Philip Roth ~ [Talk about] ~ 8/00 ~ Fiction Export

1997

Philip Roth's three part exploration of 20th Century postwar America concludes with The Human Stain, our BC Online selection for September. In American Pastoral, Roth weighed in on the Paradise Remembered and Lost of America during the quarter century after WWII. In I Married A Communist, Roth focused on the post-war McCarthy era.

1998

Have you read these novels by Philip Roth? What are your thoughts on these or other of Mr. Roth's novels you may have read? How do you feel about Roth's literary alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman's particular vision of America as it enters the 21st Century?

Join us here with your thoughts.

And be sure and join us here on September 1st for our discussion of The Human Stain

Discussion leader ~ Charlie W.

Having finished American Pastoral, I’m left with a vague feeling of inconclusiveness. With that, I’m beginning I Married A Communist right away. Not that the story in American Pastoral will be picked up in the second book of the trilogy, but, here’s hoping the thread of the themes will wrap themselves more tightly into a recognizable tapestry of late 20th Century American Life. The central theme that is agonized over by the main character: where did I go wrong with this child, is of course, never really answered. But this is a purposeful enigma that Roth has drawn of the family of Swede Levov. I’m interested to see where he takes this next.

I’m always interested in styles, techniques of writing, “voice”. What Roth did (very early in the book I might add) was really fascinating to me. The book starts out in the familiar first person narrative of the “storyteller”. In many of Roth’s books, this is of course his alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman. Zuckerman begins by telling the factual story, as he knew it, of The Swede, a classmate of his in high school, a three-star athlete, the Golden Boy. Then he very adroitly slips into imagining the rest of the story and into the mind of The Swede. This is pretty nifty. He’s attending his 45th High School reunion (a great section, by the way), where he learns from Jerry Levov that The Swede is now dead. The music is the old Johnny Mercer standard “Dream”:

“To the honeysweet strains of “Dream,” I pulled away from myself, pulled away from the reunion, and I dreamed…I dreamed a realistic chronicle. I began gazing into his life – not his life as a god or a demigod in whose triumphs one could exult as a boy but his life as another assailable man…”

Passages like these can allow me to forgive a lot of excesses.

Charlie - went over to Barnes and Noble because I read somewhere (I think) that American Pastoral was modeled on Paradise Lost. Twenty cookies later (the internet kind), I found nothing there that said this. Did I dream this?

I thoroughly enjoyed American Pastoral. I'm going to have to reread it in order to speak intelligently about it since it's been a couple of years since I read it.

No. You didn't dream it, Sarah. That was certainly Roth's broad intent, I think, to use that sort of model. After all, AP is broken down into three sections:

Paradise Remembered
The Fall, and
Paradise Lost

I'm intrigued, Charlie, with the "where did I go wrong with this child" theme you mentioned. Any connection with Roth's personal life? Since we're looking at so much of his work, is there a good biography, I wonder?

Here is a link to a comparison of DeLillo's Underworld and American Pastoral.

http://www-polisci.mit.edu/BostonReview/br22.5/gediman.html

Ah, there are whole shelves of biographical material on Roth, well, of course. The link provided in the Human Stain folder is very helpful. I notice the 1982 biography by Hermione Lee, one of my favorite biographers. She's done justice to the lives of Willa Cather and, very recently, Virginia Woolf. Much has been written about the definitive work on Woolf.

Roth writes about everything, I see----even reviews of Pal Joey and Funny Face, way back when. Hey, anyone who listened to/wrote about that wonderful music---well, I like him already. (Don't even know how he reviewed them.)

Some of his essays, short stories, even 2 novels a while back ring a bell of recognition. I've been reading him and didn't even know it. When you read the list of all his fiction and non-fiction all at once, the word Jewish is repeated many times. What is it about New York and anything Jewish and I KNOW I'm going to like it? In my next life, I'm going to live it all in New York.

Betty - I'm with you - I feel at home with urban, Jewish fiction. Partly, it's my own roots, and a feeling of comfort with something that is familiar. The other part is that Roth's books and characters feel real to me. This is how people really feel and act.

