
2
There is nothing more boring than a clean old man
3
As Mr. Roth is doubtless aware, Mencken also said quite presciently:
'As democracy is perfected, the office (of the Presidency) represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.'
It seems as though by Mencken's definition, we have at long last 'perfected' democracy.
Winston Churchill also famously gave us the following:
'The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.'
Amen.
213
Some of us thought we had reached that apotheosis with the election of W. Who knows how much lower it can go.
2
Regarding Churchill: the Brits are marvelously eloquent because they maintain a democracy and a contradictory class society at the same time. They would never ask someone (who might be, say, a garbage collector, a noble and necessary undertaking) “what do you do?” because it would be embarrassing to both asker and asked in a class conscious society. Nevertheless they’re dying to know and they circuitously try to find out while never directly asking the question. To do that requires some level of eloquence.
The great bulk of Americans at least aspire to a classless society and the question “what do you do?” naturally rolls off the lips. This doesn’t require Churchillian “eloquence,” but it nevertheless avoids the class deference that Churchill and his other upper-crusties (including Mencken) have always liked so much. Frankly, as one of the plain folk, I see class-consciousness in Churchill’s (and Mencken’s) comment, not insight into democracy.
1
As funny as it may be, and as much as I may agree with the sentiment, others would point out that there's no evidence your second quote was actually uttered by Churchill. (https://www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-14...
Terrific mind.
11
One of the wisest Yiddish proverbs is one I learned from reading Roth: "Wenn der putz steht auf der kopf geht schlofen. "
Every man learns this in his lifetime.
3
A truly superb interview!! Bravo !!
29
Treasured wordsmiths like this should keep politics & religion in their works.
All people should.
6
My nominee for the Nobel Prize for literature.
31
Agreed. He or McCarthy. Preferably both.
There is one more piece to be written: A Nobel acceptance speech.
8
Roth is an American treasure. Nobel Committee, what are you waiting for?
16
How charming of Roth to channel Nabokov and insist on being interviewed via the written word. He may have retired, but the fire still burns.
16
Nice pick! I hadn't thought of that. Thanks.
1
Roth's modesty notwithstanding, he's been pretty good at seeing things before other people, perhaps things many of us would prefer not to see
8
Wit and wisdom from Roth. Thanks.
12
How I miss the rants and the rage... the lyrical, inimitable rage!
Oh... and the prescience!
Is there another late 20th Century, American novel as relevant (and as captivatingly literate ) as "the Plot Against America?"
10
Thank you Philip Roth. I've read most of what you've written and enjoyed every word. One thing left unmentioned in this piece: the absolutely comical aspect of male lust. The things we do! What gets into us!
5
Excellent. Too bad in today's world people mostly only read Twitter and watch TV.
I wish Philip Roth would do a interview so it can be rebroadcast to the masses.
4
I'm a bit disappointed, if not surprised, that Roth's commentary on #MeToo remains entirely male-centric.
But this Q&A reminds me that I'm overdue to read The Plot Against America.
One quibble with his description of our current moment in history: Roth says our catastrophe comes not in the form of Orwellian Big Brother but rather in the laughable figure of our buffoon-in-chief. I'd pipe up to remind him--and all of us--that it needn't be just one or the other. We DO live under the constant surveillance of Big Brother, with the NSA, facebook, Apple, Google and who knows how many other organizations following our every move. The fact that the buffoon at the top can't tell up from down doesn't mean our privacy is safe.
87
Thank you for this. Whether you like everything Roth has written or not (I like most), he is a giant of our age.
20
Lamento di Portnoy! I love it. Roth deserves a Nobel Prize for a lifetime of great writing!
26
As a long-time fan of Mr Roth's, I thank you for this piece. He remains a key figure of modern American literature -- and in my mind will outshine many other writers whose publicity gives the appearance of glossier popularity.
