[lit-ideas] Re: one of Exit Ghost's political points
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:34:26 -0500
IC:
>>He has that unreadable Saul Bellow style in that book.
Really? You find Bellow's style unreadable? It always intrigues me when
someone dislikes an author that I like a lot. Of recent I've been re-reading
"Mr. Sammler's Planet". The first time I read it must have been 30 or 35 years
ago. I truly don't remember any of it until reading it. We're talking long
term memory, folks, not your expected short term lapses with age. But at least
I remember having read passages, and not remember what comes next keeps me
going. The Fawcett paperback that I'm re-reading was printed in 1971. All the
pages are yellowed and nearly as fragile as dried butterfly wings, tending to
crumble at the edges with any less than delicate turning. I am not a delicate
man. But I insist on re-reading this copy because there are several underlined
passages (by moi) and they fascinate me because in most cases I can't remember
or even imagine why I underscored those particular lines -- was it the thought
or the style that had so grabbed my attention back then? Most seem rather
ordinary now. Maybe it's just that the thoughts or the stylistics have become
so much a part of me in my maturity that I no longer come to them as new or
exciting or epiphanic or whatever. Maybe maturity has robbed me of the charm
of life. "Maturity", I hate that word, it was constantly thrown into my face
as a teenager and a college student and even as a new teacher by the old hands.
"When you a little older..." they would always say. I can't remember now who
said it, someone hippy-like no doubt: "Maturity is the state of being totally
disillusioned" (by the tenor of your posts, Irene, I think you should claim the
title of Most Mature Member of Lit-Id -- that's meant endearingly, my friend).
I've just now flipped through the book to find the last underlined passage, it
occurs 30 pages before the end of the novel:
"Life when it had no charm was entirely question-and-answer....This poverty of
soul, its abstract state, you could see in the faces on the street. And he too
had a touch of the same disease -- the disease of the single self explaining
what was what and who was who."
This passage is an exception to what I've said. It catches my attention. I'm
sure I relate more to this passage now than I could have as a thirty-something
year old. Or maybe not, maybe, just maybe, I was one fucking precocious
fellow. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Mike Geary
Memphis
Better than Bellows.
----- Original Message -----
From: Andy
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 1:40 PM
Subject: [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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