Claudia Roth Pierpont

This is a collection of remarks delivered at a birthday tribute for Philip Roth in 2013. It was a bit of lagniappe through my Library of America subscription, and I read it to see what admirers from the world of literature and philosophy had to say about Roth's work. I came away with a grudging acceptance of the fact that I probably am missing something, that Roth's body of work is more significant than its individual parts might suggest...but not with any desire to read further of Zuckerman or Sabbath. Roth's own comments at the event, which concludes this slim volume, annoyed me as much as anything else of his I've read. He just isn't talking to me. So, as my beautiful 18-month-old grandniece is fond of saying, I am, as far as Roth is concerned, emphatically "Done!". I did learn that he loves Faulkner. Well, good.
Review written in 2014… (mehr)

UN MAESTRO DELLE VOCI: DEGLI ALTERCHI, DELLE FACEZIE, DELLA COLONNA SONORA DI UNA MENTE AL LAVORO

Premesso che per apprezzare questo libro bisogna conoscere e amare, se non in toto almeno in buona parte, la produzione letteraria di P.R., si tratta un’opera di spessore, che segue attentamente l’evolvere e il maturare dello scrittore e collega con precisione vita e scrittura, vicende personali e amicizie letterarie. Chiarisce soprattutto molto bene chi è Nathan Zuckerman (o altri alter ego) e i limiti della sua adesione alla personalità e alla vita di P.R. Sarebbe infatti un errore scambiare la voce di un libro per la confessione autobiografica del suo autore ignorando quanto la rielaborazione romanzesca intervenga sul dato biografico.
Due cose sono chiare. In primo luogo, l’autrice, pur ammirando dichiaratamente P.R. (con il quale pur a dispetto del cognome non ha legami di parentela), non si è ‘innamorata’ dell’oggetto della sua indagine al punto di non vederne le, non rare, cadute. Per ogni romanzo esprime la sua valutazione, motivata e argomentata e riporta anche autorevoli opinioni diverse dalle sue. In più di un caso non mi trovo d’accordo (in tutto o in parte) con i suoi giudizi, ma questo è irrilevante. In secondo luogo, alla base del suo lavoro non c’è dilettantismo né improvvisazione, ma una lunga consuetudine con l’autore e una raccolta meticolosa della documentazione che lo riguarda. Dalla prefazione si evince che ha raccolto materiale per otto anni e due ne ha impiegati per la stesura del libro. C’è da crederle perché il risultato lo testimonia. Lettura consigliatissima a tutti coloro che amano quell’autore esuberante, esagerato, problematico, sensibilissimo, dalla penna impareggiabile e soprattutto mai dogmatico che è Philip Roth.
Due note biasimo: la prima per la traduttrice che ha fatto un uso sconsiderato di alcuni termini (negri, negretti, giudei). La seconda per l’autrice: la lista infinità dei ringraziamenti in calce al volume (manca solo il parrucchiere…) è vezzo ridicolo che chi ha scritto questo ottimo testo poteva benissimo risparmiarsi, riducendo l’elenco all’essenziale.… (mehr)

Relatively few writers use details from their personal lives in their fiction more than Philip Roth does in his. And that is exactly what makes Claudia Roth Pierpont’s Roth Unbound: A Writer and His Books so potentially fascinating.

Roth Unbound is not as much biography as it is literary criticism of one man’s entire writing career. Book by book, Pierpont examines everything written by Roth, from his best known and most successful novels, to his lesser known and least successful ones. What’s more, despite being a personal friend of Roth’s for a decade or so, Pierpont pulls no punches. She points out very clearly what she considers to be problems with many of his books and, in each of these instances, provides a detailed argument to build her case.

Readers hoping for details about Roth’s personal life, including how he constructs his novels and comes up with his plot lines will not be disappointed. Pierpont ‘s access to Roth, and his apparent willingness to share intimate details of his past with her for the book, exposes Roth’s past to much second-guessing on the part of readers and critics, alike. It is all part of what makes Philip Roth and his books so special to so many people, but it is also what makes certain segments of society (feminists, in particular) dislike him so intensely.

Although I own the entire Library of America collection of Roth’s work, I have not read all of his books yet, and frankly, if I were a reader new to Philip Roth, Roth Unbound might not encourage me to read them at all. Pierpont is just that honest and revealing about the shortcomings of some of Roth’s writing, books in which he was still struggling to find his voice or with which he somehow went completely off track. But she is quick to praise the brilliance of his best work and Roth, after all, is one of the finest and most important writers of the last sixty years.

So, do read Philip Roth. Use Roth Unbound to get some insight into the man who wrote the books, what was going on in his life when he wrote them, and into the books themselves. This is an excellent addition to the personal library of any reader of twentieth and twenty-first century fiction.… (mehr)