Is Philip Roth America's 'Greatest Living Novelist'?

[Dan Dare]

Can it really be true?

Has American culture and society really become so degenerate that a toe-curlingly self-absorbed Jewish soft-porn merchant can legitimately lay claim to being its Greatets Living Novelist?

… Philip Roth is America’s greatest living novelist. His books are the most widely anticipated literary events on both sides of the Atlantic – no other writer working today mixes universal critical acclaim with such broad popularity. His latest book, Exit Ghost (his 28th), is due out next month, and is certain to be the most important of the season.

Roth was born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, the oldest child of Herman and Bessie Roth, first-generation Jewish-Americans. He graduated from high school at the age of 16 and went on to study with Saul Bellow at the University of Chicago. His debut novel, Goodbye, Columbus (1959), earned him the National Book Award – the first of many big prizes – but it wasn’t until the raunchy, hilarious Portnoy’s Complaint, in 1969, that he became a bestseller. Although always popular, Roth’s work underwent a resurgence during the 1990s, when, over an astonishing five-year period, he won all four of America's leading literary prizes – for four different books.

One of the keys to his success is his ability to discuss the weightiest of topics – faith, marriage, family – while at the same time being the sexiest writer in the business. Ever since Portnoy’s Complaint, Roth’s work has been characterised by a feverish interest in sex that occasionally teeters on the edge of the pornographic. Yet his work also remains a highly serious discussion of man’s tenuous place in an increasingly hostile world. Like so many prophets before him, Roth sees man as a fallen creature. It’s just that he usually sees man as falling into bed.

…


Source (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2499856.ece)

[Errigal]

Can it really be true?

Has American culture and society really become so degenerate that a toe-curlingly self-absorbed Jewish soft-porn merchant can legitimately lay claim to being its Greatets Living Novelist?

Source (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2499856.ece)


I'm starting to wonder if WASP America even exists. Look at how Lieberman can do as he wishes with Connecticut, the Duke lacrosse witch-hunt can come and go with no great outrage and Deshowitz and his ilk can use Ivy League universities as false-fronts for their various warmongering and liberty-stealing projects. At the same time America's diplomatic corps working the Middle East and Europe are evidently staffed by every Jew who can hold a pencil because the WASPs have ceded the field.

If they can't even be bothered to fight for sweet jobs like ambassador, senator or celebrity university professor, how can one expect the WASPs to write some good novels? Sadly, I'm sure many WASPs have the skill and the brains but America's book publishing world is no longer in their hands.

[harjit]

I'm starting to wonder if WASP America even exists. Look at how Lieberman can do as he wishes with Connecticut, the Duke lacrosse witch-hunt can come and go with no great outrage and Deshowitz and his ilk can use Ivy League universities as false-fronts for their various warmongering and liberty-stealing projects. At the same time America's diplomatic corps working the Middle East and Europe are evidently staffed by every Jew who can hold a pencil because the WASPs have ceded the field.

If they can't even be bothered to fight for sweet jobs like ambassador, senator or celebrity university professor, how can one expect the WASPs to write some good novels? Sadly, I'm sure many WASPs have the skill and the brains but America's book publishing world is no longer in their hands.
Actually, rather than a non-existent WASP culture, I would actually prefer that this be a sign of WASPs so firmly secure as to just continue being gracious and unconcerned about such minutiae, because that is what it is.

Racialists on the internet are exceptionally petty, is my assumption.

[1-800]

Actually, rather than a non-existent WASP culture, I would actually prefer that this be a sign of WASPs so firmly secure as to just continue being gracious and unconcerned about such minutiae, because that is what it is.

Racialists on the internet are exceptionally petty, is my assumption.

Actually, allowing an apologist for war crimes and torture like the reptilian Dershowitz to teach at one of our nation's most prestigious law schools is more than mere 'minutiae'. Ditto for the Duke railroading, which was one of the most brazen examples of prosecutorial misconduct imaginable, as well as a flashpoint for a breathtaking display of media hypocrisy. Not to mention that all three athletes were, with the original charges, looking at upwards of a dozen years in prison.

[Dan Dare]

Among the other minutiae that harjit would prefer WASPs remained graciously unconcerned about is the dramatic demographic transition that is underway in all of the countries that comprise the Anglosphere.

[harjit]

Actually, allowing an apologist for war crimes and torture like the reptilian Dershowitz to teach at one of our nation's most prestigious law schools is more than mere 'minutiae'. Ditto for the Duke railroading, which was one of the most brazen examples of prosecutorial misconduct imaginable, as well as a flashpoint for a breathtaking display of media hypocrisy. Not to mention that all three athletes were, with the original charges, looking at upwards of a dozen years in prison.
Actually, yes, I concede you are right about the Duke case, I forgot about the consequences for the people involved.

Dershowitz, well, that is just a case of a poor and unconvincing commentator, no worse than many (in fact countless) Americans.

[harjit]

Among the other minutiae that harjit would prefer WASPs remained graciously unconcerned about is the dramatic demographic transition that is underway in all of the countries that comprise the Anglosphere.
Well, I honestly would rather that they continue to exist in substantial numbers. Perhaps even continue to dominate, culturally.

Living in such uptight and strict punctual and "by the book" kind of place like Japan probably does a lot of good for a loosy-goosey dude like myself, but it also frequently reminds me of what a barrel of fun white people are, especially Anglo/Germanic types.

[Jake Featherston]

I read one of Phillip Roth's novels from the 90s. It was pretty good, but greatest living novelist? Please. Gore Vidal is way better, for one.

