Exit Ghost
by Philip Roth
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Book Reviews of Exit Ghost
Book Review: Hope I Die before I Get Old
Summary: 4 Stars
Following prostate surgery, 71-year-old Nathan Zuckerman is left both impotent and incontinent. There's a possible solution for the latter but none for the former, leaving our sex-obsessed protagonist in a state of bittersweet agony when he becomes infatuated with a young woman who has swapped homes with him, along with her husband. Predictably, Nathan fantasizes about Jamie and Roth creates two different types of dialogue -- one that Nathan has with her in real life and the other that he has with her in his head, or rather in his journal.
The young woman is contrasted with Amy Bellette, the lover of Manny Lonoff who Nathan found entrancing when she was a young girl in The Ghost Writer. He coincidentally encounters the adult Amy in Manhattan; he's shocked and saddened by her terrible appearance and the toll that brain cancer has taken on her.
Meanwhile, a brash young journalist friend of Jamie's contacts Nathan, determined to solicit his help in writing a biography of Lonoff. This "bio," Zuckerman soon learns, consists of a dreadful exposé about a supposed sordid incident in Lonoff's life. Nathan launches into a long diatribe with his long-lost friend Amy about what constitutes good literature and questions the right of authors to peer into the private lives of other authors. He goes one step further, suggesting that book groups and classrooms should stop analyzing books (I don't think Nathan would appreciate this review or Amazon in general!!!), which poses interesting and important questions for us to consider.
Having been a rabid fan of Philip Roth's for the last several decades, I read as many books of his as I can. This one was good -- not fantastic because it dragged on in certain parts, but he did a beautiful job of describing the way that the body eventually gives out over time, but the heart continues to hunger for love, passion, recognition and the ability to make a significant contribution to the world.
Sigrid Macdonald
Book Review: Haunting
Summary: 5 Stars
There are lots of ghosts in this exquisite novel, and most of them take the reader back to _The Ghost Writer_, where the young Nathan Zuckerman met E.I Lonoff and Amy Bellette, two characters who haunt the old Nathan. In this tale, Lonoff, long dead, is being exhumed by a Young Turk who wants to make a name for himself by writing a scandalous biography of the writer. Amy, one of the walking dead, her brain riddled with cancer and her memories uncertain, enlists Nathan in a battle to stop the Young Turk. Nathan, who finds himself embroiled not only in this but also in a swansong infatuation with an aspiring writer half his age, is also something of a ghost. For the past ten years, he's retreated into the same Berkshires seclusion that protected his hero Lonoff. He's also impotent and incontinent from prostate surgery, and his memory is failing. Nathan is on his way out, and this novel tells the story of his last spurge of resistance against the long night.
Like his _Everyman_, which I reviewed here when it appeared and which I still consider Roth's masterpiece, _Exit Ghost_ is a melancholy autumn reflection on aging, the narrowing of life and possibilities, and death. Roth's prose is fluid and at times, especially when wrestling with the fragility of life, heart-breakingly beautiful. He also skewers contemporary culture (his meditation on the age of cell phones and the deep loneliness it betokens is brilliant) as well as the current administration.
Ultimately, reading this novel was like visiting an old, fading acquaintance. It reminds one of one's own fragility, it encourages nostalgia, and it prompts taking another look at photo albums--in this case, rereading the Zuckerman novels. How fortunate that melancholy can also be sweet. How else could we possibly get by? Roth once again reminds us of this.
Book Review: Unsettling allure
Summary: 5 Stars
When Nathan Zuckerman, renowned novelist, extricated himself from the chaotic life of New York City by moving to a remote area of the Berkshire Mtns some eleven years prior, it was more or less by choice though he had been receiving anti-Semitic hate-mail. But two years later, at age sixty-two, the impacts of prostate cancer, incontinence and impotence, made his isolation a necessity, insulating him from unpleasant social situations.
