The Counterlife
by Philip Roth
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Book Summary Information
Author: Philip RothEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1996-08-06
ISBN: 0679749047
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of The Counterlife
Book Review: A SPIRITUAL BACKED POTATO
Summary: 5 Stars
The Countertife, by Philip Roth (Page numbers refer to 1988 Penguin Books edition)
Nathan Zuckerman, Jewish writer, husband of several gentile wives, a guy who believes that thinking about things matters, this literary invention of Philip Roth, works out his own death and life on paper. Zuckerman pieces together his fate and then takes it apart in varied settings: New York, Israel, and England; at the Wailing Wall, airborne, at a carol service in London's West End - "it was as though they were symbolically feasting upon, communally devouring, a massive spiritual baked potato" (p. 295).
For Philip Roth identity issues takes shape in very personal terms. Zuckerman the Jew is ambivalent about ritual circumcision. He insists it be performed on his son, yet he sees circumcision as proof that "the heavy hand of human values falls upon you right at the start. . ." (P. 370). He is revolted by both the intensities of Israeli Semitism and the subtleties of London's anti-Semitism: "the land of the shootout" and "the land of the carol service" (P. 336). He lives not in Israel but in the Diaspora because he likes it.
An awareness of Jewish history, Jewish pain, is ever present, the pain of those who "couldn't go on being themselves without inciting to violence ominous forces against which they hadn't the slightest means of defense" (p. 59).
Disharmony and discord is everywhere in this book. Yet there is acceptance. The Israeli zealot on the kibbutz, the cynical Jerusalem journalist, the detached wordsmith from New Jersey concede nothing yet arrive at a tense accommodation to each other's Jewishness.
Everyone has sharp human edges here. A mistress or wife is more than an occasion for fantasizing or a foil for rebellion against domesticity. These women challenge the premises and the behavior of the Zuckerman brothers, the semi-famous novelist Nathan, over committed to the idea of meaning-through-observation, and the thoroughly professional and depressed dentist Henry, over committed to the idea of fulfillment-through-liberation/resignation.
Roth drives home his points with lucidity and assertiveness. Of course there are contradictions: "What matters isn't what made you do it but what you do" (p. 158). "Anybody can run away and survive; the trick was to stay and survive" (p. 268). "Life is the adventure of losing your way" (p. 147). Philip Roth's work exemplifies the integrity of serious imaginative writing that puzzles out life's incapacities and joys.
This review has been published in a collection of reviews and articles, That's What I'm Talking About (Nativa 2008). THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT
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