[Errigal]

Actually, rather than a non-existent WASP culture, I would actually prefer that this be a sign of WASPs so firmly secure as to just continue being gracious and unconcerned about such minutiae, because that is what it is.

Racialists on the internet are exceptionally petty, is my assumption.

Yeah, everything is just fine. :)

To be honest, I really haven't been able to get worked up about the recent series of riots in Burma; it is just too far away and I feel no connection to the place. I admit I literally can't care about everything. On the other hand I don't go on Burmese activist websites and say "everything seems fine from where I'm sitting. You guys need to relax."

[Dan Dare]

Well let's put harjit's diversionary efforts to one side, and return to the matter at hand.

Can there really be any serious suggestion that Roth deserves to be bracketed with the likes of Twain, James, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway and Steinbeck et al among the ranks of Greatest Novelist of the Day?

But who else is there? Updike? Cheever? If there has to be a Jew in the running, surely Norman Mailer outranks Roth in every respect.

The list peters out pretty quickly ...

Perhaps Charles Murray was right after all when he suggested that little of the West's cultural output from 1950 on would still be valued two hundred years from now, in the way in which we treasure the likes of Mozart and Dickens.

[Crowley]

I read one of Phillip Roth's novels from the 90s. It was pretty good, but greatest living novelist? Please. Gore Vidal is way better, for one.

Who is the greatest American novelist since Bukowski died? Thomas Wolfe would be acceptable in my view..

[Raskolnikov]

It wouldn't be much of an achievement, but I doubt it.

[Charlie Robespierre]

Oddly enough I'm not the slightest bit surprised that this pervoyer of tabloid smut is being lauded in such a fashion. Idiots are heralded as kings in a socety that is hurtling towards its demise. The idea that he is on par with Twain or Hemingway is an idea that I find quite obscene..

[Jake Featherston]

Thomas Wolfe would be acceptable in my view..

I'll go with Tom Wolfe. A Man in Full was one of the very best novels I ever read, and I've been meaning to re-read Bonfire of the Vanities. He also produces good non-fiction.

[Geist]

Roth has been on an exceptional run since American Pastoral.

[Crowley]

I'll go with Tom Wolfe. A Man in Full was one of the very best novels I ever read, and I've been meaning to re-read Bonfire of the Vanities. He also produces good non-fiction.

Yes, Tom Wolfe rather than Thomas Wolfe the author of the boring and way too long Look Homeward Angel.

[Errigal]

Yes, Tom Wolfe rather than Thomas Wolfe the author of the boring and way too long Look Homeward Angel.

Yeah, I have to admit I slipped out before the end of that book. I much prefer John Dos Passos when it comes to American writers of that era.

[Crowley]

Yeah, I have to admit I slipped out before the end of that book. I much prefer John Dos Passos when it comes to American writers of that era.


I think I read Manhattan Transfer but to be honest don't remember a thing about it. Can you suggest one of his better books?

[Errigal]

I think I read Manhattan Transfer but to be honest don't remember a thing about it. Can you suggest one of his better books?

I liked both Manhattan Transfer and The Big Money myself.

[Crowley]

I'll give The Big Money a try.

[Burrhus]

Who is the greatest American novelist since Bukowski died? Thomas Wolfe would be acceptable in my view..

Bukowski was America's greatest poet but only a middling novelist in my opinion. But then I don't read novels anymore (I read one or two of Bukowski's). I did read the 12 books in the Left Behind series but they were really apologias disguised as novels. I read them for insights into christian zionist dispensationalism.

[Crowley]

Bukowski was America's greatest poet but only a middling novelist in my opinion. But then I don't read novels anymore (I read one or two of Bukowski's). I did read the 12 books in the Left Behind series but they were really apologias disguised as novels. I read them for insights into christian zionist dispensationalism.

Bukowski's novels are great. Try the early bukowskian classics Factotum or Women. Of later stuff try Ham On Rye, Hollywood, Post Office ... any of them really. His short stories as well are good. The only book that is substandard is a recent posthumous collection of poems recently put out by his daughter no doubt looking for a fresh injection of filthy lucre. I won't argue that he was a great American poet as I actually read and enjoyed his poetry, and I hate poetry generally speaking.

[Jake Featherston]

Roth has been on an exceptional run since American Pastoral.

That's the one I read; couldn't recall the title.

[Kamandi]

Roth is a great novelist, but I'd say Thomas Pynchon is probably our greatest living fiction writer (if he's actually in the US anyhow). As in the case of Henry Miller, Roth's books aren't "smut" simply because they deal with sex frankly. It's hardly as if he had no motive for writing them besides appealing to prurient interests.

[Geist]

Roth is a great novelist, but I'd say Thomas Pynchon is probably our greatest living fiction writer (if he's actually in the US anyhow). As in the case of Henry Miller, Roth's books aren't "smut" simply because they deal with sex frankly. It's hardly as if he had no motive for writing them besides appealing to prurient interests.

Indeed. Chaucer had more smut in his work than Roth ever will.

[Jake Featherston]

Roth is a great novelist, but I'd say Thomas Pynchon is probably our greatest living fiction writer (if he's actually in the US anyhow).

It doesn't matter where he resides. I don't really know anything about Pynchon, so I'll cite Gore Vidal as an example: He lives in Italy, but I can't imagine either himself or anyone else would mistake him for anything other than an American writer.

[Kamandi]

It's a technical point.

[Jake Featherston]

It's a technical point.

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