[lit-ideas] Re: one of Exit Ghost's political points

Doesn't change anything.  The sky did fall in 2000 in nobody noticed.  I 
started his book My Sister Was a Communist (or something like that) and I 
didn't like it.  He has that unreadable Saul Bellow style in that book.  I did 
like that one about the black guy who passes as a white guy (can't think of the 
name) and of course I liked Portnoy's Complaint which was hysterically funny in 
a truly spot on way of how to crush a child in 18 years..
 


--- On Fri, 10/31/08, Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: one of Exit Ghost's political points
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, October 31, 2008, 5:27 PM

 >>In a real sense the sky did fall, only in real life 
nobody noticed.  It's curious that, apparently, Roth 
thinks only trustfunded literary types were impotently 
outraged about that 'election', some of whom make a 
joke about it.  This financial catastrophe is all part 
and parcel of it.


You, especially, should read _Exit Ghost_. It might 
make it easier for you to give yourself a break and 
laugh a bit.

Roth's Zuckerman is a self-described old-fashioned New 
York Jewish liberal intellectual who cut his political 
teeth working twice for Adlai Stevenson's campaigns.

At the part of the novel cited, Zuckerman is surrounded 
by thirty-somethings, none of whom were old enough to 
be appalled by Nixon or any of the other 
disappointments that constitute a political memory. For 
these relative sprouts and yearlings, the 2004 election 
is "the most important election ever." Ha, isn't it always?

As these self-centered, ambitious, and vain characters 
fume over Kerry's defeat, Roth records many of the same 
dire predictions, apocalyptic declarations, and 
hysterical hate-filled snipes I have heard from 
friends, acquaintances, and strangers in New York. As a 
social document goes, Roth is spot on.

Those scenes hold many unconsciously-ironic formulae, 
part of the orchestrated charade, which could be 
summarized as, "All those fascist Republicans should be 
rounded up and shot!"

All the best to you,
Eric
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