海角大神

Philip Roth biography emphasizes his unruly life over his celebrated novels

鈥淧hilip Roth: The Biography鈥� aims to 鈥渞ehabilitate鈥� its subject鈥檚 reputation, but succeeds only in making his excesses more apparent. 

Editor鈥檚 note:听Blake Bailey, the author of 鈥淧hilip Roth: A Biography鈥� has been听, and his publisher has withdrawn the book.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 want you to rehabilitate me. Just make me interesting,鈥� was celebrated novelist Philip Roth鈥檚 astringent instruction to his biographer, Blake Bailey. The result is the nearly 1,000-page 鈥淧hilip Roth: The Biography,鈥� in which Bailey, who completed the book after Roth鈥檚 death in 2018, seems to be saying something along the lines of: 鈥淵ou鈥檙e already interesting. I shall therefore rehabilitate you.鈥澨�

Making Roth interesting is the easy part. From the start of his literary career with the publication of 鈥淕oodbye, Columbus鈥� in 1959 (which won the National Book Award) to his ascent to literary stardom (and notoriety) with his fourth book, 1969鈥檚 鈥淧ortnoy鈥檚 Complaint,鈥� to his Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for 鈥淎merican Pastoral鈥� to his announcement in 2012 that he was retiring from writing, Roth was one of the most famous writers in America. He was more disciplined than his cohort Norman Mailer, more stylistic than John Updike, more overtly humorous than his literary father-figure Saul Bellow. There were many awards, many lovers, a marriage to actress Claire Bloom that resulted, among other things, in her incendiary, condemning 1996 memoir 鈥淟eaving a Doll鈥檚 House.鈥� By the time he died, Roth had led one of the most prominent literary lives in United States history.听

Rehabilitating Roth, however, is frankly impossible, although Bailey does his best. His research is enormously comprehensive, but although he includes incidents that Roth might have wanted him to exclude, he鈥檚 always ready with equivocation, obfuscation, and euphemism.听

Roth orchestrates harassment campaigns against reviewers he doesn鈥檛 like, and Bailey calls them 鈥減ranks.鈥� Roth uses college teaching jobs to stalk and prey on young women, and Bailey demures, 鈥淣ot all of Roth鈥檚 mentoring projects had an erotic component.鈥� Roth meets the great Czech writer Ivan Kl铆ma, who tours him around Prague; he meets the Milan Kundera, and readers learn a little about the Czech novelist; but when Roth meets Vera Saudkov谩, the daughter of Franz Kafka鈥檚 youngest sister, he offers, more or less on the spot, to marry her. She declines, saying her two sons lived in Prague. Or, Roth speculates, 鈥渟he was waiting for an offer from John Updike.鈥澨�

When readers reach that wisecrack, there are 500 more pages of this sort of thing still to come.

Roth was volcanically bitter about 鈥淟eaving a Doll鈥檚 House,鈥� but Bailey, doubtless unintentionally, confirms every comma and semicolon of Bloom鈥檚 book. 鈥淔or what it鈥檚 worth,鈥� Bailey writes, 鈥淩oth perceived himself as the opposite of anti-Semitic or misogynistic, and indeed had little patience for reductive categories one way or the other.鈥� But only Roth鈥檚 dedicated fans will care how he perceived himself (indulging in what Cynthia Ozick once called 鈥渢he easy pleasures of self-approval鈥�), and Bailey鈥檚 own thoroughness is the worst enemy of rehabilitation.听

At every turn, with every anecdote, 鈥淧hilip Roth: The Biography鈥� inadvertently paints its subject as a griping, whining, scolding, manipulator and a compulsive womanizer who then turned around and vilified the women in his life for not being sufficiently supportive. And Bailey鈥檚 excuse for such appalling behavior is almost worse than the behavior itself: 鈥淎s for Roth himself, his greatest urge was always to serve his own genius 鈥� amid the keen distractions, albeit, of an ardently carnal nature.鈥� Distractions. Ye gods.

Readers don鈥檛 require their writers to be saints, or at least they shouldn鈥檛. But the more the saint recedes, the more weight the work must bear, and this is a striking weakness of Bailey鈥檚 book: Roth鈥檚 many novels are very much portrayed as his business, and maybe his therapy, but almost never his passion. Each new novel鈥檚 gestation and critical reception is logged, but there鈥檚 far, far more of the writer than the writing in these pages. Like many of the women in Roth鈥檚 life, the reader simply can鈥檛 avoid him. After leaving this cenotaph, they may very much want to.