Exit Ghost
Philip Roth
292 pages
Houghton Miffin, 2007
This is the fourth edition of the Baltimore Online Book Club. We, a group of six, meet every six weeks or so to discuss a major work of fiction. On January 30th, the book we discussed was Exit Ghost by Philip Roth. Our next meeting will be on March 6th, when we will discuss Disgrace by J.M.Coetzee. Online readers are invited to read Coetzee's book by that date, I will post a brief review of the book, and invite your comments. You, of course, can join at any time. My previous reviews were of Pamuk's The New Life and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. (If you would like to read them, google my name, Thomas Dorsett, along with the title of the book in question.) When we read a new book, I give an extensive review; when reviewing a classic I try to focus, from a fresh angle, on a few aspects of the book. So far the book club has received about 500 hits, but has few members--If you are interested please join!
Exit Ghost
The title comes from a stage direction in Macbeth, when the ghost of Banquo exits after the banquet scene. (The same stage direction occurs in Hamlet, when the ghost of Hamlet's father exits the stage.) In this case, it is the living ghost, Nathan Zuckerman, who withdraws at the end to his house in New England, presumably till death. His life is over.
Zuckerman is a great writer and has dedicated his life to his craft. For others, art may be mere entertainment, but not for him. He gives a very profound assessment of what the creation of fiction means to a first-rate writer such as himself:
But isn't one's pain quotient shocking enough without fictional amplification, without giving things an intensity that is ephemeral in life and sometimes even unseen? Not for some. For some very, very few that amplification, evolving uncertaintly out of nothing, constitutes their only assurance, and the unlived, the surmise, fully drawn in print on paper, is the life whose meaning comes to matter most.
Well said! The only God possible for this man who strives to face life as it is and not as he would like it to be, is the God of aesthetics, the God of expression, the God of fiction. He has dedicated his life to this God with spectacular results. But he is not happy, far from it. The book, like Hamlet and Macbeth, is a tragedy.
Zuckerman has dedicated himself to his art. In addition to his love of fiction and of music, he has and additional passion: the love of women. He, however, is a man of affairs. He has never had a long commitment to any woman. He has no children.
His virility always played a central role in his life. His love-life ended with a devastating diagnosis of prostate cancer; the surgery has left him incontinent and impotent. The very worst thing that could happen to a man like Zuckerman!
He has his surgery when he was about sixty. This, combined with menacing anti-Semitic threats, led him to return to New England. After 11 years of self-imposed isolation, he returns, presumably restless--inwardly he is young man--to New York to undergo minor surgery that might resolve his incontinence. It doesn't work.
As in most tragedies, life closes in on the protagonist from all sides; there is no hope of escape. Zuckerman has created great works of art, but they are increasingly being ignored, Returning to New York after eleven years of rural isolation, Zuckerman like Rip van Winkle, is amazed at the changes. They are all negative. The decline of literary standards is symbolized by the fact that everyone is now on cell phones. A literary idol and mentor of Zuckerman's from the 1950s is now unread. He meets his idol's lover, Amy Bellette, who now lives in complete poverty and is dying of a brain tumor. In a stoke of genius, Roth has Bellette deliver favorite themes. She is incensed by the fact that politics trumps art. She literally throws a fit at an exhibition where women artists are extolled and first-rate male artists aren't even mentioned. Tony Morrison and no Faulkner? As a result of her fit, test are done after which she is diagnosed with brain cancer. Further on in the novel, she complains to the editors of the New York Times Book Review in a letter that begins as follows, "There was a time when intelligent people used to use literature to think." Reviewers, like university professors, according to Bellette, practice "cultural journalism." They are primarily interested in writing about the cultural context in which a work was written, with an especial interest in digging up scandals that presumably reveal the author and thus illuminate the work. The literary scene has degenerated badly. It is represented by a smart, ambitious yet aesthetically deaf person named Kliman, a twenty-eight year old graduate from Harvard, who believes he has discovered a scandal about Zuckerman's old mentor and solicits Zuckerman's help. He flatly refuses. At the height of their argument, Kliman, in a rage, tells Zuckerman "You stink!" The incontinent Zuckerman does indeed stink; he is a corpse already, as it were, and the young ones don't know what they're doing.
I am not in academic life, but I think Zuckerman and Bellette might be right. When I was working at a clinic, a colleague's son, who had just graduated from high school, got his first literary assignment at college. He was a young man more interested in cars than in Camus--to instill a love of literature in him would be hard, but with the right teacher it could be done. Instead he got an African-American woman who assigned him the following essay topic on the first day of class: "The Role of the Black Female Body in Literature." No comments. Another example: I know of someone who just got tenure at a university. Her area of interest is how the Victorians treated their maids. You guessed it, her area of interest is Dickens. Why Dickens is an important writer--regarding this question her research doesn't devote a single word.
