Roth and Roth

I've read a number of Philip Roth's books including the exceptional memoir he wrote about his father called Patrimony.   (I strongly recommend Patrimony for those who have had a positive relationship with their dad).  

When I like an author I follow her or him. While it may seem from what is below that I've read many of Roth's books, remember I've been around the track enough times to collect social security and I tend to regularly follow certain writers. 

For what it is worth, my take on his novels are as follows:  

• I thought American Pastoral was brilliant, I also liked When She Was Good, Indignation, Goodbye Columbus, The Human Stain, The Counterlife, The Plot Against America, and Portnoy's Complaint. 
• I was not a big fan of the Zuckerman trilogy or Letting Go, and thought My Life as a Man and The Great American Novel had their moments but were not the kind of book you wanted to tell your reading friends to go get.  Our Gang--the book ridiculing Nixon--was clever but it got tired after a while.
• I Married a Communist was clearly a vindictive book getting back at his second wife.  And, while it was hailed as brilliant, I thought the main character in Sabbath's Theatre, Mickey Sabbath, was beyond slimy. While I have, I think, a healthy attitude about sex, and am typically not offended by those who think about sex in ways that are unconventional, even for me, Mickey Sabbath was too much, and yet Roth did not present Sabbath as a reprehensible character.  I mean masturbating on the grave, while visiting the grave, of his now dead lover--really.
• The dozen or so others I either did not read or I don't remember much about them.   

I was very interested in reading the new biography about Roth. So much had been written about Roth's books being autobiographical. Also, he had been called a self-hating Jew--largely because of Portnoy's Complaint and Goodbye Columbus. Finally, the guy wrote 31 books.  Some of them just brilliant.  I can remember reading American Pastoral and thinking that while I believe I can string words together fairly well, I could never tell a story as well or as powerfully as he did in that book. So, I wanted to know who was this person who was regularly reviled and, alternately, saluted.

I often am disappointed by long biographies.  Truman comes to mind. A big fat book with just too much detail.  The biography of Roth is a long book, 810 pages--yet it is excellent.  I do not like the man Philip Roth based on what I read, but I thought the biographer did a good job of dispassionately describing the life so that readers can draw their own conclusions.  My conclusions: Roth was an outstanding prolific author as well as a selfish man.  He may not have been as perverse as Mickey Sabbath, but he certainly pursued sexual activity aggressively. The depiction of Roth in the biography reminded me of characters I knew in college who pursued sex less for the physical excitement and more to support what would otherwise be a flagging self-concept.  Roth's novels often are about people he actually knew and lovers he knew without regard to how they would feel when depicted--often negatively--in his books. I did not know until I read the biography, that the family described in Goodbye Columbus and the Brenda Patimkin character from that novel, was a real family and a real person.  When She Was Good and My Life as a Man were about his first wife, and I Married a Communist was about his second. Many of his other lovers are described if somewhat disguised in other books. It was interesting to read that the guy had a thin skin, and could dish it out as it relates to criticism of people but could not take it. A good deal of the book discusses Roth's reaction to reviews of his books which were negative.  I don't think Roth was antisemitic, but his outrage at those who called him antisemitic is disingenuous.  He would have to know that the way he depicts the Portnoys in Portnoy's Complaint would upset the Jewish community. So his "they just don't get it" incredulous reaction to criticism of the Jewish community seems bogus to me.  

The biographer does an excellent job of presenting the facts and not offering much in the way of opinion. He does refer to Roth as a great writer, but leaves it to the reader to examine the rest of his personality.  If you are not a reader of Roth books I would pass on the tome, but if you were, like me, a fan of many of his books you will find the many pages of this book not a burden. (except for its heft if you carry it around).

After I read the biography, I thought I should reread what is likely his most controversial book, Portnoy's Complaint. I'd read the book in college shortly after it came out in 1969, and then in graduate school when it was an assigned reading.  But that was in 1972.  Long time ago.

So I reread it.  My recollection had been that this was a book about an oversexed kid who felt he was victimized by his upbringing.   What was novel about the novel is that he discussed in detail sexual behavior that, prior to its publication, was absolutely taboo to discuss.  So many, including myself, glommed onto the sex parts and the take aways were about his prurient activities and, also, his unfavorable depiction of Portnoy's parents, especially his mother.  Jewish mothers throughout the land were not pleased by the book. Nor were Jewish organizations that, because of the book and other writings, considered Roth a self-hating Jew.  My reread of the book suggests that the notion that this was an antisemitic book is a misreading. The book is a rant spoken to a psychologist. Portnoy is emptying his guts about his past and why, one could deduce, he has unravelled to the point that he had had a breakdown of some sort and needs to explain how it came to pass to a shrink.  The book is very funny at times, but if you can pull away from the novelty of speaking so candidly about sexual activity and attitudes towards his parents, you--or at least I--come away from the book not thinking that Portnoy was victimized by his parents, but was messed up (fakakt to use a term that Portnoy would have used to describe it) because he himself just was incapable of dealing with the slings and arrows we all face.  And he blames others for it.

The biography and Patrimony, the memoir, makes it clear that Roth's parents were not the same sorts of folks that were Portnoy's.  Roth's parents were fierce defenders of their famous son, not offended by his writing. Roth's dad was a tough guy, not the mollusk described as Portnoy's dad.  Yes, his father sold insurance, and yes Roth grew up in New Jersey, and I would bet many of the incidents Portnoy experienced were drawn from Roth's own, but I hold Portnoy accountable for Portnoy's condition.  Not sure Roth does, but I do.

I also hold Roth accountable for Roth's condition. At the end of the biography he is alone and lonely.  At the very end when he knows he is going to die, many of his former lovers come back--despite his mistreatment of them--to tell him they loved him. But the guy made a bunch of enemies. Yes, his first wife was certifiable, but his second-I can't tell from the book-who deserved whose ire.  And the young lovers he had, particularly as he aged, seemed more interested in being associated with a famous person, than being with Roth, an old man. When their affairs ended, regardless of how they ended, the women often found their lives in intimate detail depicted in a Roth novel

In sum, Roth from the bio was not the kind of person I could befriend or would want as a friend.  But while I would not want to hang with Roth the person, there are many of his books I would want to reread or am glad to have read, including Portnoy's Complaint.