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goheadass's review against another edition
4.0
“Short i, short i, long i. Short i, short i, short i, boom! Revenges. Brings in his revenges. His revenges. Sibilated. Hizzzzzuh!”
sabrinaliterary's review against another edition
3.0
Philip Roth, you are among the authors whose works remain opaque to me. This makes me feel like an ignoramus, but also like an elitist for thinking that I have such impeccable taste that I must agree with literary critics.
James Joyce is the leader of this movement, but you are most certainly in my Top 10.
James Joyce is the leader of this movement, but you are most certainly in my Top 10.
libellum_aphrodite's review against another edition
"it was ok" enough for me to read 2/3 of it, but not good enough for me to remain interested enough to read the last 1/3. I was a bit torn about giving up when I had made it so far, but I had already read enough to be able to verbalize what I don't like about Philip Roth (this is the second book of his I've read) and didn't think I was going to pull much more than that. I didn't care about the characters and I feel like the narrator is just a channel for Roth's voice. It is the same narrator in all of his books with a different first name slapped on. I also was bothered by how he frames the story - on some level it is the narrator's high school teacher telling him a story, but when you get into it, it is really the story of the narrator's relationship with the Communist in the title and the teacher just gets in the way of the telling. I don't know what the pretense of the story being just about Ira is for. It is entirely Nathan centric, Ira is supposed to be the protagonist, or at least the central character around whom the events unfold, but the narrator evidently can't get far enough past himself to tell a story about someone else. I get the distinct feeling that Philip Roth is the one who can't get far enough past himself to tell a story about someone else and he picks a new alias for himself in each book. I don't know if the events in any of his books line up with his own experience or he's just imagining himself into most of it, but he's definitely too much of a presence while reading.
upyourmother's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
vickyjmarlow's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
klinejosh94's review against another edition
5.0
“Occasionally now, looking back, I think of my life as one long speech that I've been listening to. The rhetoric is sometimes original, sometimes pleasurable, sometimes pasteboard crap (the speech of the incognito), sometimes maniacal, sometimes matter-of-fact, and sometimes like the sharp prick of a needle, and I have been hearing it for as long as I can remember: how to think, how not to think; how to behave, how not to behave; whom to loathe and whom to admire; what to embrace and when to escape; what is rapturous, what is murderous, what is laudable, what is shallow, what is sinister, what is shit, and how to remain pure in soul.”
Philip Roth’s tragic tale of marital betrayal amidst the Red Scare of postwar America is a work that seems to attempt to surpass David Cronenberg’s ‘The Brood’ in ex-wife spite.
Roth was writing from a place of unhealthy cognitive dissonance or disturbing self-awareness (or both).
ele_anorhurt's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
andyc_elsby232's review against another edition
5.0
I think that the three most powerful characters in these three books of Roth's "America Trilogy" aren't the main characters, not even close. They're the others. The cynics and skeptics. The life-beaten and disabled. Those driven to their last mile by the exhaustion of time itself. For American Pastoral, it's Jerry Levov, the Swede's brother, who almost laughs at his brother's devastation but is actually justified in his lack of sympathy; for The Human Stain, it's the murderous husband who suffers from so much PTSD from the Vietnam war that he even hates the Chinese, who is himself the ultimate cliche, the ultimate example of a horrible war made a farce; here in this book, I Married a Communist, it is Murray Ringold, who has suffered as much, if not more, than any of the characters in this spiritual trilogy, and he is far from the focus of the story.
Roth books, if you're a fan, are usually littered with sentences and passages you ache to remember, and this book is no different. I quote this, a rather inconsequential bit of the story that comes towards the end that might've hit me harder than anything I read in American Pastoral (a book I had to put down to keep composure as well as fend off tears). It sums up the whole of the emotional impact these three books collectively had on me; three books that are heartbreaking in their own ways.
"And so who I betray is my wife. I put the responsibility for my choices onto somebody else. Doris paid the price for my civic virtue. She is the victim of my refusal to-- Look, there is no way out of this thing. When you loosen yourself, as I tried to, from all the obvious delusions--religion, ideology, Communism--you're still left with the myth of your own goodness. Which is the final delusion. And the one to which I sacrificed Doris."
It isn't even the best bit in the book, but look at that second line: "--Look, there is no way out of this thing." Roth has gone on and on in each book, sometimes beautifully, about our inability to accept what cannot be remotely fathomed: what burns alive our hearts until we shrivel up with them, yet that single line is it: the answer, or the closest to. It is the equivalent to the author throwing up his hands, proclaiming "I dunno, man, people are really fucked up," (paraphrasing). This trilogy, especially this book, is about what we lost in the fire in the 20th century (are still losing), and Murray Ringold--more than Zuckerman or the central tragic figure of the story, Ira Ringold (aka "Iron Rinn")--is a victim to time. Roth doesn't only want to get across the point that Joe McCarthy and his Commi-witch-hunt were responsible for pushing so many honest people in the quicksand (aka "getting thrown under the bus"), he wants us to know that the time and place isn't of consequence in the long run, it's that we all walk into the sinking pit at some point.
Sounds depressing as shit, right? The book is pretty marvelous, though, and should be read. It is almost as funny as it is bleak, and it is almost strange how intimate and touching it becomes, since seasoned readers of his might expect the author to pull the rug from under us and show more human dirt and depravity, but instead he gives us catharsis akin to that of a long, loud, heaving crying spell; Roth is actually comforting you.
Roth books, if you're a fan, are usually littered with sentences and passages you ache to remember, and this book is no different. I quote this, a rather inconsequential bit of the story that comes towards the end that might've hit me harder than anything I read in American Pastoral (a book I had to put down to keep composure as well as fend off tears). It sums up the whole of the emotional impact these three books collectively had on me; three books that are heartbreaking in their own ways.
"And so who I betray is my wife. I put the responsibility for my choices onto somebody else. Doris paid the price for my civic virtue. She is the victim of my refusal to-- Look, there is no way out of this thing. When you loosen yourself, as I tried to, from all the obvious delusions--religion, ideology, Communism--you're still left with the myth of your own goodness. Which is the final delusion. And the one to which I sacrificed Doris."
It isn't even the best bit in the book, but look at that second line: "--Look, there is no way out of this thing." Roth has gone on and on in each book, sometimes beautifully, about our inability to accept what cannot be remotely fathomed: what burns alive our hearts until we shrivel up with them, yet that single line is it: the answer, or the closest to. It is the equivalent to the author throwing up his hands, proclaiming "I dunno, man, people are really fucked up," (paraphrasing). This trilogy, especially this book, is about what we lost in the fire in the 20th century (are still losing), and Murray Ringold--more than Zuckerman or the central tragic figure of the story, Ira Ringold (aka "Iron Rinn")--is a victim to time. Roth doesn't only want to get across the point that Joe McCarthy and his Commi-witch-hunt were responsible for pushing so many honest people in the quicksand (aka "getting thrown under the bus"), he wants us to know that the time and place isn't of consequence in the long run, it's that we all walk into the sinking pit at some point.
Sounds depressing as shit, right? The book is pretty marvelous, though, and should be read. It is almost as funny as it is bleak, and it is almost strange how intimate and touching it becomes, since seasoned readers of his might expect the author to pull the rug from under us and show more human dirt and depravity, but instead he gives us catharsis akin to that of a long, loud, heaving crying spell; Roth is actually comforting you.
unmas4's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0