Philip Roth and the woke police
Recently there’s been a big brouhaha about whether Philip Roth was a misogynist and/or a sexual predator, and whether his latest biographer is a sexual predator as well. As part of this kerfuffle, a new lengthy Roth biography (over 800 pages – I’m not sure even Philip Roth would care to read that much about himself) is being taken off the shelves.
Hey, why not burn it? Can’t be too careful, you know.
You may or may not like Roth’s novels, but of course this sort of present-day censorship goes way beyond Roth. Personally, I liked Roth’s early work and read most of it way back when, but later on he lost me. I don’t know when the turning point began for me or exactly why, but I think it had something to do with the fact that his later work bored me.
But perhaps I’ve missed some good books along the way. For example, I’d heard that The Human Stain might be one of them, but I never mustered up enough interest to wade through it. Now, looking at the book’s Amazon listing, I am surprised to see that the theme of the 2000 work is described this way:
It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished even his most virulent accuser.
Sounds prescient, doesn’t it? Things like that were happening back then, but they seemed to be isolated incidents. Now they’re standard and common. Here’s an excerpt from the book:
It was about midway into his second semester back as a full-time professor that Coleman spoke the self-incriminating word that would cause him voluntarily to sever all ties to the college-the single self-incriminating word of the many millions spoken aloud in his years of teaching and administering at Athena, and the word that, as Coleman understood things, directly led to his wife’s death.
The class consisted of fourteen students. Coleman had taken attendance at the beginning of the first several lectures so as to learn their names. As there were still two names that failed to elicit a response by the fifth week into the semester, Coleman, in the sixth week, opened the session by asking, “Does anyone know these people? Do they exist or are they spooks?”
Later that day he was astonished to be called in by his successor, the new dean of faculty, to address the charge of racism brought against him by the two missing students, who turned out to be black, and who, though absent, had quickly learned of the locution in which he’d publicly raised the question of their absence. Coleman told the dean, “I was referring to their possibly ectoplasmic character. Isn’t that obvious? These two students had not attended a single class. That’s all I knew about them. I was using the word in its customary and primary meaning: ‘spook’ as a specter or a ghost. I had no idea what color these two students might be. I had known perhaps fifty years ago but had wholly forgotten that ‘spooks’ is an invidious term sometimes applied to blacks. Otherwise, since I am totally meticulous regarding student sensibilities, I would never have used that word. Consider the context: Do they exist or are they spooks? The charge of racism is spurious. It is preposterous. My colleagues know it is preposterous and my students know it is preposterous. The issue, the only issue, is the nonattendance of these two students and their flagrant and inexcusable neglect of work. What’s galling is that the charge is not just false–it is spectacularly false.” Having said altogether enough in his defense, considering the matter closed, he left for home.
More at the link, in case you’re interested.
So here’s my two cents on the whole misogyny question. Not only had I originally read some of Roth’s early fiction, but I had read some of it as excerpts (short stories, actually) published in magazines before the books in which they later appeared were published. I no longer remember what periodicals I saw them in; this was probably close to fifty years ago.
One of these stories ended up as a chapter in Roth’s atypical 1967 novel When She Was Good. I used to own it, but somewhere along the line it got jettisoned, so I can’t read the chapter now to check and see what I think after the passage of so many years. The chapter was about the book’s main character Lucy, a good student from a poor and quite messed-up family who had gotten pregnant as a college freshman and was trying to decide what to do about it. When I first read the chapter as a short story, it was one of the most poignant and also hard-hitting examples of that dilemma I’ve ever seen, and it showed remarkable empathy with the girl.
I also recall being impressed by a chapter in Roth’s 1962 novel Letting Go. The chapter described an unhappy young woman’s first visit to a therapist, with dialogue. It was an example of empathy and insight into the pros and cons of what can happen in therapy to a vulnerable person, who happened in this case to be a woman.