Good link, Hairy. I can't disagree with the idea that "chaos", or as Roth calls it the "American Berserk", is used by him as way of explanation - and is somehow unsatisfying.

betty - I know nothing of Roth's biography, so can't say how much he draws from the personal to paint his portrait of the failed perfect family.

I was surprised when I went to my bookshelf to find 5 Roth novels. I knew I had read Goodbye, Columbus and was sure I had read Letting Go. Which I had. But there were also three other books there that I had read. Thing is - I couldn't tell you a thing about any of them!

Funny. But at least my initial reaction to American Pastoral v.s. I Married A Communist is the opposite of the general criticism. I like the latter better. Because, I think, I like the characters more. I'll say this about Roth, he has some powerful insights into human motivations. Does he ever.

If you have not read or plan not to read Roth's I Married A Communist, do this at least: Next time you're in your favorite cushy bookstore (or library) grab yourself a copy and read the last few pages of Chapter 8. The scene is Nixon's funeral as broadcast on C-Span. Pages 278-280. They crackle and sizzle, complete with Kissinger quoting (in Roth's estimation) the wrong passage out of Hamlet. He ties it all together with an earlier funeral from his characters childhood: that of a canary. It's devastating and riotous and reading the book was worth it (for me) if just for this passage. Wow.

Powells in Portland (www.powells.com) just put their new hardback copies of I Married a Communist on sale for $7.98---which makes it cheaper to buy than their several hard-back used copies. I just ordered that and American Pastoral---couldn't do it any sooner because I am, as usual, waaay over book budget, AGAIN.

It's been many years since I've read Roth - and just as many since I read Bellow, or Bernard Malamud, for that matter. In my first reading phase (the intense period when I was 15-25) I was a voracious reader. Mu searching for meaning phase. During that period, of course, both Bellow and Roth were (relatively) young, new writers on the literary scene. When I began to read more intensely again (just these last few years), I did not revisit those writers again, or catch up to what they had been up to. Recently, I have read American Pastoral and I Married A Communist by Roth. And looking forward to reading The Human Stain for September. Haven't dipped back in to Bellow, though - or Malamud (deceased).

Bellow at 85, Roth at 67 by Norman Podhoretz

A nice discussion on Roth and Bellow - both having published new books at about the same time. Especially on the difficulty of separating out the author from their fictional stand-ins. But also the discussion of the narrative device employed by each: a character asks the authors alter-ego (Nathan Zuckerman, in The Human Stain)to tell the story of another character in the novel. Confused? In American Pastoral, Roth plays an even neater trick when Zuckerman (who years ago had been asked to write the story of The Swede's father)writes instead the story of The Swede himself by slipping into The Swede's skin: "...I dreamed...I dreamed a realistic chronicle. I began gazing into his life..." And so the narrative does a - well not a 360 or even a 180 but a sort of 90 degree switch. Very subtle and a terrific touch.

The author of this article, by the way, doesn't much buy into the "trilogy" aspect of these three Roth novels - except as they are continuing meditation on mortality or legacy. To Roth though, the three great historical events of post-war America that has shaped his three characters are - in the sequence of publication: The McCarthy era, the Vietnam War, and - believe it or not - the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Or the Clinton era. I wonder if there are other novels (or novels yet to come) that capture the Clinton impact for our times (Esterhaus's latest??). Perhaps we mere mortals are as yet too close to these events for that kind of perspective.

Podhoretz has some especially interesting things to say about the "autonomy of art" (judging art, or here the novel on its' "aesthetic merits" as opposed to any "extraliterary considerations"). These considerations have sometimes surfaced in our discussions here at B&L. I know I may be willing to forgive and overlook to some degree artistic transgressions if those "extraliterary considerations" validate a particular passion of mine. We all may be guily of that to some degree - and it might even be a particularly insidious form of PC. Another subject that has arisen from time to time (and will surely arise again in our discussion of The Human Stain.

