The Literary Vagaries of Philip Roth
The Guardian considers Roth.
I still haven't come to terms with Roth and don't know that it lies within me to do so. So much a product of his generation that he can be alienating to those who are not, his often fetishistic descriptions of sex are sometime beyond the pale of nauseating. And then he gives us The Plot Against America, a masterpiece.
Part of my problem with Roth is that I simply can't figure out how seriously to take him when he is writing about sexual excess. Is he writing to critique or writing to promote? Sometimes it seems the former, and then I find myself most amenable to his writing, and other times it seems the latter and it's all I can do not to throw the book across the room.
I still haven't come to terms with Roth and don't know that it lies within me to do so. So much a product of his generation that he can be alienating to those who are not, his often fetishistic descriptions of sex are sometime beyond the pale of nauseating. And then he gives us The Plot Against America, a masterpiece.
Part of my problem with Roth is that I simply can't figure out how seriously to take him when he is writing about sexual excess. Is he writing to critique or writing to promote? Sometimes it seems the former, and then I find myself most amenable to his writing, and other times it seems the latter and it's all I can do not to throw the book across the room.
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