В свое интервю Рот казва: "Един истински читател на романи, е възрастен, който чете, да речем, два или три часа всяка вечер, три или четири пъти седмично. За две или три седмици той е прочел книгата си. Истинският читател не е човек, който чете от време на време, по половин час, после оставя книгата и се връща към нея след осем дни, докато лежи на плажа. Когато четат, истинските читатели не се разсейват с друго нещо. Те слагат децата в леглото и започват да четат. Не попадат в клопката на телевизора и не спират на всеки пет минути, за да си купят нещо по интернет или да говорят по телефона. Но това е безспорно, броят на хората, които се отнасят сериозно към четенето, намалява много бързо". "Писателят призрак" - заради сравнително скромния си обем, изисква от споменатото сериозно читателско отношение едва в рамките на няколко часа. Няколко часа тишина, съсредоточеност и разбиране. Последното е най-нужно. И под "разбиране" имам предвид познаване на историческия контекст, в който този роман се появява и познаване, доколкото това изобщо е възможно, на Рот като автор със своите особености. Защото в противен случай ще откриваме само семпъл сюжет и претенциозно посвещение (На Милан Кундера), както и посоки на размисъл, вече срещани в по-рано издаваните му заглавия: мястото на евреите в следвоенна Америка и антисемитизма, мястото на изкуството в реалността, както и точно обратното - тежестта на ежедневното върху изкуството, невъзможността да се откъснеш от влиянието на семейството, изстиналите и все пак непрекратени съпружески отношения, изневярата.Само че трябва да имаме предвид, че това е същият онзи писател, който казва за себе си, че е посветил живота си на романа, "изучавах го, преподавах го, писах го и го четох". Тоест, вярва ни се или не, Рот не просто преобръща изречения, а има академичната подготовка да го прави добре - дори, когато се намира в началото на своята кариера. Ето защо "Писателят призрак" успява да напълни 180 страници с невидимото (или пък не чак толкова скрито присъствие) на Кафка, Флобер, Достоевски, Томас Ман, Хоторн, Чехов, Джойс; ето защо е толкова логично основният двигател на повествованието да е срещата между едва прохождащ млад автор и неговия кумир, а в последствие да се окаже, че има и други, не по-малко мощни и важни двигатели.Ако пък приемем, че една съществена част от книгата е посветена на писането като акт на създаване на текст, то няма как да избягаме от думите на Рот, наистина - изречени десетилетия по-късно: Да пишеш означава да изпитваш вина през цялото време. Всичките ви чернови разказват историята на вашите неуспехи. Вече нямам енергия за фрустрацията, нито силата, за да й се противопоставя. Защото да пишеш, означава да бъдеш фрустриран: прекарваш времето си да пишеш бездарни думи, бездарни фрази, бездарна история. Непрекъснато се лъжеш, непрекъснато не успяваш, и така трябва да живееш във вечна фрустрация. Прекарваш времето си да си казваш: това не става, трябва да започна отначало; това също не става, и започваш отначало. Уморен съм от цялата тази работа. Да, алтер егото Нейтън Зукърман е само на двадесет и три години, а интервюираният Рот - на 78. И все пак...Не препоръчвам "Писателят призрак" - вече не смея да препоръчвам книги, но аз имах желанието и да я прочета, и да я притежавам. Намирам Рот за очарователен по един смущаващо-странен начин и срещите с него почти винаги са ми приятни.
Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer was first published in two parts in The New Yorker in 1979. Later that year it was published in book form by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It was the first book of his Zuckerman Bound Trilogy, which he completed in 1985. The Ghost Writer first introduced us to Roth’s alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, as a twenty-three year old writer at the start of his career. Nathan has had four short stories published and has been profiled in a magazine as an up-and-coming writer. He claims to be embarrassed by the profile and the accompanying picture of him with his ex-girlfriend’s cat, but his claim seems to be based on what he thinks is expected of him.Nathan’s autobiographical short stories have upset his family, particularly his father, who believes they show American-Jewish family life in a bad light and confirm the worst stereotypes of Jews. It is 1956 and Nathan is writing in the shadow of the Holocaust. His family is offended by his telling of their internal feuds, portraying them as “conniving Jews,” confirming the worst stereotypes held by Gentiles. They enlist a respected member of their community, a judge no less, for his opinion. Nathan receives a letter from the judge asking him, among other things, “If you had been living in Nazi Germany in the thirties, would you have written such a story?” Strong stuff. Nathan, however, is devoted more than anything to truthfulness and art and refuses to take responsibility for the feelings of his family and to take on the weight of history which they are trying to impose upon him.Estranged from his father, he seeks out a substitute in one Emanual Lonoff, a successful, middle-aged Jewish-American writer. Citing his published stories and his magazine profile, he writes to Lonoff, inviting himself because he happens to be in the neighborhood staying at a writer’s colony in upstate New York. His girlfriend has left him, his family questioning his morals, he seeks the approval from a spiritual father, a fellow writer. He gets far more than he bargained for.Lonoff lives a quiet life in The Berkshires with his wife of thirty-five years, Hope. Also visiting on the same weekend as Nathan is is the beautiful but mysterious Amy Bellette, Lonoff’s former