Charlie

"What James Joyce did for Dublin, what William Faulkner did for Yoknapatawpha County, Philip Roth has done for Newark." So said President Clinton, when he presented Roth with the National Medal of the Arts in 1998. He's won posssibly every literary prize available - except the elusive Nobel. Apparently a highly rgarded literary force in Europe, he was the subject of a four day festival in France complete with an exhibition on Newark. It's always fascinating to see which cultural icons make the big hit in Europe - and how they fare there as opposed to in their native land. New York Magazine article

Absorbing articles, Charlie. About halfway through the first, Podhoretz asserts that we are free to follow the author as he "leaps into the bloody crossroads" of politics---that our personal view of the world (reality) can be considered in assessing (the "art" of) the novel if the characters speak the author's political views. Did I get this right?

You know, I get it, I get it, that for the average novel, we're supposed to let the particular story with the particular characters be judged as a workable entity---characters that are purposefully racist, for example. That you can't condemn a book for a character's racism if that is part of the gestalt of the book. What is toughest for me is when you can't tell if the author is aware of an imbedded slant.

Bottom line for me is allocation of time---which books to read. There are such wonderful books that do honor the complexity of women (such as Mating by Norman Rush that I just finished), but sometimes I worry that some of my reading is so random and careless that I'm reading all the wrong books.

Charlie: Please translate:

Podhoretz has some especially interesting things to say about the "autonomy of art" (judging art, or here the novel on its' "aesthetic merits" as opposed to any "extraliterary considerations"). These considerations have sometimes surfaced in our discussions here at B&L. I know I may be willing to forgive and overlook to some degree artistic transgressions if those "extraliterary considerations" validate a particular passion of mine. We all may be guily of that to some degree - and it might even be a particularly insidious form of PC. Another subject that has arisen from time to time (and will surely arise again in our discussion of The Human Stain.

Huh?

Betty - you bring up a great point - so many books, so little time! I too choose randomly - although I never read non-fiction so that narrows the choices down significantly. I do tend to stay with the prize winners and with authors I know I already like - this strategy does not often let me down. I've also discovered some jewels here - some weighty, some not.

Charlie - Bernard Malamud was the first author I really focused on when I started my current reading binge (which started in 1991). His books are simply incredible. I also love Chaim Potok - have you read him? And Henry Roth - an amazing writer.

Philip Roth is one of my favorites - I read every book he writes. While his characters are often offensive, he NEVER writes a boring book. I think that's probably the most important thing about any book I've loved - it must be a good read. It can be as literary as hell, but if I have to reread sentences over and over - it never makes my list of favorites.

Who in your view makes that list - great, literary authors whose books are fascinating page turners?

Because of this discussion I am immersed in American Pastoral. For me, growing up in New Jersey, it's like a mirror on life then and it's almost breathtaking, every word is so true. Yes, he does go a bit overboard with some of the sentence structure, but it may be important in capturing the delicate thing he's trying to depict. He's so right.

Oh he's so right. I am so glad you all started this, as I would never have, probably, with all the other books we read here, gotten around to it. I have also read Goodbye, Columbus, three times and Letting Go which I thought I remembered had been written by Evan Hunter but I'm shocked to see how many of Roth's I have missed and I can tell you one thing: The Godfather is on the shelf, it doesn't compare to the Roth.

What a contrast to Our Guys this start of the book is, I wish LJ were around, he'd really enjoy discussing the difference. How true it is.

We had several different groups of students in the New Jersey high school I attended. We had a large number of Jewish students, Catholic students and Polish students, who were either Catholic or Jewish. I was definitely in the minority. I never heard a Polish joke till I moved away from New Jersey.

Thus I felt then and still do that the level of scholarship in our classes was elevated by the presence of the Jewish students who were always the best, and Roth explains it so well in his portrayal of the fathers who, with no education themselves, pushed hard for it for their sons who then had to struggle to love them. Boy can he write.

What a special time and place he has captured and how well I know it. I'm wallowing in nostalgia right now in the opening chapters, it reminds me of the Pawnbroker for some reason.

