{"id":125747,"date":"2018-05-23T11:48:13","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T15:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=125747"},"modified":"2018-05-23T13:47:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T17:47:52","slug":"philip-roth-1933-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/23\/philip-roth-1933-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Philip Roth, 1933\u20132018"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Philip Roth, a towering figure of twentieth-century literature, has died at the age of eighty-five. He had a long history with the The Paris\u00a0Review<\/em>.\u00a0His story \u201cThe Conversion of the Jews<\/a>\u201d was pulled from our\u00a0slush pile when Roth was just twenty-five years old, and published in issue no. 18 (Spring 1958). Roth then made his first visit to New York, where he met the magazine\u2019s young editors and writers. The connection was immediate. As he described in his speech at our 2010 Spring Revel, \u201cThis time I sent my story not to The Paris Review<\/em> slush pile, from which I\u2019d been plucked first time around by none other than Rose Styron, but right to the top.\u201d\u00a0His next story, \u201cEpstein<\/a>,\u201d was published in issue no. 19 (Summer 1958), and \u201c<\/i>Goodbye, Columbus<\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/em>was published in issue no. 20 (Autumn\u2013Winter 1958\u20131959). In the early eighties, the writer Hermione Lee interviewed Roth for our\u00a0Art of Fiction series<\/a>. In her words, Roth \u201clistens carefully to everything, makes lots of quick jokes, and likes to be amused. Just underneath this benign appearance there is a ferocious concentration and mental rapacity; everything is grist for his mill, no vagueness is tolerated, differences of opinion are pounced on greedily, and nothing that might be useful is let slip.\u201d In 2010, The Paris Review\u00a0<\/em>presented Roth with the Hadada Award for lifetime achievement.<\/p>\n

In the interest of letting nothing useful slip, here is a quick roundup of our various and varied Philip Roth pieces from over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In which Philip Roth gives invaluable life advice<\/a> (\u201cquit while you\u2019re ahead\u201d) to a young writer:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

With every table in the dining room occupied and me, the only waiter, neglecting the needs of a good fifty patrons, I approached Roth. Holding out\u00a0Balls<\/em>\u00a0as a numbness set into the muscles of my face, I spoke. \u201cSir, I\u2019ve heard you say that you don\u2019t read fiction anymore, but I\u2019ve just had my first novel published and I\u2019d like to give you a copy.\u201d<\/p>\n

His eyes lifting from his iPhone, he took the book from my hands. He congratulated me. Then, staring at the cover, he said, \u201cGreat title. I\u2019m surprised I didn\u2019t think of it myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

These words worked on me like a hit of morphine. Like two hits. It felt as if I was no longer the occupant of my own body. The legs had gone weak, the ears warmed, the eyes watered, the heart rate increased rapidly. Barely able to keep myself upright, I told him, \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Roth, who, the world would learn sixteen days later, was retiring from writing, said, in an even tone, with seeming sincerity, \u201cYeah, this is great. But I would quit while you\u2019re ahead. Really, it\u2019s an awful field. Just torture. Awful. You write and write, and you have to throw almost all of it away because it\u2019s not any good. I would say just stop now. You don\u2019t want to do this to yourself. That\u2019s my advice to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I managed, \u201cIt\u2019s too late, sir. There\u2019s no turning back. I\u2019m in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nodding slowly, he said to me, \u201cWell then, good luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

After which I went back to work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A scene from Philip Roth\u2019s eightieth-birthday party<\/a>:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

At long last Roth took to the stage himself amidst a crowd on its feet, now applauding, whistling, cheering. He sat at a large table, appeared calm and composed. \u201cThere is no good reason for an eighty-year-old man to regret that things are different,\u201d Roth said, recalling briefly the best and worst days of his life. A clever bout of what the author recognized as paralipsis\u2014speaking of exactly those subjects of which one has promised not to speak\u2014was followed by what David Remnick has called\u2014and what so many others are sure to state\u2014\u201cthe most astonishing literary performance I\u2019ve ever witnessed\u201d: a reading of a scene from what Roth has often described as his favorite novel,\u00a0Sabbath\u2019s Theater<\/i>, that begins at a cemetery that holds the remains of those closest to the main character, Mickey Sabbath, and ends with the words \u201cHere I am.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In which Philip Roth announces his retirement<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you still have the desire to write?<\/em><\/p>\n

No. Anyway, I have no intention of writing in the next ten years. To tell the truth, I\u2019m finished.\u00a0Nemesis<\/em>\u00a0is going to be my last book. Look at E.\u2009M. Forster. He stopped writing at around the age of forty. And I, who used to churn out book after book, haven\u2019t written anything in three years. I\u2019ve been working instead on my archives so I can turn them over to my biographer. I\u2019ve turned over thousands of pages which are like memoirs but not literary, not publishable as such. I don\u2019t want to write my memoirs, but I wanted my biographer to have the material for his book before I die. If I die without leaving him anything, what will he start with?<\/p>\n

But you just spent our whole interview saying that the life of a writer has no bearing on his work, and yet you find it important that someone write your biography?<\/em><\/p>\n

I have no choice. If it were up to me, I\u2019d prefer that there not be any biography of me, but there will be biographies after I die, so at least I want to make sure that one of them\u2019s correct. Blake Bailey wrote an excellent biography of John Cheever, who was a friend of mine and a tough subject for a biography, since, being gay and alcoholic, he spent almost his entire life in concealment. Bailey got in touch with me, we spent two whole days talking, and he convinced me. But I won\u2019t control his work. In any case, twenty percent of it will be wrong, but that\u2019s always better than twenty-two percent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In which Roth attends the twenty-fifth anniversary<\/a> of one of his favorite New York restaurants, the Russian Samovar, and celebrates its proprietor Roman Kaplan:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMazel Tov!\u201d said Philip Roth to Roman when he arrived around eight-thirty, in the middle of several Russian speeches. Roman had already spoken and enjoyed a postspeech indoor cigarette. To Alexander Izbitser, the dapper house pianist, Roth apologized for his own khakis and blazer. He promised he\u2019d wear his tux for the fiftieth \u2026 Roth started coming regularly to the Samovar around fifteen years ago. Business was better in those days, he said\u2014of course, it was the late nineties. He met Roman; they became friends. \u201cI come here sometimes alone,\u201d Roth said, just to dine with the proprietor. What do they talk about? \u201cDeath,\u201d interjected Thurman. \u201cI mostly listen,\u201d said Roth. Roman tells him about his problems, about his past. Sometimes he reads Roth Russian poetry. \u201cDo you think he\u2019s courting me?\u201d Roth asked.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, there\u2019s our 1984 Art of Fiction interview<\/a>\u00a0with Roth<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all the art of impersonation, isn\u2019t it? That\u2019s the fundamental novelistic gift \u2026 I am a writer writing a book impersonating a writer who wants to be a doctor impersonating a pornographer\u2014who then, to compound the impersonation, to barb the edge, pretends he\u2019s a well-known literary critic. Making fake biography, false history, concocting a half-imaginary existence out of the actual drama of my life\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0my life. There has to be some pleasure in this job, and that\u2019s it. To go around in disguise. To act a character. To pass oneself off as what one is not. To\u00a0pretend<\/em>. The sly and cunning masquerade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And finally, Roth\u2019s acceptance speech for\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>\u2019s Hadada Award<\/strong>:<\/p>\n