Exit Ghost
by Philip Roth
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Book Reviews of Exit Ghost
Book Review: The past is prologue
Summary: 5 Stars
This is Nathan Zuckerman's latest novel. For those who may not know, Nathan Zuckerman is Philip Roth's alter ego and is the protagonist in many of Mr. Roth's books. For a decade, Nathan has relocated from the fast paced, daily craziness that is Manhattan to the quietness and solitude of the Berkshires to enable him to better concentrate on his writing. Nathan sees an advertisement of a young, newly married couple who desire to swap their apartment in Manhattan with someone living in a more bucholic environment, far away from the city. Jamie, the young wife in this couple, lives in constant fear of a terrorist attack in post-9/11 New York.
Nathan, now 71, had come to New York for prostate surgery and, then, for post-surgical treatment for incontinence. A secondary effect from the surgery is impotence. Nathan, while in New York, spots from the distance an old friend, Amy Bellette, the lover of the late I.E. Lonoff, a distinguished writer and early hero to Nathan. Amy, once youthful and quite attractive, is old and sick now. Nathan wishes to have lunch with Amy to speak over old times. Nathan who would like to write Lonoff's biography, is in competition with Richard Kleiman for the job. Kleiman allegedly knows a scandalous secret of Lonoff's and is threatening to expose it in his intended biography.
Having answered the young couple's ad and meeting with them, Nathan falls in love with Jamie and finds himself pining for her. Nathan is desparately smitten with her, but is extremely frustrated because of his chronic physical condition. Nathan is no longer the ladies's man he once was. Nathan tries to work out his dilemma by writing a story, which Nathan names, "He and She" which consists of a dialogue between the young woman with the much older man. It touches upon Nathan's current dilemma. Nathan also wishes to protect the infirm Amy from the annoyingly insistent Kleiman.
It is interesting that when Nathan meets Lonoff, his wife, and Lonoff's sweetheart, Amy, Nathan is working on a novel, _Ghost Writer_ about a young woman visiting the Lonoffs who bears a strong resemblance to a famous and beloved Holocaust martyr. Nathan becomes obsessed with her both as a male and a Jew.
What makes _Exit Ghost_ resonate so strongly with me is its keen sensitivity to the plight of the protagonist in his attempts to exorcise, or at least to reconcile, the ghosts of his past with the agonizing realities of the present. _Exit Ghost_ is palpably real and must be a particularly personal and heart felt work to Philip Roth. Therein lies the book's excellence.
Book Review: Glad Roth Worked in Comments about George Plimpton
Summary: 5 Stars
Nathan Zuckerman suffers from impotence and incontinence. His coping strategy is to withdraw from life's hubbub and to focus on his writing. But then the development of a new urological treatment brings him back into life and the subject of EXIT GHOST becomes: Who is Nathan Zuckerman, really?
To be fair, this Nathan does show concern and generosity for the sick. But the promise of physical rejuvenation transforms him--at least in his thoughts--into an overbearing sexual predator. This is not as offensive as it sounds, since Jamie Logan is a highly competent 30 and clearly represents the vitality that the decrepit Zuckerman seeks desperately to regain. But in his imagination, he's a jerk (athough she can handle it).
At the same, Jamie, and life in New York, does stimulate Nathan's obsessive mind, which brings awesome intelligence, unwavering focus, and a purity of analysis to whatever he discusses. But for most of the book, this relentless intelligence overanalyzes and crowds out the warmth.
Some of my marginalia in reaction to this Nathan reads: "Even the characters call this interaction a deposition!" "The interaction is so focused there's no juice." "I'm impatient with the narrative." "Interminable." For this reason, I read EXIT GHOST in 20 or 30 page snatches. This is a short book but it can read long.
Fortunately, Roth gives Nathan a friendship with George Plimpton, the founding editor of "The Paris Review". Near the end of EXIT GHOST, Nathan describes Plimpton as an "urbane witty gentleman of easy intelligence and aristocratic bearing." And, when Plimpton is the subject, Nathan's obsessiveness explores life with great feeling, generosity, graciousness, and affection.
Granted, Roth takes Plimpton and what he represents and tucks him under the umbrella of his themes: the decay of body and mind, the easy power of youth, and the mighty pull and effects of a charismatic person. Regardless, Plimpton gives Roth a chance to show how wonderful Nathan's intelligence and imagination can be.
I began this book with sympathy for Nathan and his physical plight. After a long journey, I finished EXIT GHOST with admiration for Nathan and the rich potential of his awareness. In the end, the novel becomes much more than several (Nathan/Jamie, Kliman/Lonoff, Amy/Lonoff, Billy/Jamie) pathetic and slightly mad pursuits.
Final point: Keep Reading! Chapter 4, "My Brain" is Nathan's "last love scene" and it's fantastic.
Book Review: The irresistibility of an old- time favorite
Summary: 5 Stars
This is Philip Roth's twenty- eighth book. It is the ninth book in which his 'alter- id' as James Woods calls him, Zuckerman, is a presence. It is the third book he has written in recent years (The others are 'The Dying Animal' and 'Everyman')in which 'aging' plays a central part. Long - time readers of Roth will well know the territory which is being covered here.
But my own sense is that this should not deter. There is a particular pleasure for a reader when given the opportunity to read a new work of a long- time favorite. And this is especially so when it is a work of 'closure' one meant to put the end to a story and character the reader has followed for a long time. Roth says that this is his last Zuckerman book.