Roth's work is elegant and tough, rough and emotional, gorgeous and painful. I've never been disappointed, always enlightened, sometimes happily assaulted. He cuts through a lot of taboos to plunge his pen into the heart and soul of his characters and their engagement with life.
And his stories are just damned compelling. If you happen to read this, Mr. Roth -- thank you for your astounding hard work and unparalleled genius.
61
How erudite Roth is! Not a surprise, just a delight to read these comments and follow his thoughts. Thanks for writing as one who read "Appointment in Samarra" at age 13? or so from father's library (the auto dealer and the holidays, the drinking, the snow seemed the very apogee of adulthood or reflected some of my childhood), on to Portnoy, "The Plot Against America" and so many of his other words. Perfect to read the Mencken quote describing American democracy and Roth's words about the "...the ominously ridiculous commedia del'arte figure of the boastful buffon," the current POTUS. Thank you.
8
Of course "Appointment in Samarra" was written by John O'Hara.
1
What a treasure. What a writer. What a man.
13
How ferociously intelligent is this Roth person. Cultured and learned of course, but beyond that this cold steel Sheffield sharp mind. Remarkable, somehow, that it didn't ruin him as an artist.
9
Footnote. A.E. Stallings' Lucretius is not in prose. It's in rhyming couplets. The meter is what used to be called "fourteeners" (iambic heptameter)—cf. Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. I know no one cares about this. Hi, Alicia.
7
I care about this and was happy to find your correction as I scanned the comments to see if anyone had noticed this mistake. Her own poetry is wonderful.
6
Although Philip Roth was born and raised in Newark, he is a famous and respected New York intellectual. Therefore, his razor-sharp condemnation of Trump carries a lot of weight, especially for those of us who view Trump as a quintessential New Yorker: coarse, loud, and ignorant of the wider world.
8
In reply to Karl. Your post is very insulting to New Yorkers.Trump is in a class by himself.Hardly a typical New Yorker.
3
Nobody has any right to tell a writer as prolific as Roth it’s wrong to stop and I respect his honesty saying he lacks the vitality to continue writing at a high level. Nevertheless, Samuel Beckett’s words come to mind as a rejoinder: “Perhaps my best years are gone…. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now.” I’d like to think Roth’s life-affirming smile upon awakening would be even brighter if he still had the urge to pick up a pen during the day.
9
The kind of remarkable literary life that is practically extinct these days in the age of Netflix. Mr. Roth needs no further accolades or validation, but I can't imagine a writer more deserving of the Nobel Prize. No living author has a more impressive body of work.
19
Rest in Peace. Just not so soon.
3
Dear Professor of Desire,
As a former South Orange, New Jersey woman who grew up reading every book you ever wrote, visting many places you wrote about in your books (did you love those "wet nuts" on your sundaes) did you have Sloppy Joes, buttered "shpits" at Town Hall? I have such burning questions for you, Mr. Roth!
Since you wrote about Isaiah Berlin and Akhmatova there is a truly worthy book on their relationship and that night and its aftermath. The Guest from the Future. György Dalos. I don't think that Berlin fully understood what her punishment or her suffering was like. She loved him so dearly. No one suffered quite like Anna.
Long enough I have frozen in fear,
Better to summon a Bach chaconne,
And behind it will enter a man,
He will not be a beloved husband to me
But what we accomplish, he and I,
Will disturb the Twentieth Century.
Once, a very long time ago, on Overhill Road, there was a young girl, curious, fully aflame, who only read the pages of The Professor of Desire. She laughed, she loved, she felt joy inside your pages.
I feel blessed, richer, deeply grateful for the joy you have given through your work and life. The laughter lingers. But in these times I am not laughing anymore. Who could?
I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
17
Great work, Chip. I think of you whenever I drive under that wind-blasted pedestrian bridge over Morrissey Boulevard, near BC High. May you go on as long as Roth. -dm
1
This is the most enjoyable piece to appear in the Times in a very long time. Made my day.