Where is ED?? I would relish his thoughts on this book!

ginny

Hi, Ginny, I received my box from Powells this morning with American Pastoral among other goodies. I'm about half way through it tonight. This is a different kind of dedicated reading, isn't it? You have to hang in with him through 3 or 4 sentences in one sentence.

Can he ever capture people. The arguments with daughter Merry are so real, they're scary. The rational parent vs. the irrational teenager. In one place I had to put the book down to laugh and slap the book. Swede, the father, is asking the daughter Merry if she plans to go into New York "next week." Her angry answer is that she doesn't plan "years" in advance. Exactly how a kid would exaggerate.

By the time Roth is listing and listing all the bombing sites of the 60s, I have to say, for the first time, EVER, I got a glimpse of how the dumbfounded parents must have viewed those of us coming of age during that time. (I was the right age but was pretty much asleep---the overdue rebellion came later.) Roth's deceptively simple dialogue---well, it's just flawless again and again. I found myself wondering if this can be taught or if he's one of a few who has this gift and that's the end of that.

A thought on the half-page sentences. This is close to how we talk/think---all the asides and parenthetical detours. Our "formal" writing has never matched how we talk/think. His writing is a chore to read, though, isn't it?

I guess what NP is really saying betty, is that a work should be judged primarily on it’s literary merits – first and foremost. That a work can be condemned on political and/or moral grounds – but still be hailed as a work of art. I see it – intellectually. But for me, to praise a works literary value, a work whose politics for instance I found repugnant, would be nigh on impossible. Guess that’s why I’m not a literary critic. But, yes – it’s the “right and even the duty” of the reader to consider these “extra literary” issues. Especially it seems, when they are a part of the grand scheme of an author’s body of work. And that seems fair.

SarahT - What I was saying is that I’m forgiving (too forgiving in Podhoretz’s view) of an author whose politics matches mine – or whose world view validates the way I feel. Overlooking, perhaps, other “literary” considerations: tight plot, well drawn characters – whatever. Actually the one part I really meant to mention was the ‘"How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?"’ question. Sometimes we get off on these tangents and forget (to use this example) – that Lady Macbeth is a FICTIONAL character and her motivations can only be found within the context of the unreal novel and not in the context of her historical real world. But I fear I’m not making sense again. I’ve never read Chaim Potok nor Henry Roth, I’M loathe to admit (except Call It Sleep years ago). When I’m feeling really ambitious I lurk in the Henry Roth section and imagine tackling ‘the project.’ - Mercy of a Rude Stream. Who in my view makes the list (great, literary authors whose books are fascinating page turners?): John Barth always comes to my mind – I remember reading some of his huge books bug-eyed at the outrageous talent and continually breaking out in laughter, getting up and saying to whomever was in ear-shot: “You gotta listen to this!”

Ginny - He really captures Jersey, huh? Didn’t he do a good job of showing what The Swede meant to his neighborhood? How the “neighborhood entered a fantasy about itself” and how The Swede (their “very own Swede”) was “as close to a goy as we were going to get.” Loved that class reunion.

Charlie - are you saying you overlook Roth's faults as a writer because you think so much as he does?

Betty - I really like Roth. I hadn't even noticed the sentences (oblivious!).

On that other Roth - Charlie, you really must read the Mercy of a Rude Stream quartet. Weird, obsessive, focused on one thing - but great. His literary comeback was miraculous - writes one, very famous book as a young man - comes back, writes a quartet when he's like 80, dies, and then has the books (at least some of them) published posthumously.

I wasn't saying that about Philip Roth in particular, Sarah - but as a general statement. I'm sure I'm more forgiving of a writer with whose thinking I'm comfortable. Not very discriminating, I know. And I'm impressed - you've read the Henry Roth books! Maybe someday - I really want to get into a big project like that.

Sentences: Faulkner makes Roth look like a slacker in the sentence length department.

