I never met someone who read a Philip Roth novel, let alone liked one. But I've never been to cocktail party on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, either. Roth wrote neurotic, self-absorbed books steeped in the post-war era's listlessness and secular disfunction. As with many books that fly high on the back of the temporal zeitgeist, his aged terribly.
Vanity Fair reports on a rape scandal embroiling Roth's biographer, his publisher, and The New York Times. Anyone with passing knowledge of the way the Times functions as cheerleader for academia and the literati shouldn't be surprised.
Last week The New York Times advanced upon allegations of sexual harassment and assault in The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate and the Los Angeles Times against Philip Roth biographer Blake Bailey with an account from Valentina Rice, a 47-year-old publishing executive who alleges Bailey raped her in 2015 while they were both staying at the home of Times book critic Dwight Garner. The story raised eyebrows, and not just because W.W. Norton, Bailey’s publisher, had halted the shipping of the long-awaited book in response to the allegations leveled against the author by Rice and several former students (Bailey denies any wrongdoing).
It was particularly striking that one of the alleged sexual assaults took place at the home of one of the most prominent book critics in America, one employed by the very paper disclosing the previously unreported accusation. All of which came after weeks of its copious—and often, though not always, glowing—coverage leading up to Bailey’s release. The Times’ level of promotion wasn’t unusual for a book positioned as a serious literary biography—and especially one about the late Roth, who represents a kind of fantasy of what it meant to belong to a certain generation of American male novelists—but the paper’s own scoop inevitably raised questions of who knew what and when.
If this excerpt of Portnoy's Complaint's Wikipedia entry is anything to go by, I firmly reject what it means to belong to Roth's generation of American male novelists:
Roth had begun work on Portnoy's Complaint in 1967, before publication of his novel When She Was Good that year. The piece had its genesis in a satirical monologue Roth had written to accompany a slide show proposed for inclusion in the risqué revue Oh! Calcutta! that would focus on the sexual organs of the rich and famous.
While the slide show would never come to fruition, Roth found part of the accompanying monologue about masturbation salvageable. Roth re-fashioned the material for the novel and sold a chapter of the book, entitled "Whacking Off", to Partisan Review. Progress on the novel was slow because Roth was suffering from writer's block relating to his ex-wife, Margaret Martinson, and the unpleasant notion that any royalties generated by the novel would have to be split equally with her. In May 1968, Martinson was killed in a car crash in Central Park. Roth's writer's block lifted and, following Martinson's funeral, he traveled to the Yaddo literary retreat to complete the manuscript.
This is what passes for erudite entertainment to the gatekeepers of popular entertainment, at least at the time. Protective of its legacy, the NYT spares no expense boosting Roth and acolytes like Bailey with gusto.
One of the hundreds of people who bought the book before the ban hammer dropped took to Twitter to ask whether it was permissible to read it.
Start with asking why you're reading the book in the first place. If it's because you want to ingratiate yourself to a certain crowd, spare yourself. That world is leaving Roth behind.
As for the issue of whether you should engage in commerce with someone who did something bad, this is one of the great quandaries of our time, isn't it? If you're looking for a writer who passes a moral purity test, stop looking. He doesn't exist. To read anything, you must reconcile yourself to reading the works of sinners, including yours truly. On this, as usual Paul had a wise take:
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
The key difference being a brother in Christ has heard the gospel and assented to its teachings. He knows better yet continues to live in sin, wilfully opposing the truth. I would say if Bailey shows wilful opposition to what he knows is right, as opposed to the occasional moral failings of a man whose flesh predisposes him to sin, it's permissible to refuse to read him on those grounds.
On the other hand, we saw "she who must not be named" almost lose her book deal because of her studied observation of the immutability of sex. Her defense of her stance was definitely wilful. People with a different epistemological view of reality were justified in refusing to engage in commerce with her.
That doesn't mean I think they're right or that I don't want their minds to change. All it means is they appropriately applied their conscience in accordance with what they believe, as I also reserve the right to do.
As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi that is most assuredly not like Philip Roth, check out my books Seeds of Calamity and Tendrils to the Moon. You can find extended previews for each here and here.
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