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    Philip Roth RIP

    In a slightly eerie coincidence, I finished reading American Pastoral yesterday. Not my favourite writer I confess, but undoubtedly significant and certainly prolific. I really liked The Plot Against America, probably because i have thing for alternate histories.

    Farewell Zuckerman...

    #2
    I was going to say almost the exact same thing. I've struggled with, or was just bored by, a bunch of his stuff, but really enjoyed The Plot Against America.

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      #3
      I sat next to him in a hotel, lobby in Washington DC once. I was waiting for someone, and the seat next to him on a sofa was the only one available. I had no idea who he was until in breezed some suit with an effusive and somewhat sycophantic "Mr Roth! So so sorry to keep you waiting"

      If anyone wants me to turn that not-even-much-of-an-anecdote into an obituary, I could probably stretch it to a couple of hundred words.

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        #4
        Going to need a little more there, ad Hoc. Currently the suit who breezes in has got a bigger role than the late Mr Roth (RIP).

        Liked his book about his dad dying.

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          #5
          The only book of his that I've read is 'The Plot Against America'. I thought it was pretty good. Believable in how the small aggressions against the Jewish community 'for their own good' and supported by powerful influencers in the community as reasonable and well intentioned built up and up to the brink of a pogrom.

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            #6
            One of my all-time favourite writers. Apart from Portnoy's Complaint, The Professor of Desire and Sabbath's Theatre are brilliant, as well as all the Zuckermann series and his under-rated but brilliant baseball novel, The Great American Novel. I think I've read all or almost all of his books, and the only one I couldn't get along with was American Pastoral, which bored me rigid. It was like reading Richard fucking Ford. Which is a shame, because it got such amazing reviews that lots of people I know tried it as their first Roth novel, gave up, and then demanded to know why I was always raving about him.

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              #7
              Count me among the number put off by American Pastoral. It should have been the great novel it was claimed to me but all I can remember of it now was having to trudge through pages of turgid prose about the manufacture of gloves. I also read a book of his about the ageing process. It aged me.

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                #8
                I just had haggis for lunch, possibly a subconscious toast in offal to PR.


                Count me in with the put off by American Pastoral crowd. I might give him another go, picking more judiciously from the oeuvre.
                Last edited by Benjm; 23-05-2018, 12:09.

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                  #9
                  I didn't think American Pastoral was all that bad - not his best work certainly, but not a struggle either. But then I like Richard Ford, so maybe I'm the wrong person to ask...

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                    #10
                    I started a thread back in 2015 on his I Married A Communist, the novel of his which I really loved.

                    https://www.onetouchfootball.com/sho...ed-A-Communist

                    That novel and The Plot Against America were much more readable than some of his more experimental stuff, such as the incomprehensible (to me) Operation Shylock

                    PBS' American Masters on Roth was very good, as is this BBC doc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh_tCH4ztRM

                    I would have loved to read Roth on Trump but he was very ill in the last few years and seems to have effectively retired in 2010.
                    Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 23-05-2018, 14:05.

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                      #11
                      I Married a Communist and The Human Stain were excellent, I've got a few of his other novels unread on my bookshelf.

                      RIP.

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                        #12
                        Patrimony is his book about his father.

                        I’d recommend it to anyone whose parent is dying.

                        Another Richard Ford fan here.

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                          #13
                          I tried with Richard Ford, God knows I tried. I read The Sportswriter and Independence Day all the way through, hoping and waiting for... something. I got so far with both books that it became a point of pride to finish them (not something I bother doing any more, though), and I don't know why I read the latter several years after the former. It was like being in one of those meetings where a middle manager is droning on but won't get to the point, except that I felt that there had to be a point where the fog would clear. There had to be, because he's so acclaimed! File under 'narrator needs a fucking slap'.

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                            #14
                            https://twitter.com/Tom_Gatti/status/999377219918155776

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                              #15
                              Have you read Ford's short stories, imp? Rock Springs is good, i think

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                                #16
                                One of my favorite writers as well. It's interesting, American Pastoral did not click with me as well, but of that trilogy, I thought the Human Stain was brilliant at the time. I haven't read them again.

                                His run in the late 70s/early 80s was insane in how good those books are, especially The Counterlife. Operation Shylock is another one of my favorites of his.

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                                  #17
                                  That‘s class - has all the economy and pace that (for me at least) is missing from his novels. Must look into that volume.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by imp View Post
                                    That‘s class - has all the economy and pace that (for me at least) is missing from his novels. Must look into that volume.
                                    Really glad you (as the board's short story maven) liked it. Thanks for reading

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