“Read at the level at which you want to write.” Jennifer Egan (brainpickings.org)
I couldn’t read Roth until I was older and now he is one of my favorite writers. I hope he never dies! I may have read this Zuckerman novel before (or maybe it just seems familiar because it takes place in the Berkshires where I was born and lived a good many years?) No matter, it’s worth a re-read.
Here’s a sentence: “My guess was that it would take even the fiercest Hun the better part of a winter to cross the glacial waterfalls and wind-blasted woods of those mountain wilds before he was able to reach the open edge of Lonoff’s hayfields, rush the rear storm door of the house, crash through the study, and, with spiked bludgeon wheeling high in the air above the little Olivetti, cry out in a roaring voice to the writer tapping out his twenty-seventh draft, ‘You must change your life!'”
Swoon.
Beef with barley soup for lunch after another frigid walk with the dog. And since K won’t be here for dinner, I’m not even cooking: a bowl of fruit, yogurt and sunflower seeds topped with honey from Charleston.
*thank you Mo for link on FB to the article.
Such beautiful pics! Love the one of Finney-Boy looking in!
He can’t help looking handsome
Roth!!!! Me too. Started with “Goodbye Columbus” in 1960, then “Portnoy’s Complaint” shortly after, “My Life As A Man” sometime in the seventies. Then I lost track of him until the nineties when I returned for the American trilogy of “American Pastoral”, “I Married a Communist”–favorite of the three– and “The Human Stain”. Then “The dying Animal”–that was rough, “Everyman” and “Exit Ghost”…all rough really. I still want to read “The Plot Against America”. I have a whole lot more of Roth to read even after he leaves the planet. Did you see this essay in New Yorker..(2012) interesting http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-open-letter-to-wikipedia
Meanwhile, beautiful bottles and good photos.
I did read some of his letter in The New Yorker. Or rather K read it to me. Posted a pic for you on FB.
I still haven’t grown up enough to handle the work of Philip Roth!
Yeah funny but I get it.