I don’t see how an actual misogynist could have written either of those chapters. But even if he is a misogynist, so what? I don’t care. And I also don’t care if Roth wrote things that were offensive. Maybe his life was offensive, too. People are pretty complicated beings, and I have little doubt that Roth was very complicated, as well. My suggestion is quite simple: if you don’t like his work, don’t read him, and don’t read biographies about him.
But – as Roth himself seemed to be saying in The Human Stain – the woke simply can’t let us be.
Part of the “misogyny” allegation against Roth stemmed from the claim that he was a bad husband — and some of that (although not all of it) was because he seemed to put all his time and attention into his writing, leaving very little for his relationships. But from the reader’s perspective, that’s a quality you would WANT in a writer. It seems clear that his prodigious literary output (more than 25 novels and novellas, dozens of short stories and essays) wouldn’t have been possible without it.
Sometime after their divorce, the actress Claire Bloom, now his exwife, wrote a memoir that served as a hit-piece against Roth — and made her a lot of money, incidentally or as planned.
Meanwhile, I’m not alone in thinking that several of his later works were his best. An American Pastoral, I Married a Communist and The Human Stain, in particular, are superb accomplishments. I’m not as much of a fan of the earlier Zuckerman novels, though they have their charms, and the early books seem rather dated by now. He was not yet “unleashed.”
I agree with miklos000roscza. His middle-late period was his best. American Pastoral is a masterpiece. His very late work falls off.
He was a jerk, I’m sure, but a great novelist.
And I’m furious that they stopped distributing the biography. How stupid!
The bio has already found another publisher, I can’t remember the name. This review of it appeared in The New Criterion, presumably based on an advance copy, around the time of the cancellation:
https://newcriterion.com/issues/2021/4/philip-roths-plot-against-himself
Never read Roth myself, except for an excerpt from Portnoy that appeared in an literary mag when it came out in the late ’60s. I didn’t care much for it so kind of wrote him off. But there are people whose judgment I respect who think he’s very good.
}}} And I’m furious that they stopped distributing the biography. How stupid!
And yet it’s pure cancel culture, innit?
I never got far with Roth.
I tried to read “Portnoy’s Complaint,” but found it terribly off-putting. (However did it snag slot 52 on the “Modern Library’s List of 100 Best English Novels of the 20th Century”?)
I listened to the audiobooks for “Goodbye Columbus” (ho-hum) and “The Plot Against America” (somewhat interesting as an alternate history but predictable in its tropes against conservative America as racist).
But even if Roth was a villain (or his biographer), I deplore the impulse to censor the biography.
Neo, I think the spam catcher may have snagged a comment of mine on this topic, possibly more than one, though similar in content. I see this one is appearing so I won’t try to repeat what I said, lest I bring down the hammer on it again.
I am thinking about the contributions to science, invention, and culture made by all of the people throughout history who would not stand up to the scrutiny of today’s “Woke Police”. What if all of their contributions were “canceled”?
I suspect that we would find ourselves back in the Dark Ages, if not the Stone Age.
I was rased in an atmosphere of “Live and let live.” This level of rabid intolerance is shocking to me and dangerous. At this rate, the U.S. is heading toward its own Cultural Revolution along with all the death and injustice associated with it.
Mac:
I found your comment in the spam folder, approved it, and now it appears above.
But even if Roth was a villain (or his biographer), I deplore the impulse to censor the biography.
You notice how the articles do not tell you what Blake Bailey is supposed to have done, much less offer context? They just say that this person and that person contend he ‘assaulted’ them. His attorney’s claim is that Norton didn’t even ask for a comment on the accusation against him. His editors lack character.
What’s grossly amusing is if they had on their list some dame who’d procured three abortions or who had frivorced three husbands, they’d have no problem with that at all. We live in a stupid age.
My exposure to Roth is limited to Goodbye Columbus, The Ghost Writer, The Plot against America, and Shop Talk (Roth interviewing other writers). He was a good but not a great writer.