3rd day, 3rd try at this thought. Maybe someone will identify with it in this unfinished form. For me, it might be intelligence that makes the difference, maybe thoughtful intelligence, regarding writing that contains political issues with which I'm at odds. Example: Reading Roth's treatment of the 60s is easier for me than reading Anita Daimant's switch of a "rape" to falling in love/lust (Red Tent). Another example: I have almost no patience with pro-life hardliners' views of abortion, yet I can have calm discussions with an old friend (who happens to be a sister in the Catholic church, life is so odd that we would be close) on her radical feminism plus pro-life views. It's not her friendship that is the key, because there are other things on which we don't agree at all.

So, what am I saying? Writers who come to their views from an intelligent (informed), maybe even humane (thoughtful) process, can include political slants with which I'm at odds in their otherwise literate (artful) writing without the slant detracting from the overall work, for me. There are some Black writers who do not support affirmative action (not from California) whose writing is very moving. The discourse is enhanced with their thoughts.

Ok. Thoughtful intelligence. Sure that makes a difference. Must be no hints of holier-than-thou or dogma – that’s what fires me up. Must be no litmus test. Must be no drawing of lines in the sand before dialogue even begins. Must be no “if you haven’t walked in my shoes you don’t have a clue” and if you don’t have a clue what you have to say on the subject is automatically of lesser value. Course – it makes a bit of a diff on where I’m left standing after the line in the sand is draw, now doesn’t it? Which is to say that I can be a bit more forgiving (and I shouldn’t be) if I’m on the “right” side.

Allow me to give this example from personal history – about this “walking in my shoes”/”unless you’ve experienced” logic: In the sixties as a college student, I had an anti-Vietnam War opinion. The first argument used against this opinion was that – “well, have you been there? Unless you have then you really don’t know what it was about.” After a year in Vietnam, my opinions were only confirmed. Did my opinions suddenly have more value? Others thought not and neither did I. The argument just makes no rational sense and is the logic of demagogues and ideologues. ~~And Philistines~~ (Let’s not go overboard….) So considered opinions and ideas (humane – I like that) are what I look for – without the necessity for paying false dues to some arbitrary group.

"Unless you've been there," yes, that's used as a brick wall, often. It can be used as an excuse to stop or not enter discussion. The idea has some merit, though, for understanding someone's initial inability to identify/comprehend. ("I don't get it. Why doesn't she just leave him if he's hitting her. What's wrong with her?"-----or "Why didn't she leave her job? Why would she keep working for him if he did that?") Relevant information would suffice, though; you don't have to be "in her shoes" to understand.

All this we're talking about involves myths, stereotypes, misinformation---or thorough information. Maybe I'm biased about this, but often I think someone's position (or characters in fiction) is/are based on lazy sterotypes or myths. Being informed takes work. Someone can go along for years spouting that as numbers of women working outside the home increase, so does the divorce rate. That the first causes the second. That's a lazy perspective. It takes work to find out that 3rd or 4th or 5th factors might be influencing both those rates of increase, that one does not cause the other.

betty - As long as you're talking about "initial inability to identify/comprehend" - strong emphasis on initial, I agree with you. Whose building these brick walls? A little empathy, thoughtfulness, listening, willingness to learn, historical perspective, yes - relevant information - goes a long way to a deeper understanding of any issue. To those who build the walls and believe these things cannot break through them...well, who's cut off and alienated anyway? This has something to do perhaps with our ability to know - really know another human being...very smooth segue to-

Pg. 35: American Pastoral

And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision one another's interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that - well, lucky you.

Yassir.

I can't help myself:

You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception.

Page 35. American Pastoral

Yassir!

ginny

Shakespeare played this tune, too, no?

When, Charlie?

ginny

Charlie, Ginny, the passage(s) quoted mean so much to me---I had already marked up the page, written the page number in the back flyleaf, then later, torn a strip of paper to bookmark with the words "do not remove" written on it. And I emailed that plus another page or two to another brother who lives in north Texas.

