Let us now praise (?) Phillip Roth
I just finished Phillip Roth's American Pastoral. Brilliant, though the book on tape version, read by Ron Silver, had me thinking and occasionally inadvertently talking like a 60-year old Jewish man fron Newark. Such a beautiful rambling 14 hours about family, daughters, choosing to live a life different from your parents, there's also some bombs in there too.
Problem is, and deadmoviestar warned me about this, is that occasionally Roth's books don't end well. No denoument at all. One minute our hero is at a climatic dinner party where he finds out a. his wife is cheating, and b. his mistress harbored his fugitive daughter five years ago. In one moment it looks like the grandfather has been felled by a fatal heart attack caused by the sudden appearance of his murderer daughter (and/or was stabbed by a fork-wielding drunk). Then it's over. The same scene is the final scene of the book. Nothing is finalized. You never find out what happened to the daughter. Did he confront his wife about the affair? Don't know. The book's over. It's like Roth gets tired at the end and just says, ah, the hell with it.
Would love to hear from some fellow Roth fans who've had the same experience.
In other news a Ford F150 truck just caught fire outside my window and burned into a blackened husk while I and all my new co-workers watched. My trusty Mazda was just about 20 feet away and I kept thinking it'd go up too, but I was afraid to go move it. The fire dept. finally came and put the fire out and it was over. Kind of like a Phillip Roth book.
Problem is, and deadmoviestar warned me about this, is that occasionally Roth's books don't end well. No denoument at all. One minute our hero is at a climatic dinner party where he finds out a. his wife is cheating, and b. his mistress harbored his fugitive daughter five years ago. In one moment it looks like the grandfather has been felled by a fatal heart attack caused by the sudden appearance of his murderer daughter (and/or was stabbed by a fork-wielding drunk). Then it's over. The same scene is the final scene of the book. Nothing is finalized. You never find out what happened to the daughter. Did he confront his wife about the affair? Don't know. The book's over. It's like Roth gets tired at the end and just says, ah, the hell with it.
Would love to hear from some fellow Roth fans who've had the same experience.
In other news a Ford F150 truck just caught fire outside my window and burned into a blackened husk while I and all my new co-workers watched. My trusty Mazda was just about 20 feet away and I kept thinking it'd go up too, but I was afraid to go move it. The fire dept. finally came and put the fire out and it was over. Kind of like a Phillip Roth book.