Philip Roth...My Gateway

I had a fortunate childhood in the sense that our home was filled with books.  I was read to at a very young age and encouraged to read as soon as I was able to comprehend the language.  Some of my earliest and fondness memories of those years revolve around Curious George, Winnie the Pooh, and the ancient stories of the Old Testament!  And while I continued to find time to read and hang out in the local library as I got older, reading sometimes took a back seat to other pursuits; girls, basketball and the occasional foray to Trenton to get beer!

After the mandatory reading that comes with a college education, it took a while for the joy of reading to take hold of me again.  But when it did, one of the first authors to remind me how wonderful, challenging, and life-sustaining deep reading can be, was Phillip Roth.  Whether it was Portnoy’s Complaint or the early Zuckerman novels, or especially his so-called American Trilogy of the late 90s, Roth reminded me that few things can match the solitary experience of sitting in a favorite chair and getting lost in the stories and characters created by such a talented and gifted author.

I write this because, as you might have heard, Roth died the other day.  He had retired from writing more than a decade ago, but there was always a faint hope held by his fans that he had one more work left in him.  On the other hand, maybe the old sports adage about retiring a year too early as opposed to a year too late also works for writers.  Critics, and there were many, weren’t as impressed with his last few shorter novellas as they were with the rest of his output.  To that I say, even Beethoven wrote some second-rate music!

The biggest criticism of Roth was his so-called misogyny.  The women in his novels were not exactly portrayed in the kindest of ways.  Many times they were portrayed as sex objects (and that’s probably being kind), and usually they were not exactly deep, well-rounded characters.  On the other hand, practically every man was portrayed as a lecherous, perverted dog…willing to do anything and everything to get laid.  And my answer to these critics, mostly feminists, is, “So what?”  It’s fiction.  Or let me be more blunt…it’s well-written fiction!  If Roth wanted to focus on the hideousness of men, fine.  Let somebody else give us virtuous, conversant women.  Lighten up.

Roth won every literary award imaginable, except the one he deserved most…The Nobel Prize.  That this is a stain and embarrassment on that organization is stating the obvious.  However, the mind tends to lose its capacity for outrage at a group of people who gave the Nobel Prize in literature to Bob Dylan.  But that’s for another column.

Most importantly, for me anyway, Roth reintroduced me to great fictional writing.  He helped me get back on that horse, as it were, and I’d like to think I haven’t gotten off since.  Whether it’s Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, or Cormac McCarthy (not to mention hundreds of others), it was Roth and his characters who relit the spark.

Thank you, Mr. Roth…and shalom.