fiction files redux discussion

Please join us (Dan, Elizabeth, Les, and Smartykate) for a group read of Sabbath's Theater. Some of our most trusted members have extolled it as Roth's best, so we're ready to dive in and start reading. Most of us have a pretty heavy reading load right now (Moby Dick, anyone?), so I'm guessing discussion won't get rolling until the first or second week of May. Grab a copy if you're so inclined and throw in with us...

Yeah, join us! I've got to plow through a few books first (including the last third of Moby Dick), but I have Sabbath's sitting right here on my shelf waiting for it's turn!

Can't wait to hear your observations about a strong cup of Roth. I'm thrilled that one of his best will be new to me.

Will try. Find it hard to believe that I sold it, things like that happen if you move 8 times in 10 years.

I'm taking the plunge today, since I've finally caught up on my other reading. I'm a little creeped out by the pointy-bearded guy on the cover leering at me from my nightstand.

I started it early this morning. I know most of you can probably identify when Roth writes as a writer. I actually have had the job title 'assistant puppeteer.' :) Ha, Ha. I got paid in singles and food that was mostly wrapped in phyllo dough.

I sympathize about the nightstand, Martha. I am starting to have nightmares about the missile on the cover of Gravity's Rainbow.

I'll start it today after work!

Well I've hit the ground running and have quickly blown through the first 40 pages. I get the sense I am going to like this book.

So let's talk about chapter one a bit, what do you make out of the first 35 or so pages? The set up of Sabbath's relationship with Drenka and how the chapter ends?

I don't want to say more until I am sure some of you have gotten a chance to read it.

***********Chapter 1 Spoiler!********************
I'm loving this book so far. The rollicking pace and the bawdy, raunchy exchange between these two had me from the first page. It's so very different from American Pastoral (the last Roth I read) which spends so much of the first part of the book winding through exposition. Here, he just dives headfirst into Mickey and Drenka's unusual relationship, further complicated by her ultimatum, then pulls the rug from underneath our feet by killing her off by the end of Chapter 1. What? It does at least seem (from what I've read of Chapter 2) that we'll have plenty of flashbacks as Mickey tries to process what has happened.
I'm curious about Drenka's son, Matthew. Why so much time in the first chapter devoted to a description of his life and his denial of innkeeping?

Interesting observations about chapter one. It did jump off the blocks! I loved Drenka's darting path as she shows pride in her son. Matthew is interesting. I hope we get to know him.

After the first two chapters, I am interested with some reservations.

I trust that Roth is going to flex something else besides the third leg. Drenka seemed to me like a contrived exaggeration in the second chapter, and Mickey fluctuated between pitiful and dangerous.

Onward tonight...

Elizabeth wrote: "I trust that Roth is going to flex something else besides the third leg."

I too am hoping this to be the case considering the novel's length.

That's a great question Martha, why is there that focus in Drenka's son. I am guessing he will show up again at some point in the novel. I am betting that Sabbath seeks him out much as he conversed w/Drenka's husband a few month's after her death.

"Drenka seemed to me like a contrived exaggeration in the second chapter, and Mickey fluctuated between pitiful and dangerous."

Sadly, I think Elizabeth was right about Chapter 2. I'm hoping Chapter 3 will be an improvement...

Okay, if one more person masturbates on that grave, I'm gonna throw this book against the wall. On the other hand (no pun, really), I think I see where we're going with Drenka's son, and I'm hoping to like that direction.
I thought that Chapter 3 did a good job of describing that awfulness of a long-term relationship gone sour, where every word and action of the other person sets your teeth on edge. For some reason, the description of the interaction between Roseanna and Mickey reminded me of Johnathan Franzen's "Freedom." Any chance Franzen was influenced by Roth somewhere along the line?

I'm guess it's impossible for Franzen not to have been influenced in some way by Roth. Shortly (with in 5 pages) after typing my previous comment I ran across Drenka's son again and it made perfect sense in this crazy book.

I agree with you about the third chapter illustrating the bad relationship business. At this point I am pretty sure that I don't like any of the characters in the book. They all seem to me to be sick people, though it's not stopping me from reading.

I've made it to the second part of the book, has anyone else gotten there yet? I can tell you that it's not any less sick though no one has masturbated on a grave for at least 30 pages!

man, i just find the last few lines of chapter 2 + the first line of chapter 3 to be the absolute essence of roth. there is so much LIFE in those lines, my god, i wish i could write like that. he PROPELS you out of chapter two and into chapter three...

Keith wrote: "man, i just find the last few lines of chapter 2 + the first line of chapter 3 to be the absolute essence of roth. there is so much LIFE in those lines, my god, i wish i could write like that. he P..."

You are absolutely right Keith, those lines standout more than any others I've read from this book so far. I'm about 250 pages in and Sabbath introduces himself in a most hilarious way:

""Good Day," said Sabbath and formally bowed to them. "I am the beneficiary of Roseanna's nest-building instinct and the embodiment of all the resistance she encounters in life. I am sure that each of you has an unworthy mate--I am hers. I am Mickey Sabbath. Everything you have heard about me is true. Everything is destroyed and I destroyed it. Hello, Rosie.""