The Blake Bailey kerfuffle is just more woke BS. The major publishers are scared witless of the Jacobins.
There’s an interesting article in the June issue of The New Criterion about Roth’s life and the current controversy.
Roth was a brilliant and prolific writer but a flawed (as we all are) human being. Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and Beranrd Malamud are three of my favorite post World War II writers. Yes, Neo we are entering the figurative book burning era.
When I was 13 I read “Portnoy’s Complaint” and I thought then and I still do now that it was brilliant.
BrooklynBoy:
Shortly after the notorious Portnoy came out, my parents happened to vacation on a cruise ship, and Roth’s parents were on the same ship. My parents said they were nice, and nothing like Portnoy’s parents in the book, but were already feeling the heat from it. If memory serves me, I recall that Roth’s parents told my parents that their son showed them the book prior to publication and warned them people might mistake it for autobiography, and to be prepared. They were very proud of him.
Maybe you saw the same magazines I did. I remember reading When She Was Good in the SatEvePost where it was serialized (unabridged, I think) in three parts. A large excerpt from Portnoy made its first appearance in New American Review, the Signet paperback magazine edited by Ted Solataroff. Can it have been just two years between those two books? The change was epochal — at a time when lots of changes seemed epochal, this truly was.
I can remember too when it was that my attraction to Roth’s fiction weakened and dissolved: it was in reading The Counterlife, not the first time he throws the story away in favor of metafiction games — but after he takes up the thread and then throws it away again. I struggled on to the end of the book, but I didn’t care anymore.
I read Catcher in The Rye when rather young. I read with wonderment. Here’s a guy who–“dysfunctional was not in my vocabulary at the time–kept stepping on his necktie and ends up in the rubber room. This was not my version of a coming of age novel. Hell, I grew up on Roy Blakely and Dick Prescott and about fifteen million WWII veterans.
I never got into such stories. Could not. Fortunately, I was never forced to in college classes.
Had I been required to get into those worlds, I’d have thought there must be something wrong with the author who couldn’t get his head out of those worlds.
Okay, so much for the buzzkill. I deplore cancelling anybody for almost any reason. I would have to think hard to come up with a justification.
It is not only hideously unfair, there is no defense since the individual in question is either dead or kafkatrapped.
I am made extremely uneasy by the numbers of people who sign on to any such effort. I am uneasy that such easy signers-on exist in such numbers. Without which, the tactic couldn’t work. So, by inference, such numbers exist.
And, of course, the flaw need not exist act all. Simply being the target of somebody with nothing better to do is sufficient.
Terrible.
Thanks, Neo.
Baceseras: “A large excerpt from Portnoy made its first appearance in New American Review, the Signet paperback magazine edited by Ted Solataroff. ”
Yes, that’s the excerpt I remember. I still have an image of that blue paperback in my mind.
I’m wondering when the cancel mob will come for revered liberal icon, J.D. Salinger. It seems to be on the way:
–““Predatory Men With a Taste for Teenagers” Joyce Maynard on the Chilling Parallels Between Woody Allen and J.D. Salinger”
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/04/joyce-maynard-on-chilling-parallels-woody-allen-and-jd-salinger
Actually Maynard is right. Woody Allen may not have molested Dylan Farrow, but he was a dodgy fellow when it came to young girls. Likewise Salinger. Maynard’s own case vis-a-vis JD was pretty ugly.
Which doesn’t mean either man should have all their works and bios consigned to the bonfire.
Anyone care to make the case for “Portnoy’s Complaint”?
I’m not looking for an argument; I’m curious.
@Huxley:
Res ipsa loquitur.
If Julius Streicher had invented Portnoy’s Complaint out of whole cloth, they would have hanged him for it.
Parthian Shot fired off, on a related topic there’s a story about some enthusiastic fan upon meeting James Joyce in Paris:
Fan: ‘Let me shake the hand that wrote Ulysses!’
Joyce: “It’s done a lot of other things, too.”
Simpler, more genteel times.
“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.”
