—BUS RIDING BOOKS—"The Facts, a novelist autobiography", by Philip Roth Here is my review of the book…In his autobiography, Philip Roth is looking at the wounds that plagued him for decades, yet were kept at a distance. The same troubles that led him to a grave depression after he decided to open himself up by writing these pages. For him, like for so many other writers before him, this self-investigation is like a second chance. That's the beauty of being a writer I suppose: Roth can fictionalise a "kind" of himself... and rewrite his eventful past one way or another, as and when he chooses to. And what a journey he had! From his Jewish upbringing in 1950s America to being a professor at the University of Chicago and getting his PhD there, who would have imagined he would one day become one of the most famous American writers of our times?For a little while, the classroom was his stage and he thought this was going to be his life. But Philipp Roth really wanted to be a writer, right from the start, unlike some other authors I'm familiar with, like former lawyer Marc Levy who wrote his first book at the age of 37 - a story for his daughter - and found huge success straight away, to his biggest surprise. Only then did he decide to stop law and focus on his writing. No, Roth was already involved with the "Et cetera" magazine in high school and writing on the side. For Roth, life had always been about writing, nothing else was on his mind and I find this both courageous and admirable. A trajectory I would have liked to pursue had there been no other, more pressing imperatives such as getting a job, repaying my student loan, buying a flat, getting married, becoming a dad and so on and so on. Instead, and despite having a few books out there, I am still at the fringe of literary life but I continue to write, always. Of course, having the vocation is not enough. It took Roth a lot of hard work and isolation from real life and people to be able to write those books that became instant blockbusters. And tons of talent.All in all, this book is fascinating but also very sad in more ways than one. Roth' journey is not one for the faint hearted, dotted with marriages, break ups, divorces, abortions, years of legal battles, property disputes, and disputes over whose books is who's...O.V.
It is a given these days to treat the "facts" contained within autobiographies with a grain of salt. In the past, authors quietly manipulated events to tell a specific story with the hope that reviewers did not notice. Today, blending fiction and fact is all the rage. Whereas some autobiographers (James Frey, for example) get into trouble by falsifying information, most others get away with their constructed versions of reality.Given Philip Roth's long career as a novelist drawing on his personal experiences, it is not surprising that he has waded into the arena of autobiography. And, by entitling his effort "The Facts," he has done so with an explicit focus on the complicated nature of the genre. I was very interested to see how Roth would handle his own history and was not disappointed. Much of the book is a fairly conventional autobiography, recounting several romantic and literary episodes in his early life. Although Roth changes names (I did a lot of googling to check if he had) of some of his partners, the stories he tells are quite straightforward. But the book begins and concludes with contributions from Roth's literary alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, which challenge Roth's memory and motivations. Roth, says Zuckerman, is "telling in order not to tell." It is if Roth did the job of potential reviewers, skewering his own autobiography before they could do it. Roth does this expertly. I highly recommend "The Facts" not only to fans of Roth but also to professors trying to get their students to understand what autobiography does and does not tell us.
What do You think about The Facts (1997)?
An autobiographical writer's only straight autobiography, written when he was 55. And there is very little here: about five scenes, as it were, each of different periods in his life ("Safe at Home" (boyhood obsession with baseball in Weequahic), college at Bucknell, "Girl of My Dreams" (Chicago years, the woman who became his first wife), "All in the Family" (Defending himself against Jewish community attacks on his writing at Yeshiva University), and "Now Vee May Perhaps to Begin" (His divorce and death of his first wife). About thirty pages of commentary by Nathan Zuckerman--whose voice, incidentally, is distinguishable from Roth's only in that he commits more solecisms--comes at the end of this brief book.Most of Zuckerman's criticisms are pretty accurate, which allows Roth to have this both ways, to commit evasions in one place, to admit to some pretty dark and horrible things in later sections, and to leave massive gaps between the chapters, while, by acknowledging them, wash his hands of these flaws. Roth shows us little, but that little is generally interesting, if occasionally utterly disgraceful. Some of the events that he casually alludes to, such as traveling through Europe, winning prizes, etc. would be nice to actually hear about, but he remains silent on them for some reason. His sympathies are narrow, and it is often hard to sympathize with them as a reader.
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An interesting, if at times slightly tedious, autobiographical account of Philip Roth's life up to the publication of Portnoy's Complaint, the novel that made him a literary star. The book begins with a letter Roth writes to his literary alter-ego, Nathan Zuckerman, and ends with Zuckerman's reply; in these letters, Roth (and Zuckerman) can really flesh out the purpose of the book itself, and also expose some of the truth behind "the facts" (Roth, as Zuckerman, does not let himself off easily on any of the more complicated issues in his autobiography). I recommend this book to anybody who is already well acquainted with Roth's work, particularly the Zuckerman books (this is, in essence, a companion piece to the magnificent The Counterlife).
—Newton
Bought this book in a book store in le Marais in Paris - a book store that is also a wine bar - how perfect! I think Chicago needs one. Roth is self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-inflating, self-centered, self-promoting - but also self-aware. Which is a very underrated quality. I have always been fascinated with Roth (and his topics), but am less so after reading this, as it humanized him so much. (So much more than Zuckerman.) This is not a good read for a reader who hasn't read his work - and only a pretty good read for those who have. I will read his future works with the story of his personal life in the front of my mind.
—Melissa
