Books
by Philip Roth
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American Pastoral |
A splendid book which presents more questions than it answers. It's about the American dream and where people fit into it, particularly in the characters of the Jewish 'hero', his disaffected daughter and his Christian wife. Their lives are split apart in one horrific incident, but . . . why is it told in the way it is? And is it the biography it ostensibly is, or not? What is Roth trying to do? Intriguing, extremely well-written and unputdownable.
(Julie Higgins - bwl 35 July 2006) |
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I Married a Communist |
Ira Ringold, a huge, angry, passionate man, makes disastrous decisions throughout his life: his jobs, his marriage, his politics - and in the end even his friends betray him. Nathan, the narrator - over a long week of talking with Ira's brother years later - discovers things about him which he never knew, and which make sense of this disturbed man's life. I'd forgotten what a good writer Roth is and was delighted to rediscover him.
(Julie Higgins - bwl 30 June 2005) |
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The Dying Animal |
David Kepesh (the distinguished U.S. American author's alter ego ?), an ageing university teacher and seducer, falls madly in love with one of his young students, a Cuban girl named Consuelo. Sex, explicit and steamy but not pornographically treated, has an important role to play in this short but impressive novel which is also a meditation on time, dependence and death. Both humorous and moving too at times. Well worth reading, I found.
(Jeremy Swann - bwl 26 October 2004) |
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The Human Stain |
The Clinton scandal is at its height. Prurience and political correctness abound in equal measure. Coleman Silk, once revered classics professor, has resigned in disgrace in the face of false allegations of racism. As his world crumbles, Coleman holds fast to an astonishing secret he has kept for fifty years. Despite the odd unconvincing plot device, there is unparalleled linguistic dexterity and a gripping foray into the nuances of truth. Worth reading again.
(Siobhan Thomson - bwl 12 January 2002) |
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The Human Stain |
This is a book mainly about secrets, cruelty, pain and destruction, some of which I found so shattering that I had to stop reading for a day or two. Much of it confounds the reader as to what is going on/has gone on/will go on. By the end I was not completely sure about some of what Roth was trying to tell me. But it is well worth the journey. I loved it.
(Julie Higgins - bwl 50 March 2009) |
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The Plot Against America |
Roth is noted for writing his best books as he ages. This is a brilliant dissection of the menace which lies beneath the political and social scene in America. In 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote It Can't Happen Here, a fantasy of Nazism in democratic America. Roth builds on Charles Lindbergh's historic bid for the presidency. His fantasy of his accession to the Presidency and what happens to the Jewish community makes chilling and compelling reading.
(Kathie Somerwil Ayrton - bwl 40 June 2007) |
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