Philip Roth, the prize-winning novelist and fearless narrator of sex, death, assimilation and fate, from the comic madness of 91裸聊视频淧ortnoy91裸聊视频檚 Complaint91裸聊视频� to the elegiac lyricism of 91裸聊视频淎merican Pastoral,91裸聊视频� died Tuesday night at age 85.
Roth91裸聊视频檚 literary agent, Andrew Wylie, said that the author died in a New York City hospital of congestive heart failure.
Author of more than 25 books, Roth was a fierce satirist and uncompromising realist, confronting readers in a bold, direct style that scorned false sentiment or hopes for heavenly reward. He was an atheist who swore allegiance to earthly imagination, whether devising pornographic functions for raw liver or indulging romantic fantasies about Anne Frank. In 91裸聊视频淭he Plot Against America,91裸聊视频� published in 2004, he placed his own family under the anti-Semitic reign of President Charles Lindbergh. In 2010, in 91裸聊视频淣emesis,91裸聊视频� he subjected his native New Jersey to a polio epidemic.
He was among the greatest writers never to win the Nobel Prize. But he received virtually every other literary honour, including two National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle prizes and, in 1998, the Pulitzer for 91裸聊视频淎merican Pastoral.91裸聊视频� He was in his 20s when he won his first award and awed critics and fellow writers by producing some of his most acclaimed novels in his 60s and 70s, including 91裸聊视频淭he Human Stain91裸聊视频� and 91裸聊视频淪abbath91裸聊视频檚 Theater,91裸聊视频� a savage narrative of lust and mortality he considered his finest work.
He identified himself as an American writer, not a Jewish one, but for Roth the American experience and the Jewish experience were often the same. While predecessors such as Saul Bellow and Bernard Malamud wrote of the Jews91裸聊视频� painful adjustment from immigrant life, Roth91裸聊视频檚 characters represented the next generation. Their first language was English, and they spoke without accents. They observed no rituals and belonged to no synagogues. The American dream, or nightmare, was to become 91裸聊视频渁 Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness.91裸聊视频� The reality, more often, was to be regarded as a Jew among gentiles and a gentile among Jews.
In the novel 91裸聊视频淭he Ghost Writer91裸聊视频� he quoted one of his heroes, Franz Kafka: 91裸聊视频淲e should only read those books that bite and sting us.91裸聊视频� For his critics, his books were to be repelled like a swarm of bees.
Feminists, Jews and one ex-wife attacked him in print, and sometimes in person. Women in his books were at times little more than objects of desire and rage and The Village Voice once put his picture on its cover, condemning him as a misogynist. A panel moderator berated him for his comic portrayals of Jews, asking Roth if he would have written the same books in Nazi Germany. The Jewish scholar Gershom Scholem called 91裸聊视频淧ortnoy91裸聊视频檚 Complaint91裸聊视频� the 91裸聊视频渂ook for which all anti-Semites have been praying.91裸聊视频� When Roth won the Man Booker International Prize, in 2011, a judge resigned, alleging that the author suffered from terminal solipsism and went 91裸聊视频渙n and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book.91裸聊视频� In 91裸聊视频淪abbath91裸聊视频檚 Theater,91裸聊视频� Roth imagines the inscription for his title character91裸聊视频檚 headstone: 91裸聊视频淪odomist, Abuser of Women, Destroyer of Morals.91裸聊视频�
Ex-wife Claire Bloom wrote a bestselling memoir, 91裸聊视频淟eaving a Doll91裸聊视频檚 House,91裸聊视频� in which the actress remembered reading the manuscript of his novel 91裸聊视频淒eception.91裸聊视频� With horror, she discovered his characters included a boring middle-aged wife named Claire, married to an adulterous writer named Philip. Bloom also described her ex-husband as cold, manipulative and unstable. (Although, alas, she still loved him). The book was published by Virago Press, whose founder, Carmen Callil, was the same judge who quit years later from the Booker committee.
Roth91裸聊视频檚 wars also originated from within. He survived a burst appendix in the late 1960s and near-suicidal depression in 1987. After the disappointing reaction to his 1993 novel, 91裸聊视频淥peration Shylock,91裸聊视频� he fell again into severe depression and for years rarely communicated with the media. For all the humour in his work 91裸聊视频� and, friends would say, in private life 91裸聊视频� jacket photos usually highlighted the author91裸聊视频檚 tense, dark-eyed glare. In 2012, he announced that he had stopped writing fiction and would instead dedicate himself to helping biographer Blake Bailey complete his life story, one he openly wished would not come out while he was alive. By 2015, he had retired from public life altogether.