Zuckerman's tragedy is also a warning. If he had been more active in other aspects of life beyond seduction, he might have had some of Plimpton's happiness. The book includes several references to the composer Richard Strauss, none of them gratuitous. Strauss loved women, specifically the female voice, as the book attests. He also had a full family life and a career that included not only the isolation of composition, but working with people on all levels. At the end of his life, Strauss wrote his Four Last Songs, recalling his life with the woman he loved, in ravishing music. Zuckerman writes about it as follows:
Strauss's Four Last Songs. For the profundity that is achieved not by complexity but by clarity and simplicity. For the purity of the sentiment about death and parting and loss. For the long melodic line spinning out and the female voice soaring and soaring. For the repose and composure and gracefulness and the intense beauty of the soaring. For the ways one is drawn into the tremendous arc of heartbreak. The composer drops all masks at the age of eight-two, stands before you naked. And you dissolve.
The wonderful flute solo at the end of one of the songs began playing in my mind the moment I read this. This is a beautiful depiction of this great work--Roth knows his music. It is functional to the plot, too.
He meets the most self-possessed person of the book, the young and very beautiful Jamie. He is the only one on her level; her husband is sweet, but not much more than that. Previously--presumably without any thought for her husband--Zuckerman would have successfully seduced her. Now he can only write about it. His spirit is every bit as young and subtle as hers, ah, but the body...
In the dialogue that he writes in the hotel, he gets her to agree to come to his apartment. He realizes that it is merely a fantasy. The novel ends as the "ghost" exists. returning to a rural, lonely existence, presumably for the rest of his life..
It is an unremitting tragedy but told so well that one feels uplifted and deeply moved. It is a great book. Roth claims that this novel will be his last; he is now 79. If it is, it is a fitting end to a brilliant career.
Reminder: You are invited to read Coetzee's novel and join us for the next edition of our online book club, a day or so after our next meeting, March 6, 2014. You are also invited to give comments in the comment section below. I wish you happy reading!
Thomas Dorsett
Philip Roth
292 pages
Houghton Miffin, 2007
This is the fourth edition of the Baltimore Online Book Club. We, a group of six, meet every six weeks or so to discuss a major work of fiction. On January 30th, the book we discussed was Exit Ghost by Philip Roth. Our next meeting will be on March 6th, when we will discuss Disgrace by J.M.Coetzee. Online readers are invited to read Coetzee's book by that date, I will post a brief review of the book, and invite your comments. You, of course, can join at any time. My previous reviews were of Pamuk's The New Life and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. (If you would like to read them, google my name, Thomas Dorsett, along with the title of the book in question.) When we read a new book, I give an extensive review; when reviewing a classic I try to focus, from a fresh angle, on a few aspects of the book. So far the book club has received about 500 hits, but has few members--If you are interested please join!
Exit Ghost
The title comes from a stage direction in Macbeth, when the ghost of Banquo exits after the banquet scene. (The same stage direction occurs in Hamlet, when the ghost of Hamlet's father exits the stage.) In this case, it is the living ghost, Nathan Zuckerman, who withdraws at the end to his house in New England, presumably till death. His life is over.
Zuckerman is a great writer and has dedicated his life to his craft. For others, art may be mere entertainment, but not for him. He gives a very profound assessment of what the creation of fiction means to a first-rate writer such as himself:
But isn't one's pain quotient shocking enough without fictional amplification, without giving things an intensity that is ephemeral in life and sometimes even unseen? Not for some. For some very, very few that amplification, evolving uncertaintly out of nothing, constitutes their only assurance, and the unlived, the surmise, fully drawn in print on paper, is the life whose meaning comes to matter most.
Well said! The only God possible for this man who strives to face life as it is and not as he would like it to be, is the God of aesthetics, the God of expression, the God of fiction. He has dedicated his life to this God with spectacular results. But he is not happy, far from it. The book, like Hamlet and Macbeth, is a tragedy.
Zuckerman has dedicated himself to his art. In addition to his love of fiction and of music, he has and additional passion: the love of women. He, however, is a man of affairs. He has never had a long commitment to any woman. He has no children.
His virility always played a central role in his life. His love-life ended with a devastating diagnosis of prostate cancer; the surgery has left him incontinent and impotent. The very worst thing that could happen to a man like Zuckerman!
He has his surgery when he was about sixty. This, combined with menacing anti-Semitic threats, led him to return to New England. After 11 years of self-imposed isolation, he returns, presumably restless--inwardly he is young man--to New York to undergo minor surgery that might resolve his incontinence. It doesn't work.