As long as he didn’t buy his livers second hand from Roth, I guess.
Fan: ‘Let me shake the hand that wrote Ulysses!’
Joyce: “It’s done a lot of other things, too.”
Zaphod:
The world, especially Ireland, celebrates Bloomsday — June 16, 1904, the day in which the events of Joyce’s novel “Ulysses” takes place.
What was special about that day to Joyce? He went for a walk with his future wife, Nora, and she gave him a handjob.
Joyce has tricked the world into celebrating a handjob!
And it probably took Richard Ellmann to give us a blow by blow description with footnotes. The circle is complete. Commodius Vicus of Recirculation 😀
Joyce fascinates me. The older and more curmudgeonly I get, the more I disapprove of the man. But the level of insight into human and female nature at such an early age was genius precocity.
I’ve always wondered about the Why of Nora. Possibly fun-house mirroring of Molly Bloom’s reason for picking Poldy: ‘and I thought well as well him as another’ (since dey all hos anyways). Or did she really truly have some special muse-like hold over him? We’ve already established that she had a hold.
Then again, the Irish are a benighted matriarchal race in thrall to their womenfolk. Not the only one as both subject of this thread and Joyce and Ulysses itself suggest.
In other news, Hamas to issue a Fatwa against Joyce’s Ulysses in 3, 2, 1… or whenever they get around to reading it.
http://m.joyceproject.com/notes/040061agendath.html
Zaphod:
It’s been a while since I read Ellman or other secondary sources on Joyce. I never quite got what Nora had on Joyce either, but she did have a hold on him. Maybe “as well her as another.” She did have a frank nature about sexuality as well as general commonsense. Maybe that was enough. Try to imagine Joyce with Virginia Woolf!
I don’t think Nora was Molly Bloom. Nora was supposed to have been indignant when asked if she was Molly. “I’m not fat,” she countered.
Hell… I must go google and see if they did a Virginia Woolf sketch in that Psycho Bitches series. Someone here referenced Bronte Sisters yesterday and algo also bought up Mitford Sisters and Hildegard von Bingen. Should never have expanded the suffrage.
VW loathed Joyce and called him a pimply pervert or something similar. Then again she was a Lesbian Lizard Person.
Oh… here we are:
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/25/books/how-mrs-woolf-felt-about-mr-joyce.html
Mrs Dalloway is Brilliant.
“I don’t think Nora was Molly Bloom. Nora was supposed to have been indignant when asked if she was Molly. “I’m not fat,” she countered.”
Jingle.
No luck with Virginia Woolf as a Psycho Bitch.
But Lady Luck returns us again by meandering ways to the underlying unmentionable broad bubbling stream of (no not that, you sickos!) this here Thread:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Allow me to present today’s Psycho Bitch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9CEjBH0ASM
Amalia Freud.
Zaphod:
Woolf’s take on “Ulysses” was scathing, though she only read 200 pages of a 600+ page book, depending on the edition:
__________________________________________
An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me; the book of a self- taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking; and ultimately nauseating.
–Virginia Woolf diary entry on Joyce and “Ulysses”
__________________________________________
My take was that she was intimidated by Joyce, and rightly so. Calling Joyce illiterate is like calling Einstein algebraically-challenged. She didn’t get Joyce and she was afraid to try.
Some years ago I read Theodore Dalrymple’s deconstruction of Woolf:
–“The Rage of Virginia Woolf”
https://www.city-journal.org/html/rage-virginia-woolf-12371.html
He discusses her story, “Three Guineas,” about Woolf’s utopian vision in which the teaching of Western Civ is razed, men appreciate women and there is, therefore, no more war.
Woolf has her virtues, but I don’t take her very seriously.
@huxley:
“egotistic, insistent, raw, striking; and ultimately nauseating.”
Going to adopt this as my Credo. Set the bar high!
Post this on Farcebook for a free 30 day suspension.
Otherwise, I’ve got no complaint. Get it?