I just find this so spectacular as it fits Sabbath's personality perfectly. Roth really has fully realized Sabbath as a character.

Sabbath has the ability to observe himself insightfully from many different angles, yet a generic outsider's understanding of who he is seems to evade him.

This is why I love Philip Roth. I am starting the second part of the book, and hope it continues on in this way. I'll try to find some passages later...

I do find a lot of the panty diving type stuff to be far fetched, but maybe that is how you write sex addiction. ???

Or how you write CRAZY! I just started Section 2, and I am absolutely blown away by the obituary Mickey wrote for himself. Maybe all fiction filers should be required to write an obit as a prerequisite for membership?

Martha wrote: "Or how you write CRAZY! I just started Section 2, and I am absolutely blown away by the obituary Mickey wrote for himself. Maybe all fiction filers should be required to write an obit as a prerequi..."

My dad told me in 1999: "What? I don't want you having anything to do with puppets. Puppet people are FREAKS. They use those little sheds to trap young girls."

I can't believe Philip Roth is making my father's comments seem rational.

I saw this article and thought of you guys over in this thread.

"Judge withdraws over Philip Roth's Booker win. Carmen Callil retires from panel after decision to give award to writer whose work she considers a case of 'Emperor's clothes'"

http://m.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/ma...

Kerry wrote: "I saw this article and thought of you guys over in this thread.

Judge withdraws over Philip Roth's Booker win. Carmen Callil retires from panel after decision to give award to writer whose work s..."

Definitely reading this later. Hi Kerry! Welcome to the Philip Roth thread. Laughing about that photo. It's a mug shot and a smug shot.

I finished the book the other day and I gotta say I liked it more than I expected to. Sabbath's panty diving shenanigans continues throughout most of the book and sometimes it's pretty unbelievable. Overall I think that Roth keeps it believable enough.

Dan wrote: "I finished the book the other day and I gotta say I liked it more than I expected to. Sabbath's panty diving shenanigans continues throughout most of the book and sometimes it's pretty unbelievable..."

---------*******SPOILER ALERT*******---------

Dan, I agree.

Nobody would bring vodka to a rehab hospital for some young girl with wrist stitches. I don't care if she promised to make you feel like Zeus.

So how's everyone coming along?

Finished.

I loved the way Roth explores the stereotypical tenets of manhood, and then his characters are done in by their extremes. The female characters were just as masculine as the men, with one notable exception. Nikki was everything Sabbath never could be.

PR offers a sobering picture of adulthood. Losing Morty basically ends his childhood. He then encounters loss after loss, and the effects erase him.

He's reduced to an existence that wouldn't even make a good playboy cartoon.

Here is a passage about Nikki that I liked as a reader and despised as a woman....

"There was Nikki. This mark she had left on his mind could open out like the mouth of a volcano, and it was already thirty years now. There is Nikki, listening the way she listened when she was given even the minutest note -- the look of voluptuous attention, the dark, full eyes without panic, tranquil as only they were when she was having to be someone other than herself, murmuring his words inwardly, brushing her hair off her ears so nothing was between his words and herself, breathing little sighs of defeat to acknowledge just how right he was, his state of mind her state of mind, his sense of things her sense of things, Nikki his instrument, his implement, the self immolating register of his ready-made world."

I am kind of assuming that everyone is busy. Hope my comments didn't sit on this thread like ice on toast.

Elizabeth wrote: "I am kind of assuming that everyone is busy. Hope my comments didn't sit on this thread like ice on toast."

I definitely don't think you've scared anyone off.

Has anyone read, or can think of one of Roth's female characters who were actually believable as females (not masculine)? Sure I guess Nikki is but she wasn't really a proper character, or maybe I should say a main character.

Hm. In my experience this is the off-putting part of his work.

I mean, I get the description. I may even have been there myself.

But it just... repels me.

I haven't read this one, but this is my overall impression of his take on women as, essentially, vessels for the narrator's authority and personage. It makes me a little sick.

