Buyer Beware: Vol. 14

We're on vacation until August 6th. Until then, buyer beware: this isn’t  the book you’re looking for…

Review: Nemesis, by Philip Roth

Philip Roth has been making headlines recently by refusing to publish anything new (he has officially retired from writing.) But I couldn’t really add my voice  to the chorus of voices that are reacting to that news, because I’d never really read the man. That is, until I picked up Nemesis   a couple of weeks ago. So, what is my impression of Roth?

In truth, I don’t feel like my having read his 31^st and final novel gives me too much insight into this perennial Nobel contender. Roth’s got more prestigious awards than you can shake a stick at, and the only award Nemesis  was shortlisted for was the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, which happens to celebrate medicine in literature (the book concerns a war-time Polio epidemic.)

But I was wholly drawn into this story of a young playground director who finds himself battling the scourge of polio at home, while his best friends fight on the front lines of World War II.  What with the baseball backdrop, the overhanging shadow of war, and a New York-area Jewish youth wrestling with religious themes, the book felt like a fitting companion to Chaim Potok’s The Chosen , a book I absolutely loved. (Mr. Cantor? Mr. Galanter? Eh? Eh?) But unlike The Chosen , which ends up affirming religious faith, Nemesis  is the account of faith lost.

The book’s title is never really explained, but since the story unravels like a classic Greek tragedy, we can only assume that “Nemesis” signifies the Greek goddess of vengeful retribution, come in the form of the Polio virus. I’ve spoiled enough of the story as it is, but I’ll just say that Roth breathed enough life  into the time period and setting to make me want to check out some of his other work. You should, too.

First Line Friday

If you review my previous First Line Friday posts, you may notice a pattern: I like short, zippy, poignant first lines.  So, in an effort to diversify my preferences, I'm going with a longer first line today:

"It was the summer of 1998 that my neighbor Coleman Silk - who, before retiring two years earlier, had been a classic professor at nearby Athena College for some twenty-odd years as well as serving for sixteen more as the dean of the faculty - confided to me that, at the age of seventy-one, he was having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old cleaning woman who worked down at the college."

That is what I would call an immense first line.  It provides a lot of information . . . a whole novel's worth in one sentence.  But, in spite of my preferences for short first lines, I have a certain appreciation for this first line. It seems to work.  It's somewhat burdensome, to be sure, but all in all, I can appreciate it.

Dost thou disagree?

First Line Friday!

It's "First Line Friday" again. Today's first line is a great one for memorizing, if you are in the business of memorizing first lines:

"I knew her eight years ago."

Now, I like this line. I don't love it, but I do think it's a good first line. I like that it's concise (very concise . . . 6 words), but completely introduces the reader to the subject, which is obviously a girl. But, I also wonder about its efficacy? Does it work? Is too basic?

The writer, of course, is Phillip Roth. The novel is The Dying Animal.