Metcalf on Roth

After I read Exit Ghost, I considered posting, but I had trouble wrestling to the ground what I really thought. There is much to celebrate in it, but there is also much of the dross that has crept into late Roth--the often flat writing, the unnaturalistic dialogue in which characters give speeches that go on for paragraphs. Worse in Exit Ghost is a female character to whom Nathan Zuckerman is drawn, and who seems to possess absolutely no attractive qualities whatsoever, aside from youthful good looks (which we have only on Zucerkman's say-so). But there is also the Rothian honesty, of looking at life squarely and unflinchingly, of testifying to emotions that we may not have rights to but that still need to be expressed. Few writers have that kind of courage.

Anyway, Stephen Metcalf (a friend), in his usual adept fashion, has reviewed the book and has done a much better job than I could have in getting a handle on Roth and his contradictions.