
Philip Roth has died - kawera
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/obituaries/philip-roth-dead.html
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westoncb
I started reading Roth a couple months ago as part of a project to learn how
to write better fiction (I also chose Philip K. Dick at the same time for some
reason...). I partly chose Roth after seeing by how much he outnumbered any
other writer in terms of entries for best 100 novels of the 20th century (I
don't remember who published the list, but it was something pretty credible,
and he had 6 entries on there IIRC).

I started with Portnoy's Complaint and enjoyed it, but I wasn't blown away or
anything. More recently I've been reading a novelette + 5 short stories in a
single volume (named after the novelette) titled, "Goodbye, Columbus"—and I've
been seriously impressed. I finished the novelette and 2.5 of the short
stories; both short stories were astounding (IMO), and the novelette was damn
good.

My understanding is that the themes of being Jewish in the U.S. and male
sexuality are solidly mainstays in his writing, which at first seemed like
would limit the material's interest to me, since I'm not Jewish at all—but if
you read descriptions of his novels across the years you'll find a very
interesting (bordering on bizarre at times) range. I'm looking forward to
reading more.

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jdonaldson
I love Philip Dick but I wouldn't recommend emulating his writing style. None
of his accomplishments are a result of his prose. His character/plot
development, dialog, scene... they're all just mediocre imho. However, his
ability to touch a contemporary nerve with a concept or plot device is
singular, although I think Mary Shelly comes close.

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slg
There is a reason why Dick is one of the most adapted authors but almost none
of those adaptions are particularly faithful. He was amazing at creating high
concept ideas, but often the execution failed to fully capture the potential
of those ideas. I wonder if he was some 20 or 30 years younger whether he
might have spent his entire career in movies and TV which has a more
collaborative creative environment that could have let his strengths really
shine through while hiding some of his weaknesses as a storyteller.

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jdonaldson
I agree a modern day Philip Dick would be amazing. There was nowhere near the
appetite for Sci Fiction back then as there is now. Dick churned out dos-a-dos
bound pulp paperbacks, and most of his work is in short stories he published
in magazines. He's a bit like Dickens in this way. All his ideas had to fit
within pretty tight constraints, within crude mediums.

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onra87
Last year, he was one of the 18 authors to be published, while still alive, in
the "Bibliothèque de la Pléiade". (More than 250 authors has been published in
this collection)

It is a reference edition in France of the complete works of classic authors.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioth%C3%A8que_de_la_Pl%C3%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioth%C3%A8que_de_la_Pl%C3%A9iade)

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moonka
His book "Plot Against America" helped to change my worldview. It was the
first time I thought about the fact that it was not a foregone conclusion that
America is a country that hadn't fallen to fascism in the mid 20th century,
and led to me start reading history with a more critical eye. After that I
realized just how much history is comprised of shades of grey rather than
right and wrong.

~~~
baxtr
I have made the experience that merely anything in life has shades of grey. It
causes a lot of cognitive dissonance for me. For most people, including me, it
is thus easier to simply stick to one particular world view. At least for a
certain time.

So as a smart person, either you are some sort of “schizophrenic” or you
ignore some facts and possible interpretations and stick firmly to one side of
the coin. Both is difficult

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dibstern
I disagree. You can realise your ignorance without having to immediately
correct every instance of it. And you can enjoy the slow uncovering of new
information and points of view, building each into your worldview bit by bit.
This is part of the joy of life, for me, the journey to deeper and deeper
levels of understanding of the world.

And a decision to stick to one side is, in my opinion, a little lazy. No
insult meant, it’s just that you seem unwilling to do the work and exert the
extra mental effort, which is the dictionary definition. It seems like you
have deemed dealing with complexity impossible so as to give yourself an
excuse to remain biased. It’s not so difficult to enjoy being skeptical of
both sides, and to prevent yourself from blindly accepting the narrative of
one coin. And I feel like the world would be a great deal better if we all
stopped preferring one side of the coin and appreciating both.

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kbutler
Fish or cut bait.

Often the expected value of committing to one side, even if it is not the
optimal choice, exceeds the probable value of the optimal choice delayed for
additional evaluation.

But there is a human tendency to increasingly feel that one's choice is more
obviously correct than it really was, leading to discounting contrary evidence
and even demonizing those who make the opposite choice.

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cylinder
I just learnt about him and ordered my first book of his last night. Odd.

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pervycreeper
>I just learnt about him and ordered my first book of his last night. Odd.

No odder than any of the billions of cases of people who hadn't just learned
about him and ordered their first book of his last night, though.

Edit: this is the same fallacy behind a good portion of claims of "miracles"
and "supernatural" phenomena, and other apparent coincidences. If no one
bought his book on the night before he died, _that_ would be odd. Not sure why
all the hate.

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cylinder
It's an odd experience for me personally, not an odd experience for the
cosmos.

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sorokod
The Guardian: Readers’ memories and tributes

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/23/at-each-
book-i...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/23/at-each-book-i-gasp-
in-admiration-your-tributes-to-philip-roth)

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gattr
There is a scene in Peter F. Hamilton's SF novel "Fallen Dragon" which
immediately made me remember the restaurant "joke" from "Portnoy's Complaint".

SPOILER

Only here, the protagonist vomits violently after learning he's been treated
(by his weirdo girlfriend) to some actual real meat from, yuck... a killed
animal... not your regular vat-grown meat that every civilized person eats.

Oh, the power of childhood programming/imprinting...

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anateus
I remember that scene, and I remember in my own childhood reading a similar
scene in an Efremov novel (Andromeda or its sequels I can't recall which).

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vonnik
David Foster Wallace wrote a review of an Updike book in 1998 that also shed
some light on Roth:

[http://observer.com/1997/10/john-updike-champion-literary-
ph...](http://observer.com/1997/10/john-updike-champion-literary-phallocrat-
drops-one-is-this-finally-the-end-for-magnificent-narcissists/)

~~~
t3rseCode
Brilliant and spot on. Everything here applies to the only Roth novel I read,
Everyman.

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whatsstolat
[https://outline.com/p3eJS4](https://outline.com/p3eJS4)

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benkarst
The article called Roth "one of the last great white males". I had to read
that five times to make sure that phrase was actually used. wtf. How is this
okay on any level?

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runjake
Calm down.

I believe the term has to do with age, and not race.

It's a post-war (WW2) term that's been used for decades to describe Roth and
certain other writers, such as Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Salinger, Bellow,
Updike and others. It's a term to describe a group of certain authors that
wrote about certain themes, similar to the Hollywood term "Brat Pack".

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benkarst
Silly me, I didn't know "white" is a term that describes age.

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runjake
It's often used (as in this case) a colloquial term alluding age via hair
color (IOW, "white-haired" old people).

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Gimpei
Should have won the Nobel. Why they never picked him is beyond me.

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zorked
An astonishing writer who couldn't write a bad book.

But one is allowed to pick favorites, so here they go: Operation Shylock, I
married a communist, and The plot against America.

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dannylandau
I've read only 3 1/2 of his books: Operation Shylock, Plot against America,
Portnoys complaint: and part of American Pastoral -- which I had trouble
getting through. I wonder if others found it too dense?

Otherwise, the above 3 books are really great!

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HelloNurse
Read all of American Pastoral. After the sad and slightly less interesting
middle section, the plot flares up right at the end, as a long prepared
payoff.

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mhall12
So much subtext in that book.

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IloveHN84
Never heard of him before this news..I imagine he wrote good things