Think of the irony of my believing that really knowing someone is folly. I was crazy about many of the professors I had in school (2nd time). Their good natured tolerance of my out-in-left-field perspectives---well, it could have been awful but it wasn't. By the second year, it was a standard line (joke) for some teacher, after presenting that day's material to say---except for Betty's disagreement, does anyone have any questions? Once I was excited about something presented and the teacher (a real clown) dramatically flopped down in a chair and said he could retire now, that he'd convinced me of something. (Must have been something on egalitarian roles of therapist and patient.)

The best part of Roth's quote is the "wrong and wrong and wrong." Doesn't that fit life?? At least once a year, my (other) brother and I air out all our misconceptions. He and I are extremely close and have seen too much as little kids together and have depended on each other through every phase of life---and are forever laughing at misconceptions or wrong assumptions.

I think Roth is talking about having an open mind----also exactly, precisely your words, Charlie---empathy, and listening to each other.

p.s. All that's missing, Charlie, is a music link in your segue (and coronets and french horns at the end).

In a general sense didn't WS write a lot about this folly? This difficulty of knowing anothers mind. He wrote of motives, of masks, of roles, of reponsibilities thrust upon the individual. Did Bloom say something like he "invented" the individual?

Here's an instance of being wrong about someone----

Et tu Brute?

On Roth's subject of being so wrong when we think we know someone or something---

From Shakespeare:

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there 
Where most it promises; and oft it hits 
Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.

All's Well That Ends Well (II, i)

From Einstein: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

From Oscar Wilde: "I'm not young enough to know everything."

_________________________________

Thinking of Roth's general view of life (and being wrong), Robert Frost said, "In three words I can sum up everything that I have learned about life. It goes on."

Thanks for bailing me out, betty!

Another from Shakespeare:

The fool doth think he is wise, 
But the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

from As You Like It

Those are good examples, I couldn't, for the life of me think of one. I see Caesar's as a bit more complicated than what Roth is saying, tho, and would never have thought of it.

I really couldn't address your earlier remarks, Betty, because you were so much further in the book than I was, I keep stopping. I bet I have read page 35 now a million times. That's ME he's talking about, that's me.

I think that's a very profound statement and almost worth the price of the book.

I'm going to put it in the Library, too, so people can see what great writing they are missing.

I think we should discuss this book, if nowhere else, here, informally.

Another really good one is the "human platitude" remark.

Roth is right, but he admits he was wrong. He got the Swede wrong. I wonder when we all will learn the truth about the masks everybody is wearing, it's almost as if people costume themselves. I encountered the very same thing recently: a family of human platitudes beaming at their progeny and right in the middle of a dinner the daughter (again) came out with a blistering assessment of dad. Dad beamed, mom beamed, the moment passed. Another Merry jr. Love the name.

I have never stuttered, always understood it was caused by the parents interrupting the child and causing a problem. I don't agree that it's willful as the psychiatrist seemed to think. Remember Prince Albert, the current Queen Mother's husband? Had a terrible stammer. She felt his being thrust into the kingship by Edward VIII's marrying Wallis Simpson caused his early death. Wallis called HER the "dowdy dutchess." Who had the last laugh there?

I can see that stuttering is a curse and had no idea of the terrible ordeal people go thru who suffer with it. And yet the Swede seemed as good a father as he was a football player, I'm surprised that Merry ....something is not right here in the story?

I don't have girls, but something is not right, is it? With that kind of father involvement, surely she should have turned out a little better.

Sixteen year olds should not be staying overnight in NYC with strange people as Swede thought.

And oh how Roth lets go on poor Swede, I wonder if this is the high school geek's revenge on the sports god.

When I heard that the most likely to suceed in my class was selling socks in Wanamakers, I was, just for a dishonorable moment, pleased.

ginny

Ginny, you've done just what Roth must have known we parents (or humans) would do. It's almost a dirty trick. How can any reader NOT respond to the Swede's allowing a teenager to go into NYC by herself. Taken simply, this is Roth's indictment of permissive parents---a whole, long phase in the U.S. of flexible or missing parental boundaries. Or is it just one more way of Roth showing parents believing that how a child "turns out" is totally within their control---if they only get it Right. Perfect parent equals perfect child.