58
Nice piece. He has certainly earned is comfortable retirement.
I love his insightful assessment of Trump, in comparison to Charles Lindbergh - "Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac." Perfect.
40
Thank you Philip Roth and thank you NYT for this interview.
10
Happy that Mr. Roth is still opining, if not writing. What fascinated me most was his lack of surprise at the behavior of some of today's sexual assaulters; he blames their persistent "urges" for driving them to "lunacy". This bolsters my view that we women must beware: men often cannot control themselves!
7
For several years, I have had two Library of America volumes of Roth's work sitting at my home gathering dust because I have never found time to read them. After reading the interview with him, I now know I must make time and read them immediately. Those books at my house won't be ignored any more, Mr. Roth. I promise.
11
Mr. Roth, if you are curious enough to read these comments, let me say that you hold a special place in my heart, despite the fact that I have also found you painful to read. You have acknowledged that you wrote what you knew, and, as a man, did not know women to the same depth as you knew men. Some of the pain had to do with how atrocious some of your characters were and how shallowly drawn were the women, some of it from the pain inherent in the differences between men and women, and in life itself. Leaving aside the purely literary qualities of your work (!), I will always adore you for what has become perhaps the most succinct (and funniest) statement of my personal philosophy: the passage early in American Pastoral where the narrator declaims: That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. I wish more people were familiar with this passage.
43
Thank you for this wonderful reminder of the brilliance of Philip Roth. Even though he “retired” from writing in 2012, his beautifully crafted email answers to your questions brought great pleasure!
8
This man is a genius at writing fiction. I enjoyed reading everything he ever wrote and miss anticipating his "next" book.
I wish him well and hope he's comfortable and pain free in this part of his life.
5
Love love love
hearing from Mr. Roth.
His words are sharp, funny,
biting and perceptive with
good ideas for future reading
in his zigzag list of books.
I will definitely get his new
book, Why Write.
Every time I buy a cantaloupe
I think of Philip Roth! Thanking you
for the article and to Mr. Roth,
wishing you many more good days and
years.
7
Thank you, Charles McGrath, and Philip Roth for a delightful and revealing
bit of reading. "Mr Roth, you are joined by many of your early and loyal readers in the joy and freedom afforded us by old age", she says, rushing back to her current book.
5
Thank you for this. We need to spend more time speaking to wise men/women who can put the century into perspective and remind us of what we have survived. Those of us who are in our eightieth decade are missing our dear dead friends and cherishing those of us like Philip Roth who recorded our time and place and tell us of who we are.
12
Bravo, Mr. Roth. Great thanks for your clear, uncompromising and often funny ( however black the humor) depictions of late 20th century American life, Often but not only from the male, outlier perspective. Long may you be read.
4
Thanks for the Mencken quote, which cracked me up... & after a couple seconds I felt like crying.
18
Mencken had fascist leanings, though. He didn't just despise American democracy of the day but democracy in general.
Roth remains at nearly 85, both erudite and carnal, a vaudevillian and a serious thinker.
His is the authentic voice of an immigrant son, a bit uncomfortable with the accented english and formidable yiddish spoken at home but becoming very comfortable in a reluctant new world.
I studied Roth in college when he was still considered an 'American Jewish' writer and learned an enormous amount from his work. Since then, his lifetime of original and moral thought put to paper with the comic rhythms (to me anyway) of the shtetl cements his place as a reader's treasure.
May he continue to greet each new day with surprise and delight for a long time to come.
45
As one who has delighted in many a Roth novel, appearance in the New Yorker, or occasional essay, I have often wondered about his retirement. Thank you for his words, his satisfaction in being alive, and his reading list. My own retirement is now richer for this news of his.
5
Thank you for this. It will carry me through the day. If anyone should have been awarded the Nobel prize, it was him. A giant misstep by Stockholm.
What a marvelous author, and a marvelous man.
