The death of Philip Roth, the end of an era?

No... doubt I will either. I almost always to read something new than re-tread old ground.

He's cancelled isn't he. As he was many times in life. He certainly had a weird (or all too typical?) attitude to women.

I recently read "Sabbath's Theatre", which is first shocking then tedious about sex, which mirrors the monomaniacal mindset of the protagonist, but which is also in parts really funny, and tender, and is so grippingly written throughout.

I reread the beginning of "Portnoy" again too. It's so funny and what struck me more than the obscenity which I'd read it for the first time (which is still very funny, e.g. Portnoy bearing down on an apple core as he imagines it begging "big boy" for more) was the Voice. It's hysterical in both senses. I'm not sure if I could read the whole thing again, mind you.

What Roth is really good at is summoning a sense of righteous indignation towards moralists. Which sometimes becomes bitterness of the old man on lawn variety.

version said:

James Wolcott · Sisyphus at the Selectric: Undoing Philip Roth · LRB 20 May 2021

Exemplary craftsman, incorrigible satyr, subversive joker, avid grievance collector, liberal humanist, good son, bad...

www.lrb.co.uk

Click to expand...

I really liked how this was written btw. Made me seek out more James Wolcott stuff.

mailer certainly would have been cancelled by today's standards. I think they all still have merit, in context of what they did at the time.