It is only the possibility of a medical procedure that could limit his incontinence that lures him back to the city. Beyond the cheery optimism of the medical people that belies any real chance for success, Zuckerman is immediately enmeshed in the hubbub of NYC, in particular observing that the vast preponderance of pedestrians have a cell phone glued to their ears, the anti-social implications being beyond doubt. But the jolt of city life has Zuckerman answering an ad where a couple desires to trade their NYC apartment residence for life in rural New England for one year.
And so begins a couple of very unsettling days where feelings that he had set aside for years threaten to engulf him. His attraction to Jamie, the sensuous wife and fledgling writer, nearly overwhelms him, the frustration palpable. He rails against a reputation seeking biographer, a former lover of Jamie, who seems to be on a mission to destroy a lifetime of work of a novelist friend, long dead, over a long buried indiscretion. In these situations that demand his full powers, Nate is forced to confront his aging and the very real loss of physical and mental prowess. He resorts to writing He-She dialogs where he has the conservations with Jamie that he cannot actually bring himself to have in person. It's all rather sad but the book cannot be put down. I think there is another chapter in Nate's life.
Book Review: The End Of The Literary Era
Summary: 5 Stars
In his latest creation, Roth shows that even a 71 year old incontinent and impotent Zuckerman (Roth in disguise) can still produce amazingly poignant and truly important literature. The book centers around the attempt to regain continence through a new procedure, while at the same time showing that regardless of the state of inoperative reproductive equipment, thoughts of sexuality still meander frequently and aggressively through the male mind.
At the same time, Roth indicates his feeling that we have reached the "End of the age of literature." During his stay in New York City to undergo his procedure, he becomes involved with a reporter who is planning to write a biography about a great, but all but forgotten master American short story author. It seems that the author may or may not have had a deep dark secret that he wanted buried forever. The biographer finds out what he believes is that secret, and plans to reveal it to the world.
Through the book, Roth becomes involved in great sexual fantasy with a beautiful lady half his age. Since he is unable to actually act on those thoughts, due to his physical malady, he fantasizes and creates imaginary dialogue around that particular lady and the wonders of her sensuality and sexuality.
Once again, Roth writes a wondrously autobiographical book which the reader can virtually insert himself, and feel as though he has become Roth in the text. This ability is Roth's special gift. He is able to capture his experiences and feelings and then turn them into words in a manner that is virtually universal. This ability has always characterized his writing throughout his entire career. This book is recommended for all readers, especially those over the age of 50.
Book Review: Don't be a Zucker, man
Summary: 2 Stars
This book is a disappointment.
Roth can write and think; this we've known for years. He works very hard to craft fine, elegant sentences, and it shows on every page of this book. And so if you like his other stuff, you won't consider this new novel a total waste of time. But he has also been going in circles for a few years in terms of what he has to say about life, and this story (as with many of his other recent works) could almost have been spun out by some Roth imitator from the threads of his past output. Maybe even by the Kliman character in this book. So in a sense Zuckerman has become a stock character as he ages and stumbles toward his bitter, lonely end.
Roth's writing is painfully honest yet jocose, and sometimes very witty and wise; but really who can care for Zuckerman, the self-pitying loner who wastes his precious fading time on earth in stillborn lust and solipsistic sentimentality? Who cares about this guy who would probably sell his soul for one or two transformations of his leaky, rusted faucet into a "lead pipe with wings", as Henry Miller once called it, so that he could steal your wife, and regret only that he didn't bargain better with the devil? And unlike the Zuckerman of the 1970's and 80's or like Micky Sabbath (an earlier Roth character), this incarnation of Zuckerman is not even funny. Who can care about him once the book ends and your pity for this loner wears off? And as for Roth's supposed preeminence among American novelists: the writing itself at this point and perhaps ever, could not hold even a fading, flickering candle to the prose of Cormack McCarthy for poetry, intensity, emotional variety, sustained depth of artistic vision, or relevance to every man.