I blame the library. After returning Philip Roth's wonderful Indignation what else could I do but take out the other novel by the American master on the shelves? So now I'm utterly captivated by the opening pages of Nemesis at a time when I really can't afford to be. But at least there's nothing more to tempt me: one advantage of a (very) basic library - the only advantage.
In fact, I've only ever owned one book by Roth and that was a long time ago. The tome in question was Portnoy's Complaint, which was something you sort of expected to see on a university student's shelves in those days - that and Goodbye Columbus and Letting Go, both of which I borrowed from other guys' shelves. I don't think Roth was held in terribly high regard back then. He was just seen as a pretty good popular novelist, as far as I can remember. I think somebody purloined my copy of Portnoy somewhere along the way - probably thinking it was a bit of a dirty book and, therefore, worth grabbing.
I only started to read him again back when I was living in the Mansion because the highly accessible Marine Parade Library had a few of the later novels and I'd noticed just how good the reviews had been getting. They weren't wrong.
Roth does something I can't think any other writer comes close to. He writes in such a direct, uncluttered simple way that you really start to think it is simple. He's so easy to read it's ridiculous, as if transparent. A bit like Anthony Burgess's idea of Somerset Maugham as story-teller when he compares Maugham to Joyce. In Maugham the medium, the language, doesn't matter. And so it seems to be with Roth, until you realise just how crafty, how much of an artificer, he is. And when that's allied to an emotional wallop - my goodness.
The early pages about the protagonist of Nemesis visiting the parents of the little lad who's the first victim of polio in the story are just excruciating in the way that Dostoevsky at his best can be. Yes, really that good.
4 comments:
It is pretty eerie that you've (re-)started on Roth about the same time I have. I can heartily recommend American Pastoral. It's even eerier that your thoughts on him are almost the same as mine: I think of his writing as a demonstration of art as the hiding of art's presence. I shall read the ones you've read so we can have a discussion when I get back!
Distinctly spooky stuff. And what is eeriest of all is that your idea of art as the hiding of art's presence is the perfect expression of exactly what I wanted to say but couldn't quite find the right words for. Beautifully put!
And I look forward to our Roth summit!
It's very Italian Renaissance ideal, like 'sprezzatura' in the 'Book of the Courtier' being "to conceal all art and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". Yes, so do I! I've also been rediscovering my fondness for Latin American authors, and reading new ones, like Mario Vargas Llosa.
*It's a very, apologies.
I couldn't resist feeding more grist to the mill, but here's Flaubert on this locus communis:
"An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere."
Post a Comment