He never promised to be his readers91裸聊视频� friend; writing was its own reward, the narration of 91裸聊视频渓ife, in all its shameless impurity.91裸聊视频� Until his abrupt retirement, Roth was a dedicated, prolific author who often published a book a year and was generous to writers from other countries. For years, he edited the 91裸聊视频淲riters from the Other Europe91裸聊视频� series, in which authors from Eastern Europe received exposure to American readers; Milan Kundera was among the beneficiaries. Roth also helped bring a wider readership to the acclaimed Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld.
Roth began his career in rebellion against the conformity of the 1950s and ended it in defence of the security of the 1940s; he was never warmer than when writing about his childhood, or more sorrowful, and enraged, than when narrating the shock of innocence lost.
Roth was born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, a time and place he remembered lovingly in 91裸聊视频淭he Facts,91裸聊视频� 91裸聊视频滱merican Pastoral91裸聊视频� and other works. The scolding, cartoonish parents of his novels were pure fiction. He adored his parents, especially his father, an insurance salesman to whom he paid tribute in the memoir 91裸聊视频淧atrimony.91裸聊视频� Roth would describe his childhood as 91裸聊视频渋ntensely secure and protected,91裸聊视频� at least at home. He was outgoing and brilliant and, tall and dark-haired, especially attractive to girls. In his teens he presumed he would become a lawyer, a most respectable profession in his family91裸聊视频檚 world.
But after a year at Newark College of Rutgers University, Roth emulated an early literary hero, James Joyce, and fled his hometown. He transferred to Bucknell College in Pennsylvania and only returned to Newark on paper. By his early 20s, Roth was writing fiction 91裸聊视频� at first casually, soon with primary passion, with Roth observing he could never really be happy unless working on a novel, inside the 91裸聊视频渇un house91裸聊视频� of his imagination. 91裸聊视频淭he unlived, the surmise, fully drawn in print on paper, is the life whose meaning comes to matter most,91裸聊视频� he wrote in the novel 91裸聊视频淓xit Ghost.91裸聊视频�
After receiving a master91裸聊视频檚 degree in English from the University of Chicago, he began publishing stories in The Paris Review and elsewhere. Bellow was an early influence, as were Thomas Wolfe, Flaubert, Henry James and Kafka, whose picture Roth hung in his writing room.
Acclaim and controversy were inseparable. A short story about Jews in the military, 91裸聊视频淒efender of the Faith,91裸聊视频� introduced Roth to accusations of Jewish self-hatred. His debut collection, published in 1959, was 91裸聊视频淕oodbye, Columbus,91裸聊视频� featuring a love (and lust) title story about a working class Jew and his wealthier girlfriend. It brought the writer a National Book Award and some extra-literary criticism.
The aunt of the main character, Neil Klugman, is a meddling worrywart, and the upper-middle-class relatives of Neil91裸聊视频檚 girlfriend are satirized as shallow materialists. Roth believed he was simply writing about people he knew, but some Jews saw him as a traitor, subjecting his brethren to ridicule before the gentile world. A rabbi accused him of distorting the lives of Orthodox Jews. At a writers conference in the early 1960s, he was relentlessly accused of creating stories that affirmed the worst Nazi stereotypes.
But Roth insisted writing should express, not sanitize. After two relatively tame novels, 91裸聊视频淟etting Go91裸聊视频� and 91裸聊视频淲hen She was Good,91裸聊视频� he abandoned his good manners with 91裸聊视频淧ortnoy91裸聊视频檚 Complaint,91裸聊视频� his ode to blasphemy against the 91裸聊视频渦nholy trinity of 91裸聊视频渇ather, mother and Jewish son.91裸聊视频� Published in 1969, a great year for rebellion, it was an event, a birth, a summation, Roth91裸聊视频檚 triumph over 91裸聊视频渢he awesome graduate school authority of Henry James,91裸聊视频� as if history91裸聊视频檚 lid had blown open and out erupted a generation of Jewish guilt and desire.
As narrated by Alexander Portnoy, from a psychiatrist91裸聊视频檚 couch, Roth91裸聊视频檚 novel satirized the dull expectations heaped upon 91裸聊视频渘ice Jewish boys91裸聊视频� and immortalized the most ribald manifestations of sexual obsession. His manic tour of one man91裸聊视频檚 onanistic adventures led Jacqueline Susann to comment that 91裸聊视频淧hilip Roth is a good writer, but I wouldn91裸聊视频檛 want to shake hands with him.91裸聊视频� Although 91裸聊视频淧ortnoy91裸聊视频檚 Complaint91裸聊视频� was banned in Australia and attacked by Scholem and others, many critics welcomed the novel as a declaration of creative freedom. 91裸聊视频淧ortnoy91裸聊视频檚 Complaint91裸聊视频� sold millions, making Roth wealthy, and, more important, famous. The writer, an observer by nature, was now observed. He was an item in gossip columns, a name debated at parties. Strangers called out to him in the streets. Roth would remember hailing a taxi and, seeing that the driver91裸聊视频檚 last name was Portnoy, commiserating over the book91裸聊视频檚 notoriety.
