A great American novelist dies
Philip Roth: A Life Recalled
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Books Is Alexander Portnoy White?
It’s struck me lately that the American writer perhaps most deeply associated with White Male Writer-ness is one who made his name writing fiction about identity. Google “Philip Roth” and “white male” and you find an endless stream of essays that offer up Roth as a prime example of the white male literary novelist. As…
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Culture Why Zadie Smith Thinks Philip Roth, and Alexander Portnoy, Changed The World
Who is Philip Roth? Most of us agree on the known particulars: he’s a novelist (obviously), a Jew, a Newark native. Depending on who you ask, he is also a pervert, a misogynist, a narcissist, a chauvinist, and/or a self-hating Jew. (I got that list from quickly Googling “most frequent criticisms of Philip Roth;” I…
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Culture At His Library in Newark, Philip Roth Names 15 of His Favorite Books
Philip Roth is one of Newark, New Jersey’s most famous sons. The novelist was born there, and has frequently used the city as a setting for his books. Now, he’s paying homage to Newark by pledging to donate his personal library to the Newark Public Library upon his death. In a press release, Roth explained…
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Culture Zadie Smith’s Lecture, Nora Ephron’s Revolt and 4 Other Things To Watch, Read, And Do This Weekend
Last weekend Rachel Bloom made us laugh, cry and sing with the season premier of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” Ewan McGregor gave us a film adaptation of “American Pastoral” that the Forward’s Adam Langer found disappointing (sorry), and we swooned, again, for Leonard Cohen. What’s grabbing our attention this week? Holocaust denial, more Philip Roth, and the…
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Film & TV Have Mediocre Movies Like ‘American Pastoral’ Hurt Philip Roth’s Chances For a Nobel Prize?
If there’s one moment that bugs Philip Roth more than any in “American Pastoral,” the new film adaptation of his explosive Pulitzer Prize-winning 1997 novel, I’m guessing it’s this one: During an overwrought scene of domestic conflict between Newark’s one-time golden boy Swede Levov and his bilious, radical teenage daughter Merry, the camera lingers on…
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The Schmooze A Philip Roth Film, a Leonard Cohen Profile and 5 More Things To Watch, Read and Do This Weekend
Depending on where you are, it’s either fall or supposed to be. (New York has had a week of balmy temperatures, with turning leaves the only hint of autumn.) Oscar-contending films are being released, television shows are embarking on new seasons, and as evenings descend earlier, books are beckoning from the shelves. What better time…
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The Schmooze How Philip Roth Won the Battle for the Jews
This month Anne reads “The Conversion of the Jews,” by Philip Roth In 1959, Philip Roth published a novella and five stories. The collection was called “Goodbye, Columbus,” and it won that year’s National Book Award. Everybody was talking about the new young writer who had a brash, unconventional, authentic voice and a thumb-in-your-eye spirit….
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Culture Will Bob Dylan, Jaan Kaplinski or Philip Roth Win the Nobel Prize This Year?
Some book lovers see the annual circus around the Nobel Prize in literature as mostly Swedish political meshugas, often not primarily about quality of writing. Others retain optimism about the award’s potential for spreading news about worthy honorees such as Imre Kertész (2002); Joseph Brodsky (1987); Elias Canetti (1981), and Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978). The…
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Culture Was Casanova an antisemite, a believer in Kabbalah — or both?
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