[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 13 KB, 261x193, manexcited.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5081069 No.5081069[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

>interesting
>good prose
>complex and challenging
>deals with history

I like him quite a lot. I don't see why /lit/ has never really read him.

Sabbath's Theater = decent
Portnoy's Complaint = decent
American Pastoral = really good
The Human Stain = very bad
The Plot Against America = really good

>> No.5081072

>>5081069

Philip pls go :^)

>> No.5081093

He's intriguing but he's needed a better editor for the last 15 years (at least). And The Plot Against America was pretty good; I wouldn't call it "really good." Still, interesting from the perspective that he's been able to put out so many solid works; he writes at the pace of a genre writer.

>> No.5081106

>>5081069
>filth-romanticizing american judaism
There are few things worse.

>> No.5082219

>>5081069
>Sabbath's Theater = decent
nigger it's his best work I hate you AP dickriders

>The Human Stain = very bad
fucking kill yourself

>> No.5082222

>>5081069
Kill yourself.

>> No.5082230

anyone who hasn't read his künstlerroman "Zuckerman Bound" is a pleb missing out on some of the best 20thc realism

>> No.5082239

>>5082222
jesus quads

>> No.5082243

Toasting in an epic sunhawk bread :P

>> No.5082248

The Human Stain is one of the most plaintive and non egomanical Roth's I've ever read

Sunhawk probably didn't like it cause there weren't enough dirty jew orgies

>> No.5082492

Phillip Roth is an interesting case in that he went from being a Jewish writer to a bona-fide American writer in his lifetime. To me, he's never been anything else.

>> No.5082703

Just picked up I Married a Communist for a dollar. Anyone read it?

>> No.5082713

I ended up dropping Portnoy's Complaint because it was nothing but stereotypical Jew whining and blaming his mother for his problems.

Does it get better?

>> No.5083049

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/07/confronting-privilege-in-philip-roths-identity-tales/373782/

>> No.5083055

>>5082713
yes, that's like one of his worst

>> No.5083060

>>5081069
i've only read the plot against america and thought it was meh. the ending was particularly horrible, stephen king-tier

>> No.5083066

>>5082219
> Sabbath's Theater
> his best work
> Imbrogdillo

>> No.5083069

>>5083066
>armadillo

>> No.5083070
File: 89 KB, 515x371, naipaul_trainstation_photo.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5083070

>>5082703

Yes, it's fantastic. Pretty much all of Roth's novels after Sabbath's Theater, with the exception of The Plot Against America, are top tier.

The answer to Sunhawk's question is that /lit/ cannot into postwar novels that aren't postmodernist, which is one of its major blind spots. (pic related.)

>> No.5083075

>>5083070
roth has written pomo novels though

and the humbling and nemesis were really not that great.

really his output in the 90s is amazing, like what is that guy eating

>> No.5083085

>>5083075

He uses pomo stylistic techniques occasionally, but he's not a "postmodern novelist" in the way that, say, Pynchon or DFW are. His best novels are straightforward realistic fiction.

>> No.5083089

>>5083085
I would characterise the counterlife as pomo

>> No.5084469

>>5081069
All I've read by him is Portnoy's Complaint, which I found - as you said - decent. It never struck me as the magnum opus of a fantastic author or anything, though. I'll probably get around to reading American Pastoral or the Zuckerman stuff at some point, but I'm not feeling too urgent about it.