9
Deserved praise of Roth but undeserved faulting of the Nobel people. I think Alfred Nobel wanted to foster a better world. Faithful to that the prize tends to go to scientists late so as not to alter or reduce their productivity but to writers early to spotlight the obscure, protect the endangered, and enable more and freer work. To the greater honor of Roth and his country he was never so needful.
1
Thank you Mr. Roth. How good it is to hear more of your substantial thoughts, terrific reading lists, and, perhaps most of all, the news of the very fine David Simon working on The Plot Against America. We have so little to hang our hat on these days, as Americans, but boy howdy we still have wonderful writers and artists, able to reflect so capably upon these tragic times.
May many more bright mornings be yours.
3
Thank you, Mr. Roth, for this interview—I was wondering how you were doing and what you were up to. I pace myself so I have a new Philip Roth novel to read every few months; the last one was "Letting Go." All your books feel new to me; your voice comes through true and clear and gorgeously composed. Wishing you all the best.
5
I loved Roth's novels as a teen and young adult. In high school in the 90's my favorite was the Professor of Desire and as a young woman I read Letting Go over and over. I was flummoxed by the critiques I read by feminists of the day and could find no common cause with them. I can't identify what shifted for me but when I tried to read The Professor of Desire in my 30's I found I couldn't stomach it. It felt like reading a seething polemic against the scheming plots of women. It was confusing because I remember how much pleasure the writing had given me- the rolling sentences and a life so far outside my Mojave Desert experience rendered so completely. I thought it was just that book and took up some of my old favorites- the Zuckerman series.It was the same. I had the chance to speak to Jonathon Safran Foer at a reading and he mentioned Roth as an inspiration.I mentioned that I had loved Roth once but now found him almost unreadable.For all of his brilliance it felt like a literature weaponized against women and our full humanity- that was reserved for the protagonist. Foer said "I don't think Philip hates women; I just don't think he understands them." It felt very thin, and the sort of thing we say about racist family members or other people that we love but do not want to hold accountable.Roth writes so very well and I wish I still had the pleasure of reading him. But it offends my dignity now to do so. Bringing male sexuality "out there" is great- but not at any cost.
73
Sara, you write beautifully yourself. How about a novel, or maybe better, a memoir of a literary-minded girl growing up in Wyoming? And I wonder how you'd feel about Roth if re-reading him in your 60s. (I'm in my mid-70s and have loved no writer more since reading Portnoy's Complaint in Israel soon after publication.)
I remember choosing "The Plot Against America" for my book club's monthly meeting a year or so after it was published. My group is fairly liberal leaning and we read all types of books. This was one of the few times that a book was so roundly disliked by almost all members of the club. It puzzled me so much - I loved the book and couldn't put it down. The group, largely, thought the premise was preposterous and that no such thing could happen in America. Even though DT is no Charles Lindbergh, I might re-visit the book with them.
Thank you, Mr. Roth, for your books. They are treasures.
38
Philip Roth has long been my favorite writer, not only for his intelligence, but for his laser eye for our foibles and his ability to go for the jugular of our psyches. He has made me laugh, sigh and enter into arguments with women who claim he hates women. I think women like this don't understand that Roth loves women all too well. I have wished Roth would pick up his pen again and write about our current madness, foolishly thinking he could write as easily as water gushes out of a fountain. I still have a book or two left of his to read and will savor them as I have all the rest. I wish Roth many more smiles as he beds and rises.
10
Lovely. Makes getting older --as I am -- seem so inviting. Humbling too; a brilliant person shining a light in all out lives.
7
If still alive, we are all getting older.
A refreshing counterpoint to the dredgery of reading the daily news. I am inspired by Mr. Roth's depth of political insight fueled by tolerance of the human condition, as well as his apparent joy of simply learning.