student. There is tension in the house. While never explicitly stated, it is more than hinted at that Bellette is a former lover of Lonoff’s. There are no doubts about in long suffering Hope’s mind.Lonoff receives Nathan warmly, but still holds him at arm’s length. The wisdom and affirmation that Nathan is seeking is meted out in tiny doses. Like the writing that Nathan admires, Lonoff’s words are spare and while as an artist he reveals truths fearlessly, in life he is guarded. He describes his approach to writing:"I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning."Given Nathan’s romantic notions at the time about the noble cause of literature and art, that’s a little disappointing. And yet, that’s pretty much what writing is. For Hope, however, this describes her life with Lonoff as one of enforced solitude, and she’s had about enough of it. That, along with the presence of Amy, brings about a crisis in the marriage and a confrontation that Nathan gets to witness.Nathan, in the meantime, has fallen in love with Miss Ballette, or at least who he imagines her to be, none other than Anne Frank. Her age is right, her look is right, and her background is unknown. If only she would marry him, he could take revenge on his critics who attack his anti-Semitism. Sadly, she is only Amy, not Anne, and well he tells her she looks like Anne Frank, she reacts with indifference.The life Lonoff lives, devoted to his art, just as Nathan desires for himself, is not without its costs. The costs are paid not just by the writer, but also by the people in his life. In the end, at the end of the tumultuous weekend, Lonoff’s knowing evaluation of Nathan is both praising of his talent but also a warning about the life he is choosing for himself:“I’ll be curious to see how we all come out someday. It could be an interesting story. You’re not so nice and polite in your fiction. . . . You’re a different person.”It’s impossible to read The Ghost Writer without thinking of Roth himself. The setting of the story is in the same timeframe as when Roth’s career was beginning, at it was Roth’s unflinching portrayal, the the good and the not so good, of Jewish-American life thatbrought him both fame and controversy, first with Goodbye, Columbus, and then Portnoy’s Complaint. The Ghost Writer was written on the other side of the fame and controversy and is imbued with the wisdom of a life having been lived. The tone is genuinely wistful and, as a truth teller, Roth is willing to own up to the flaws, vanity, and shallowness of his twenty-three year-old self. Among the larger themes of all of Roth’s work is the two-edged sword of heritage. We are a nation of immigrants and while we attempt to purge ourselves from whatever identity that defines our ancestors, there are also times when the heritage that haunts is also the heritage that comforts us. In The Ghost Writer, Roth shows us the birth of that dichotomy.The Ghost Writer was selected by the Pulitzer committee for fiction for the prize in 1980, but the Pulitzer committee overrode the decision and instead gave the award to Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song. It’s hard to imagine two books more different in style, subject and sheer heft. Thirty years later, it’s hard to say anything about the comparative merits of the two books other than, “Wow, what year that was.”
What do You think about The Ghost Writer (2015)?
I've been wanting to read Roth for a while now, after seeing my dad blow through about 14 of them in the past year, but it took me a while to get to one. Then, once I decided to read some Roth, where do you start? Out of 29 books, a Zuckerman book, a Roth book, a Kepesh book, or just one of his goodies that can stand alone? So I went with the first Zuckerman of the series of 7. ...And now that I'm done with it I really don't know what to say about it... His style kind of reminds me of Salinger: short, pretty straight forward, but the material really isn't as epic and overstated as some authors, but he writes more with a sense of limited scope (on the page) that reveals his ideas and philosophy in a greater perception. The whole novel takes place over a single night, in a single house, in 180 pages; yet what he accomplishes -- in a character's reflection, a night's worth of thoughts, an interaction with a writer, two conversations with his wife, and a woman living with them that may or may not be a famous person long believed dead -- is astounding. With this novel Roth tackles a writer's mentality and focus towards his art while at the same time weighing the balance between fiction and reality, where responsibilities lie, whether portrayals in art can come back on reality in helpful as well as hurtful ways, and Roth ties it all together with his protagonist (his alter ego) finding such a balance, much as I'm sure it took good ol' Phil a while too as he tackles his material and the conflict between his life and his art. Like a Salinger, I love the way his sentences just pop off the page, no wasted word, nothing less than beauty and Zen shining through the characters' conflicts and, in the end, epiphanies. The "story" seemed to move a bit slow and didn't really have the "action" of many other writers, but I like his focus on complex issues and social perceptions that are examined from an allegorical, a metaphorical bent. It didn't really knock me over like some of the 5-star books I've read lately, but it was definitely intriguing enough to set me on a quest of 14 more Roth books, like it did my dad, to see his take on other such complex ideas, issues, and perceptions with other such examinations. And the great thing: most of his books are under 300 or 250 pages.