In an Oval Office recording from November 1971, President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed the famous author, whom Nixon apparently confused with the pornographer Samuel Roth.
____
Haldeman: I never read 91裸聊视频淧ortnoy91裸聊视频檚 Complaint,91裸聊视频� but I understand it was a well written book but just sickeningly filthy.
Nixon: Roth is of course a Jew.
Haldeman: Oh, yes 91裸聊视频� He91裸聊视频檚 brilliant in a sick way.
Nixon: Oh, I know 91裸聊视频�
Haldeman: Everything he91裸聊视频檚 written has been sick 91裸聊视频�
____
With Roth finding himself asked whether he really was Portnoy, several of his post-Portnoy novels amounted to a dare: Is it fact of fiction? In 91裸聊视频淭he Anatomy Lesson,91裸聊视频� 91裸聊视频漈he Counterlife91裸聊视频� and other novels, the featured character is a Jewish writer from New Jersey named Nathan Zuckerman. He is a man of similar age to Roth who just happened to have written a 91裸聊视频渄irty91裸聊视频� bestseller, 91裸聊视频淐arnovsky,91裸聊视频� and is lectured by friends and family for putting their lives into his books.
91裸聊视频淥peration Skylock91裸聊视频� featured a middle-aged writer named Philip Roth, haunted by an impersonator in Israel who has a wild plan to lead the Jews back to Europe. In interviews, Roth claimed (not very convincingly) the story was true, lamenting that only when he wrote fiction did people think he was writing about his life.
Even when Roth wrote non-fiction, the game continued. At the end of his autobiography, 91裸聊视频淭he Facts,91裸聊视频� Roth included a disclaimer by Nathan Zuckerman himself, chastising his creator for a self-serving, inhibited piece of storytelling.
91裸聊视频淎s for characterization, you, Roth, are the least completely rendered of all your protagonists,91裸聊视频� Zuckerman tells him.
In the 1990s, after splitting with Bloom and again living full time in the United States (he had been spending much of his time in England), Roth reconnected with the larger world and culture of his native country. 91裸聊视频淎merican Pastoral91裸聊视频� narrated a decent man91裸聊视频檚 decline from high school sports star to victim of the 91裸聊视频�60s and the 91裸聊视频渋ndigenous American berserk.91裸聊视频� In 91裸聊视频淭he Human Stain,91裸聊视频� he raged against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton over his affair with a White House intern. 91裸聊视频淭he fantasy of purity is appalling. It91裸聊视频檚 insane,91裸聊视频� he wrote.
In recent years, Roth was increasingly preoccupied with history and its sucker punch, how ordinary people were defeated by events beyond their control, like the Jews in 91裸聊视频淭he Plot Against America91裸聊视频� or the college student in 91裸聊视频淚ndignation91裸聊视频� who dies in the Korean War. Mortality, 91裸聊视频渢he inevitable onslaught that is the end of life,91裸聊视频� became another subject, in 91裸聊视频淓veryman91裸聊视频� and 91裸聊视频淭he Humbling,91裸聊视频� despairing chronicles as told by a non-believer.
Writing proved the author91裸聊视频檚 most enduring relationship. Roth, who married Bloom in 1990, had one previous wife. In 1959, he was married to the former Margaret Martinson Williams, a time remembered bitterly in 91裸聊视频淭he Facts91裸聊视频� and in his novel 91裸聊视频淢y Life as a Man.91裸聊视频� They were legally separated in 1963 and she died in a car crash five years later. There were no children from either marriage.
Roth91裸聊视频檚 non-literary life could be as strange, if not stranger than his fiction. In the mid-91裸聊视频�90s, he split up with Bloom, whose acting roles included a part in Woody Allen91裸聊视频檚 91裸聊视频淐rimes and Misdemeanours.91裸聊视频� Roth then reportedly dated Mia Farrow, the ex-lover of Allen, who in another movie played a writer with the last name Roth.
Bloom turned her marriage into a memoir, and Roth turned her memoir into fiction. In the novel 91裸聊视频淚 Married a Communist,91裸聊视频� one character just happens to have been married to an actress who wrote a book about him after their divorce.
91裸聊视频淗ow could she publish this book and not expect him to do something?91裸聊视频� he asks. 91裸聊视频淒id she imagine this openly aggressive hothead was going to do nothing in response?91裸聊视频�
Related:
Related:
Hillel Italie, The Associated Press
Like us on and follow us on .