Stuttering has a brain/language center origin. (I think that's right---anybody know?) Merry's mother's impatience is another way Roth pulls us into the if-the-parent-gets-it-right.

One of my 3 brothers has been through 10 plus years of the worst of the worst child "outcomes" (for lack of a better word). So many of us who know the details have each found ourselves rewriting history to avoid all that happened. If only this...if only that. It's VERY hard not to do that. In my head, though, I know we can't know what would have made a difference. I say this even as I hear the long list in my mind of how to be sure a child "makes it."

Roth's portrayal of the insanity of the sixties---from the law-abiding "conservative" eyes' perspective. Hmmmm. I wonder if this is one more way of portraying the pressure of unexamined expectations. Is it only with hindsight that we (I) see the 60s upheaval as something that could not have been prevented. It is not an indictment of society that a whole generation took such a noisy stand.

Ginny, I'm all for discussing American Pastoral. Terrific! I had planned, though, to go right on to I Married a Communist fairly soon. I want to have read both of these plus the Human Stain before the Sept. 1st discussion begins. It would just be you, Charlie, me, who else? Also, uh, how to say this, we wouldn't want to promote/recruit/be in the middle of a Roth book that would in some way take potential readers away from the planned Human Stain discussion---if there are those who would join in an impromptu discussion here but say, one Roth book is enough. Also, as was decided, this folder is sort of the ongoing informal place to discuss anything Roth with no set schedules. Or maybe that's all you're saying..... laughing, laughing....how appropriate if I'm so "wrong, wrong, wrong."

I don't see why we can't discuss the Pastoral here, Betty, why not? At the worst, we'll be wrong,. That does put a more permissinve spin on it, doesn't it?

But of course parents blame themselves, if only I had.... I thought it was recognized that girls suffer when their fathers don't approve of them and to the extent that their fathers support them they usually turn out well, it's the ones whose fathers don't support them who usually bomb post offices, or so I thought.

Those of us who have read these prior books will have a different perspective of The Human Stain, and it will be nice to hear the other side, because, of course, we are both wrong. hahahahahaha

Wouldn't you HATE to eat lunch with Roth? He would skewer me in 15 seconds and I'd probably have to pay for the check too.

ginny

That may be wrong, too.

Sort of a liberating thought, to be wrong. Never thought of it that way.

VERY liberating. Wasn't it that weird little book Jonathan Livingston Seagul that ended with the words (something like): All I have written here may be wrong.

Ginny - Your difficulty understanding how Merry could have turned out like she did is only exceeded by The Swede’s incomprehension of it. ”The disaster that befalls him begins in a failure of his responsibility, as he imagines it. Roth posits what he calls the indigenous American Berserk (the counterpastoral of the “longed-for American pastoral”) and either you but into it, or you don’t. Many people don’t and are offended by the notion. But anyway, in the Roth universe – there it is – and Swede Levov is thrust into the middle of it. And that’s his tragedy.

But whether you buy into this world-view or not – there’s this: “People think of history in the long term, but history, in fact, is a very sudden thing.” This may be more apparent to some than to others, depending on the timing of their births. Those “Greatest Generation” members, those coming of age in the late sixties – for example – may have more a sense of this than others, born at a more sanguine moment in history.

Charlie, I wondered over that sudden history remark, I'm not sure I understand it.

AHA! So you see this as SWEDE'S tragedy, do you? OK, tragedy occurs when the protagonist, even though struggling valiantly, suffers a downfall not of his own making, but thru a tragic flaw which he exhibits?

Well that makes several of us, then, looking for Swede's tragic flaw, Swede included. What WAS it?

Betty, on the long long long sentences (I saw where one reviewer said that in The Human Stain there was one more than 400 words long), do you think you tend to notice them more when he's talking about something not as well written or engaging than his previous writing? I do. Right now I'm at the part where Swede just got a letter from the Weathergirl (that whole scene in the hotel was unnecessary and pornographic to my taste, but I can see that a shorter description would fit the plot, and I wonder, I just wonder what it's leading up to, if anything).

