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THE HINDU
SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2018
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The man who had a fanatical habit of writing every day
Philip Roth wrote about Jews, communists and America. But his works were not mere narratives with a cause; they were sensitive observations of human behaviour
he said to a French magazine, Les in man accused of racism, the conse protagonists who were comical, self
Rocks, in 2012: “I dedicated my life to quences of political radicalisation of aware, lustful, despairing, cruel, misun
the novel. I studied them, I taught them, children on families, the complex rela derstood and ultimately lost in the laby
I wrote them, and I read them. At the ex tionship between an American Jew and rinths of their own making. The women
clusion of nearly everything else. It’s Israel, watching the death of one’s own in Roth’s novels were often a foil for
enough!” He, like the rest of us, wanted father, capitalist paranoias about secret male anxieties; they were stoic reci
to watch sports, go to museums, put his Communists organisations, the use of pients of the mindless cruelty that men
Keerthik Sasidharan feet up and watch TV. Nearly two weeks an alter ego as a narrator, and so on. Ho are capable of doling out without fo
is a writer and lives in New York City ago, when Roth died at the age of 85, I wever, to imagine Roth’s novels as a nar rethought or contrition. Predictably,
wondered if his last years were what he ratives in search of a cause to shroud during his life, charges of misogyny and
In 2012, the great American writer Phi had hoped or imagined they would be themselves around is to mistake the Jewish selfhatred followed. Faced with
lip Roth announced to the world that he when he stopped writing. proverbial trunk for the elephant. such criticisms, Roth did what he had al
THE NEW YORK TIMES
would stop writing. At the age of 79 — af ways done: he wrote another novel. Not
ter a lifetime of 30odd novels, a cup A literary engine An inward gaze as a petulant response but as a sort of
board full of prizes, and more criticism Since 1959, when he published his fi rst The social contexts of Roth’s novels refuge in the only real shelter he knew
and adulation than most writers could collection of short stories (Goodbye, Co were merely ecologies, which were in he could rely on.
imagine — he declared that he was done lumbus), Roth’s presence simmered in themselves less interesting. Of even In 2012, when he stopped writing, it
chiselling away at paragraphs to build the American literary skies, like the lesser interest to his novels were the ide meant giving up on his “fanatical habit
temples of prose. His literary back, after trails of a jet engine: as a wonder to be Up close, however, one begins to dis vorce, when he wrote a cunningly archi ologies, the various isms, in whose of writing” every day. It was as if an is
one too many Sistine Chapels in words, hold but also proof that the afterglow of cern that his writings transcended sim tected but terribly funny psychoanalytic name much social tumult followed. In land had lowered its levees, not only to
had given away. He was tired of being his fame was a consequence of the ex pleminded meditations on identity. His confessional (Portnoy’s Complaint) by a contrast, he was interested in humans learn to quit the narcotic joys of rhythm
alone, standing in front of his computer, traordinary literary engine that operat themes were ultimately all too human in garrulous, chronically masturbating ba and how they seek to present them and predictability, but also to let life en
while his fi ngers and mind agonised to ed with great precision and effi ciency. that they watched with sensitivity and chelor living under the omniscient gaze selves to other humans. The result of ter in all its chaos and beauty.
birth another novel. It wasn’t the liter His literary output appeared in books candour the various strategies of recon of his mother. By the 2000s, in an act of this inward gaze were unrelenting, sen The last years of Philip Roth would
ary artefact called the ‘novel’ that tired tores with a constancy that belied how ciliation, deception and rebellion startling premonition, he imagined an sitive, and closeup observations of hu have made a good premise for a Philip
him; it was the very act of writing, the fi nely choreographed his novels were in adopted by individuals to survive the America swept into the arms of an isola man behaviour. Resultantly, one could Roth novel — the afterlife of an author
fog of loneliness in front of a blank page terms of plot, psychological depth, and hand they are dealt with by life. tionist, antiSemitic, quasi fascist, male mistake Roth’s oeuvre for a catalogue of who had given up on writing and begun
through which all who seek to write sensuousness of style. From afar, one Roth burst into popular fame in the volent demagogue. Along the way, his human grotesque. Deceptions, infi deli to live. But that is now never to be. A
must ferry past. could form the impression that all that 1960s, by then well into his thirties and novels made pit stops to refl ect upon ties, selfdeceptions and betrayals great and magnifi cent island has sub
As for the the art form of the ‘novel’, Roth wrote was about Jews in America. struggling in the aftermath of his di public shaming, a lightly coloured black abounded in his works. This resulted in merged.
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