I found the opening chapter of the book terrific. After eleven years alone writing in the wilderness a small 'prostate procedure' calls Zuckerman to Manhattan. The two terrible 'I's of male- aging , Incontinence and Impotence play have him by this time at their mercy. A neighbor of his who was one of his few respites from isolation, has just died. The neighbor who as a child had lost both parents from cancer had set out a program for his own life, and almost completely realized it. He changed his name to escape his Jewish identity, became an Air Force pilot, a successful business- person, married just the kind of woman he wanted, programmed his daughters to the school,'Wellesley' he wanted them to graduate from. His one failure was that he did not have the son he planned on having. When stricken by terminal cancer at age sixty- seven the neighbor also exercises maximum control.He commits suicide in such a way that he spares his family the pains of long- term struggle with a cancer - patient. The strong exercise of will and control, which is nonetheless bested by Nature seems to be a kind of story- within- a - story a kind of microcosmic foreshadowing of what has already and will further befall Zuckerman. Only in Zuckerman's case there will be much unplanned and chaotic, much reawakening to impulses in himself which he found easier to deal with in isolation.
Zuckerman's meetings in New York bring him in touch with characters out of his own past and Roth's other Zuckerman books, but also with young people who stir him back to lust and hunger for a kind of life he can no longer have.
This book is of course a must for all fans of Roth, and too for all readers who would know something about what happens to Everyman when a man grows older.
Book Review: Exit Ghost: Perhaps the Passing of Nathan Zuckerman/Philip Roth
Summary: 5 Stars
One can only hope that EXIT GHOST is not the final page in the multiple books on the life of Nathan Zuckerman (the thinly disguised author Philip Roth). Though the principal character of nine books since 1979 is now aged 71, leading a reclusive life after the ravages of prostatic carcinoma treatments have left him incontinent and impotent, there is more than a little life in the master storyteller. Philip Roth continues his eloquent writing style in this latest book and still struggles with the enigmas of sexual obsession, distaste for current politics in this country, and the Don Quixote stance against aging and dying. And in doing so he has created a novel with fascinating characters, satisfying plot, propulsive reading style, and much food for thought!
Nathan Zuckerman, in this book, has decided to take a chance on a surgical procedure the will cure or at least improve his embarrassing urinary incontinence, one of the many reasons he has moved from New York City to a rural New England hideaway to write in solitude. But upon arrival in New York he meets a beautiful couple (Jamie and Billy), both writers, who are suffering from the after-effects of 911 and upon encountering their literary hero Zuckerman, coerce him into trading houses: Zuckerman will remain in their New York space and the couple will escape to his New England sanctuary. But other factors arise: Zuckerman meets his old friend Amy Bellette, once the lover of Zuckerman's hero writer E.I. Lenoff, and discovers Amy's resistance to allowing a young writer Richard Kliman to finish and publish a manuscript containing a dark secret of Lenoff, a manuscript he never wanted published; Zuckerman has limited success in his first incontinence surgery; Zuckerman's self imposed sexual exile is awakened in fantasies about the married Jamie, a wondrously written series of imaginary dialogs between the two. All of these complex components are succinctly woven into this 300-page book that doesn't really end, but instead tapers off into an elegy about aging.
The story is great reading: the style is pure Roth. 'The end is so immense, it is its own poetry. It requires little rhetoric. Just state it plainly'. 'Reading/writing people, we are finished, we are ghosts witnessing the end of the literary era - take this down'. Reading Roth is an enriching pastime, one to savor and relish. This is not a book to rush - this is a book to treasure, and once read, to reflect...Grady Harp, November 07
Book Review: Elegant, as usual...
Summary: 5 Stars
For a glaring example of one of the main themes of "Exit Ghost" one need only read the recent Vanity Fair article about Arthur Miller's institutionalization of his Down Syndrome son. It was an article guaranteed to create a scandal; it was "cultural journalism" - tabloid gossip masquerading as literary investigation. It called into question the character of a great writer (as opposed, sadly, to the great writer's characters, who are forgotten like yesterday's garbage in the wake of a titillating gossip-fest). And, sadly, I, too, played right along. I'm addicted to Vanity Fair. It's fun to peek into the lives of the so-called "beautiful (i.e. monied) people." It's satisfying to see them picked apart for their foibles and follies, while I, an unsuccessful (meaning unpublished) writer gets a little revenge from their ill luck. "Exit Ghost" has made me feel somewhat ashamed for this character defect, which seems to be infecting multitudes in our current world. Mea culpa, Phil. Now, I'm not going to take it back - I still feel the sting of "Exit Ghost's" tongue-lashing. However - one might say that AT LEAST these kinds of stories keep the writers in the forefront of the vast, untutored American public enough that, say, someone might want to go back and read their stuff. I know it sounds like I'm hedging my bets here, but I'd be willing to say that, for instance, Arthur Miller probably picked up some fans along the
way. And another thing: at first, I condemned Miller for his cowardice. I was very angry that a literary idol of mine had fallen of his pedestal. And then - I realized that the finger of judgment was actually pointing right back to myself. I won't go into it, but suffice it to say that the article about Arthur Miller made me realize that I, too, did something once that was comparably unforgiveable and yet human. Now I love him more than ever, because we have a bond. So - there's always a lesson in everything, n'est-ce pas? May Goddess (and Mr. Roth) forgive us all, and that includes the editors of Vanity Fair.