Ice on toast? No, everyone is just on vacation. :)

I am so embarrassed. It just occurred to me that I dropped this discussion like ice on toast. Ultimately, I had to put the book down (much like one would a rabid dog), which is something I hardly ever do. I have now formed a belief that there are two Philip Roths. There's the one I love, the one who wrote Goodbye, Columbus and The Human Stain and American Pastoral, who pays attention to people and places and sentences and women and history and the entire human condition. Then there's this other one, the one who wrote Everyman and Sabbath's Theater and yes, Portnoy. This is the one I feel sure Shel is talking about in her comment above. Actually, repulsive is a pretty good descriptor for this guy. There was a time, a few years ago (there might even be a thread in the old fiction files), in which I argued for Roth as the greatest living American writer. I don't think I'll make that argument again.

clearly we're arriving at the heart of a vital debate about literature -- subject vs craft.

i understand what you're saying about goodbye columbus, etc -- but i feel that his talent is every bit as present in this work, too. the subject is troubling to many, but the work still possesses the glimmer of genius.

i ask the group -- if you were to be placed on a desert island and were given the choice to bring along a hundred books that didn't offend but were poorly written, or a hundred books that did offend but were breathtakingly written, which would you choose? i realize this is a reductive, even ridiculous question, but it starkly illustrates what many of us are grapping with here: what are we to do with books that are spectacularly written but whose subject disgusts us.

do people feel the same way about, say, "lolita"? do we put it down because we find the subject of a pedophile exploiting a young girl repellant? we ought to. yet many read the book as a sweeping love story. is it because the talent outshines our disgust?

what are we to do with this question?

Fair enough, and a great question. My take is that craft can overtake subject matter, as in one of my all-time favorite books, Blood Meridian. While dead babies hanging from trees and gutted horses drying in the sun would not normally be my reading subject matter of choice, McCarthy's prose completely catches me up and carries me along. Ditto Lolita, but the interesting difference there is that Humbert is SO unreliable that I actually "forget" he's a pedophile.
So when is it that we, as readers or as an audience, lose our good sense and forget to view everything with a critical eye, allowing art to become propaganda? What about the way in which audiences of D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" would cheer for the Klan or Leni Reifenstahl could convince us of the attributes of the Nazi party? And I'm not even gonna mention Ayn Rand.
As for Roth, I definitely believe he has the chops to transport readers through difficult or even repulsive subject matter, I'm just not sure he always uses them.

well-put, martha -- anyone else have any thoughts on the question immediately above, in the broader context of roth's book?

Ask Patty this question in the context of American Psycho...

I saw my name, so I'm stopping by to say Hello!

I would take the breathtakingly written novels. Being offended helps draw out and define who you are as much as if not even more than being enamored.

This is a perfect question to ask in the Roth thread. I honestly am not sure if The Human Stain and American Pastoral are on a higher tier than his other novels. I feel like they were breathtakingly written. I wouldn't call Sabbath's Theater breathtaking, and I already said what I thought about Portnoy. Maybe I am biased about the subject matter after all.

Jesse really liked this novel. Jesse, did you think the writing was better in ST than his other novels, or were you just impressed by the whole package?

Hi Patty! I just wanted you to know that a crisis could have been averted today at the grocery, were I wielding a tote-a-loaf.

I am still most impressed with Roth's writing in American Pastoral. From what I remember (and it ain't much) Sabbath's Theatre was definitely well written but doesn't have the same beauty or language that Blood Meridian or Lolita has. I can't specifically recall being struck by any of Roth's sentences either in ST or any of his other books I've read.

I get the sense that Roth intended Sabbath to be repulsive for much of the book. It seems like it wasn't until the second half did I have any sympathy towards him, in spite of that repulsiveness. Nabakov makes us sympathize with Humbert Humbert from the very beginning.

Anyone else see this today?

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/16/1375290...

Dan wrote: "Anyone else see this today?

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/16/1375290..."

Perfect! I can't believe they only chose three. Any protagonists out there you "love to hate"? Who was that "Confederacy of Dunces" guy? He irritated me to the nth degree.

Martha wrote: "Dan wrote: "Anyone else see this today?

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/16/1375290..."

Perfect! I can't believe they only chose three. Any protagonists ou..."

Interesting article, Dan. Have either of you read the other books he recommended?

Martha, it's funny that you bring up COD.

I was almost embarrased by how captivated I was by Ignatius J. Reilly. In me, he inspired pity from a place of tenderness rather than disgust.

My uncle and I talked about this book a couple of days ago, and we agreed that the exchange between IJR and Myrna Minkoff is hilarious.

Nobody seemed to get any significant zingers in on Sabbath. A pity, really.

Dan wrote: "Anyone else see this today?

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/16/1375290..."

I laughed at a reader's nomination in the comments section: "The hypocritical and senselessly spiteful man-child of Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield.

I don't hate Holden, but he can be tiresome. Teenagers!

Welcome back, Adrian! So nice to hear your voice.

I felt that the writing was better and that the subject matter is part of why the writing was better. A person couldn't reach that kind of fever pitch without a character that far out. Though, I suppose that one could make a character who was that far out, yet far out in a more palatable manner.

Operation Shylock, which may be my current favorite, also reaches a similar tempo at points. However, the subject matter might be easier to stand for you guys.

Regarding "Nobody would bring vodka to a rehab hospital for some young girl with wrist stitches": Not true. I knew someone who did that very thing when I was younger. I have a childhood friend who is basically the living embodiment of Pan and there was nothing in this novel that it would be hard for me to imagine him getting up to. I guess how realistic it seems might have to do with how one goes about picking their (bad) company.