As in most tragedies, life closes in on the protagonist from all sides; there is no hope of escape. Zuckerman has created great works of art, but they are increasingly being ignored, Returning to New York after eleven years of rural isolation, Zuckerman like Rip van Winkle, is amazed at the changes. They are all negative. The decline of literary standards is symbolized by the fact that everyone is now on cell phones. A literary idol and mentor of Zuckerman's from the 1950s is now unread. He meets his idol's lover, Amy Bellette, who now lives in complete poverty and is dying of a brain tumor. In a stoke of genius, Roth has Bellette deliver favorite themes. She is incensed by the fact that politics trumps art. She literally throws a fit at an exhibition where women artists are extolled and first-rate male artists aren't even mentioned. Tony Morrison and no Faulkner? As a result of her fit, test are done after which she is diagnosed with brain cancer. Further on in the novel, she complains to the editors of the New York Times Book Review in a letter that begins as follows, "There was a time when intelligent people used to use literature to think." Reviewers, like university professors, according to Bellette, practice "cultural journalism." They are primarily interested in writing about the cultural context in which a work was written, with an especial interest in digging up scandals that presumably reveal the author and thus illuminate the work. The literary scene has degenerated badly. It is represented by a smart, ambitious yet aesthetically deaf person named Kliman, a twenty-eight year old graduate from Harvard, who believes he has discovered a scandal about Zuckerman's old mentor and solicits Zuckerman's help. He flatly refuses. At the height of their argument, Kliman, in a rage, tells Zuckerman "You stink!" The incontinent Zuckerman does indeed stink; he is a corpse already, as it were, and the young ones don't know what they're doing.
I am not in academic life, but I think Zuckerman and Bellette might be right. When I was working at a clinic, a colleague's son, who had just graduated from high school, got his first literary assignment at college. He was a young man more interested in cars than in Camus--to instill a love of literature in him would be hard, but with the right teacher it could be done. Instead he got an African-American woman who assigned him the following essay topic on the first day of class: "The Role of the Black Female Body in Literature." No comments. Another example: I know of someone who just got tenure at a university. Her area of interest is how the Victorians treated their maids. You guessed it, her area of interest is Dickens. Why Dickens is an important writer--regarding this question her research doesn't devote a single word.
Nothing in this great short novel is gratuitous. There is a long section of praise for George Plimpton. It is beautifully written and informative. Its purpose for the novel, however, is that Plimpton, the quintessential Gentile of privilege, gets involved with life, and not just literature. For instance, he gets in the ring with the champion Archie Moore and writes about it. He has a life. Zuckerman can't image that someone like Plimpton could ever die; he was always at the center of life. Zuckerman, however, is already dead. It reminds me of what a writer in a German movie tells the Italian maid who attempts to seduce him: "Scrivo, non vivo." Zuckerman is dead on both counts.
Zuckerman's tragedy is also a warning. If he had been more active in other aspects of life beyond seduction, he might have had some of Plimpton's happiness. The book includes several references to the composer Richard Strauss, none of them gratuitous. Strauss loved women, specifically the female voice, as the book attests. He also had a full family life and a career that included not only the isolation of composition, but working with people on all levels. At the end of his life, Strauss wrote his Four Last Songs, recalling his life with the woman he loved, in ravishing music. Zuckerman writes about it as follows:
Strauss's Four Last Songs. For the profundity that is achieved not by complexity but by clarity and simplicity. For the purity of the sentiment about death and parting and loss. For the long melodic line spinning out and the female voice soaring and soaring. For the repose and composure and gracefulness and the intense beauty of the soaring. For the ways one is drawn into the tremendous arc of heartbreak. The composer drops all masks at the age of eight-two, stands before you naked. And you dissolve.
The wonderful flute solo at the end of one of the songs began playing in my mind the moment I read this. This is a beautiful depiction of this great work--Roth knows his music. It is functional to the plot, too.
He meets the most self-possessed person of the book, the young and very beautiful Jamie. He is the only one on her level; her husband is sweet, but not much more than that. Previously--presumably without any thought for her husband--Zuckerman would have successfully seduced her. Now he can only write about it. His spirit is every bit as young and subtle as hers, ah, but the body...
In the dialogue that he writes in the hotel, he gets her to agree to come to his apartment. He realizes that it is merely a fantasy. The novel ends as the "ghost" exists. returning to a rural, lonely existence, presumably for the rest of his life..
It is an unremitting tragedy but told so well that one feels uplifted and deeply moved. It is a great book. Roth claims that this novel will be his last; he is now 79. If it is, it is a fitting end to a brilliant career.
Reminder: You are invited to read Coetzee's novel and join us for the next edition of our online book club, a day or so after our next meeting, March 6, 2014. You are also invited to give comments in the comment section below. I wish you happy reading!
Thomas Dorsett