—Ryan
Wow. Era un po' che io e Philip non ci incontravamo. Ed è stato il solito, straordinario, superlativo incontro.Il primo romanzo di Roth nel quale il narratore è uno scrittore, ebreo, di nome Nathan Zuckerman. Quest'ultimo incontra, dopo avergli inviato i suoi quattro racconti pubblicati su varie riviste specializzate, Lonoff, scrittore ebreo di grande fama che si è isolato dal mondo insieme a sua moglie Hope. Da questo punto di partenza semplice, che può sembrare banale (l'"allievo" che incontra il maestro) Roth riesce a tirare fuori 150 pagine di fuoco. Una scrittura d'acciaio che, quando lui decide, nel momento esatto in cui tu non vorresti cambiare discorso, ti porta lontano da quello che sembra il centro della storia. E di nuovo: nel momento in cui della nuova narrazione senti una necessità di arrivare in fondo, lui svolta ancora e ti riporta sulla strada di prima. Roth conduce il romanzo, e la parola, con una maestria unica. Di sovente in questo romanzo, Lonoff si lamenta con se stesso, e con Nathan, della sua incapacità di vivere, schiacciata dalla forza dell'immaginazione. Roth come uomo, forse, non appare immune a questa complicazione professionale, ma ci regala a sua volta, nei suoi romanzi colmi di sana immaginazione, un'umanità decisiva, vera, della quale si vede circolare il sangue nelle vene, a contatto con le perversioni e le paure più nascoste – le quali, poi, a volte raccontano dell'essenza di ogni uomo.
—Saverio Mariani
Having read the last Zuckerman book, Exit Ghost, I decided to go back to where it had all started and read The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman’s introduction to the literary world, and to Roth’s alter-ego’s first encounter with E.I. Lonov and Amy Bellette. I wasn’t disappointed.The 23-year old literary wunderkind who has published only four short stories at this point in his career is desperately seeking a father-figure to replace his biological father who has severely sanctioned him for writing bad things about the Jewish people. Zuckerman finds his patriarchal endorsement in Lonov, a reclusive writer who has been shunned by the literati in New York but whose life embodies the sacred and lonely vocation of the writer, similar to Henry James's or Salinger's. Lonov has not only read Zuckerman’s work, but is deeply moved by it.Invited to spend the weekend at Lonov’s farmhouse, Zuckerman finds an impeccably dressed, portly, middle-aged man who writes a sentence, then turns it around, then takes a break before repeating the cycle with the next sentence – all in all, about three to four sentences a day. Then Lonov throws it all out the next day and begins again. He once re-wrote a short story 27 times. He takes walks in between writing and has not much else of a life. He writes from imagination, not from experience.Into the mix, we have Amy Bellette, a 26-year old refugee from Europe, living with the Lonov’s, who is supposedly none other than Ann Frank herself, who has miraculously escaped the concentration camps but is unable to reveal her identity as it may destroy the mystique of her famous diary that is now rising to literary greatness around the world. Roth therefore posits an interesting question: is the artist more famous dead than alive? Or is Amy cloaking herself in this literary aura simply to attract the aging Lonov as her lover? Wrapping up the cast is Hope, Lonov’s long-suffering wife, whose income and family position have afforded the eminent writer his lifestyle. Hope suffers from a lack of self-worth and feels that she can never match up to her spouse’s greatness; yet she is the jealous housewife when it comes to Amy, willing to pluck out an eyeball or two. An interesting cocktail of emotions to drop our Zuckerman into, especially when he lusts over Amy and worships Lonov – imagine his consternation when he overhears Amy and the great man up to more earthy matters above his head between creaky floorboards in the old farmhouse!Although the stage is set for a myriad of possibilities, Zuckerman and Lonov hog most the time in this short novel discussing literary matters. Henry James is quoted often, the most important being, “Doubt is the writer’s passion, passion is his task, the rest is the madness of art.” My favourite however is, “Literary history is in part the history of novelists infuriating fellow countrymen, family and friends” – a path Zuckerman (and Roth) have taken. The lot of the Jews facing persecution for just being Jewish is highlighted in the fate of the Frank family who had assimilated into Holland and identified themselves as being Dutch, but who were betrayed by their countrymen and sent to the camps.Despite the literary and philosophical skirmishing, Roth does not forget that this is a novel and gives us an interesting ending, which restores the balance. I am now on the path to reading more Zuckerman novels, particularly because the voice of the narrator has a restrained humour unlike more frenetic narrators such as Portnoy (Portnoy’s Complaint) and Eli the Fanatic (Goodbye Columbus), and the sentence structure is complex yet fluid and a pleasure to read.
—Shane
