Indignation
Beware the glossy college brochure. Those manicured quad lawns, brick buildings, and impossibly coiffed coeds have lured many a hopeful teen. Marcus Messner, the narrator of award-winning author Philip Roth鈥檚 new novel, Indignation, is merely one of the more unwary.
Marcus is a college freshman who used to be happy living at home in Newark, N.J., and helping out in his dad鈥檚 butcher shop. Then the United States gets involved in the Korean War, and Marcus鈥檚 dad becomes terrified that his son is going to die.
鈥淚t鈥檚 about life, where the tiniest misstep can have tragic consequences,鈥� he rants to his son after searching for Marcus at a pool hall. (Marcus was studying late at the library, to better maintain his 4.0 average.)
After his dad鈥檚 rant, Marcus 鈥渞an out of the house, wondering where [he] could find a car to steal to go to Scranton to play pool....鈥�
Roth does a wonderful job of describing the trench warfare that becomes Marcus鈥檚 relationship with his dad.
Overwhelmed by fear, his dad treats his arrow-straight boy like a juvenile delinquent. (His mother pleads with her husband not to destroy their family with his paranoia, but it鈥檚 futile.)
If there鈥檚 anything that sets teenagers quivering with outrage, it is unfairness, and Marcus reacts predictably 鈥� scurrying as far away from Newark as his limited resources will allow. That turns out to be a small, conservative college in Ohio.
鈥淪o as to be free of my father, I鈥檇 chosen a school 15 hours by car from New Jersey ... but with no understanding on my part of the beliefs with which youngsters were indoctrinated as a matter of course deep in the heart of America.鈥�
Before arriving at Winesburg College, Marcus spends his time staring at the brochure (he even buys himself the outfit the boy on the cover is wearing), and neglects to notice the mandatory chapel requirement.
So, the avowed atheist finds himself fuming in a pew, mentally reciting the Chinese national anthem over and over again. Rather than chuckling at his own stupidity and just sneaking in a book, Marcus goes on a crusade against the chapel requirement and the entire 海角大神 religion.
(The novel is set in 1951, not 1969, so readers will have a pretty fair idea of the probability of Marcus鈥檚 toppling this particular windmill.)
Marcus is also one of the few Jewish students on campus, and, despite his desire to focus just on his studies, he finds himself being courted by the only Jewish fraternity.
There鈥檚 a bit of friction with an overly dramatic roommate, but Marcus is settling in all right until he goes out on his first date. (This being a Roth novel, sex plays a pivotal role in Marcus鈥檚 downfall.)
Marcus is pretty candid with readers early on that they鈥檙e looking at a tragedy: He鈥檚 dead, he explains, although he鈥檚 not sure for how long.
He certainly wasn鈥檛 expecting an afterlife, and has nothing to do but ruminate on the events of his corporeal existence.
鈥淭here are no days. The direction (for now?) is only back. And the judgment is endless, though not because some deity judges you, but because your actions are naggingly being judged for all time by yourself.鈥�
(By the way, I strongly doubt Roth is making an argument for heaven, since the title of this section is 鈥淯nder Morphine.鈥�)
Knowing this gives Marcus鈥檚 subsequent bumblings a desperate, rather than comic, quality.
On his date with a lovely transfer student named Olivia, Marcus discovers she鈥檚 more experienced than he is, and reacts badly.
A naive teenage boy becoming obsessed by a sexual encounter and handling his emotions with something less than aplomb? Nah, it could never happen. In fact, everything about Marcus 鈥� from his fights with his dad to his idealistic-to-the-point-of-stupidity self-righteousness rings true.
But the secondary characters are much less noteworthy.
Roth makes Olivia damaged goods 鈥� she鈥檚 psychologically unstable and tried to kill herself before transferring to Winesburg. (Oh good, let鈥檚 revive that clich茅.) The most noteworthy thing about her (besides her reputed promiscuity and suicide attempt) is her beauty (of course) and her fawning admiration for Marcus.
The only other woman is Marcus鈥檚 longsuffering, hard-working paragon of a mother (who also fawns over Marcus).
There鈥檚 also a rather nasty caricature of a homosexual that鈥檚 straight out of the 1950s.
With a title like 鈥淚ndignation,鈥� there鈥檚 a pretty good guarantee that you鈥檙e not signing up for subtlety.
The novel鈥檚 centerpiece quotes extensively from Bertrand Russell鈥檚 1927 essay, 鈥淲hy I Am Not a 海角大神,鈥� a chunk of which Marcus declaims (in full desk-pounding mode) to the smug dean of students. Russell, a Nobel Laureate, pacifist, and atheist who wasn鈥檛 exactly a poster child for family values, doesn鈥檛 play well in 1950s heartland Ohio.
Marcus knows this, but he can鈥檛 stop himself, even though his greatest fear is getting expelled from college and being sent to the Korean War. (Why a Pulitzer Prize-winning, multiple National Book Award-winning author has to rely on another writer to make his arguments for him is another question.)
The arguments against 海角大神ity will probably strike a reader as more or less persuasive depending on their own views on religion.
Frankly, those are the least interesting part of 鈥淚ndignation,鈥� although Roth appears to find nobility in Marcus鈥檚 unwavering stance, because 鈥渉e couldn鈥檛 believe like a child in some stupid god!鈥�
How we get from there to 鈥減utrefied primitive superstition! Our Folly, which art in Heaven! The disgrace of religion, the immaturity and ignorance and shame of it all!鈥� is likely to leave more than a few readers scratching their heads, since Marcus pretty conclusively engineers his own undoing.
Much more compelling are the tragic flounderings of a father and son that seem foreordained to send the boy straight to the fate from which they were intended to save him.
Yvonne Zipp regularly reviews fiction for the Monitor.