7
I had mixed feelings when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, mainly because, it greatly decreased the chance that Mr. Roth would ever win. I started reading him the 1970's as undergraduate. His depiction of male characters' sex drives, somewhat lacking in tenderness towards both their totem and non-totem goals, briefed me on real-life gender relations I was quite unprepared for. He's so honest, you've got to love that. Alleged political incorrectness aside: he abundantly deserves the Nobel, and it's a shame he'll likely die without it. "The Plot Against America" is a masterpiece of controlled terror.
7
Phil Roth is my literary guy. A great man. He mentions Lindy. But two Brits, Alcock and Brown, flew the Atlantic, from Newfoundland to Ireland, eight years before Lindy did it. They encountered extraordinary reversals and nearly crashed several times, and, indeed, did crash as they landed. But they made it. And had it not been for headwinds they could have kept going all the way to London. But America needs heroes, it always has, so apart from a statue of the two aviators at Heathrow, they've been swallowed up by American boosters.
3
So Lindbergh's feat as the first SOLO flight still stands.
4
As a pilot, I know of and appreciate the accomplishment of Alcock and Brown, however they didn't complete the requirements of the Orteig prize. C.L. was the first.
The Kitaj memoir referred to in the final paragraph is published by Schirmer-Mosel of Munich, both in German and English. It was the personal project of Lothar Schirmer, also the publisher of Twombly, who has an abiding interest in the artist as exile, as expatriate, as wanderer. The Kitaj voice is immediate and vital and gives us a world now lost.
3
I think I finished an early Roth a few years ago, the only one. I did feel he was writing only for the conventional American man, which of course was a turn off. It seemed just more perpetuation of myth.
3
Time for more political commentary from Roth. His colourful descriptions of Trump are politically and linguistically sound.I have enjoyed Roth’s body of work for over fifty years.May he live to a 120.
9
I just devoured The Plot Against America and have been urging everyone I know to read it. Now maybe they will! What a tender gripping portrait of your family and neighborhood. Nothing has captured for me the poignancy of Jewish families in America except for Michael Chabon's work. I especially loved the portrait of your mother and father.
3
A pleasure to know that Roth is still fiery in speech and intellect. Do artists have much in common with the 20 years-old version of themselves, Roth asks? The internal drives that impel us and inspire us are different as we age. Roth is brave and awesome to say something most successful artists would not say aloud. Paul McCartney should read this article.
32
Paul McCartney seems to be doing just fine.
2
What a gift this man has been to all of us! How lucky to have him chronicling our times for so long.
72
Good to hear from you, Philip. I especially liked "My Life as a Man" and "The Dying Animal". As a half assed author myself, I've always been in awe of your fluid and fascinating prose.
The memory of your being savagely targeted by feminists remains fresh in my mind. Thanks for holding your ground, and not groveling back with apologies, as so many authors have done. There is nothing wrong with putting male sexuality out there, instead of giving it a gloss that doesn't ring true.
And thanks for the way you have viewed our politics, and the strange collapse of our young and now deformed culture. You spoke with tenderness of your early years in New Jersey, even while describing its illusions and eccentricities. Here in California, we have little in the way of unique neighborhoods, while your own was funny, soulful, and true.
People will be reading your books long after the pretentious novels become even more boring with distance. And I will be reading them until my own end arrives.
125
He is a great novelist. It's a sad fault in a great novelist, though, being incapable of creating three-dimensional, believable women characters. You don't have to be a feminist, let alone a savage one, to consider that a deficiency in his work. There are other great male novelists--Tolstoy comes to mind--who did not have this problem.
18
Maybe we don't quite disagree, Junewell, though the young woman character in The Dying Animal was pretty good. Roth had a mixed up relationship with his mom- see Portnoy's Complaint- that drove a bit of misogyny, but compared to others (see Trump, Donald) it was pretty harmless. My beef was with the feminists who renounced Roth so viciously. There were much better targets back in those days, too.
5
Yes, no doubt, Tolstoy was a
great writer but look what
he did to Anna. Think about
how male writers write female
characters. I have an ongoing
debate with myself about
this issue.
4