Yes Swede is beating himself up about this, it's like a sore tooth and your tongue, it's what we all do, too. I believe we all do this. He frequents the new store and sits there boldly (I would have left town).

OK, here are some questions I have that I have pondered alone long enough?

1. Has it occurred to anybody BUT me that the trade Swede's father just happens to be in is symbolic? Skin? Skin covers the real person. There's a lot of things covered up so far in this book. Skin trade.

2. The maker of fine gloves would be VERY unlikely to call it "Newark Maid." You all may not be familiar with Newark, but it does NOT connote fine things, nor would that label inspire customers to seek it out. I don't think it would be called, for so many years, Newark Maid, fine leather gloves.

3. I wonder on the insistence of pronouncing Levov like "the love." For the life of me when I read Levov I say Lev AHV. So would anybody else. Is there something which indicates we need to think of LOVE when we think of Levov?

4. Is "Swede" itself an example of reverse bigotry?

ginny

Well, you're plugging along and everything is fine, lalala, book learnin', career plannin', thinking about the future....when all of a sudden: wham, you're swept up in historical events beyond your control. History isn't a leisurely Sunday buggy ride over hill and dale. History is, sometimes, a twelve car pile-up on the interstate. Or - to put in in Rothian terms:

A guy stacked like a deck of cards for things to unfold entirely differently. In no way prepared for what is going to hit him. How could he, with all his carefully calibrated goodness have known that the stakes of living obediently were so high?...A beautiful wife, A beautiful house. Runs his business like a charm....He was really living it out, his version of paradise. This is how successful people live. They're good citizens. They feel lucky. They feel grateful. God is smiling down on them. There are problems, they adjust. And then everything changes and it becomes impossible. Nothing is smiling down on anybody. And who can adjust then?. Here is someone not set up for life's working out poorly, let alone for the imposssible. But who is set up for the impossible that is going to happen? Who is set up for tragedy and the incomprehensibility of suffering? Nobody. The tragedy of the man not set up for tragedy - that is every man's tragedy.

Ginny's Q1 - No. It had NOT occurred to me, but I buy it.

Ginny's Q2 - We know what Newark has become a symbol OF - but what was it back when the business was started?

Ginny's Q3 - I discarded this is either insignificant or weak.

Ginny's Q4 - How so? Please expand. (Also let's keep this in mind for Human Stain)

Ginny, pardon me if you've already been through the following and still don't like Newark Maid---

Lots of businesses in the 50s and 60s had purposeful mispellings, plays on words, what today would look sickeningly cutsey. Kurl Magik for a hair salon. Suds'n dogies, a rootbear and hot dog stand I remember. "Serious" businesses would always have the city's name in their names. Made in Newark becomes Newark Made becomes Newark Maid (short for maiden). All dress gloves for women, I think. Or is there mention of men's dress gloves?

The longer sentences don't bother me if they are part of a consistent style and their placement makes intuitive sense. A few times already, they seem associated with the obsessive ruminating Swede does. They feel like worry to me. Anxiety. The thing that happens when the brain won't shut down to let you sleep. If he does this in all his books, then....nevermind.

Ginny: At one time, Newark was the lace manufacturing capital of the world,and currently the city fathers are trying to re-hab & gentrify the city.

There is a huge Portuguese enclave in Newark and they have the best Port. restaurants this side of Lisbon.

Regarding the skin trade and Roth... I hope what I'm about to post does not offend anyone....Roth has been severly criticized over the years for "thinking with his penis" and there is probably much psychological subtleties in all his works and a lot of not so subtle carnalities......Another way of looking at the skin trade is that instead of the skin hiding something, the loss of skin through circumcision exposes you in an extremely vulnerable area.

Ed, a reviewer (from link in Charlie's post) comments that Roth is known for his liberally erotic sex scenes. But, you're saying something else, right?

Gee, these are all great points, and I must admit some of them would never have occurred to me.

Ed, you may be on to something there, am not up enough on Roth to know but after reading these two books (I believe if Communist goes on and on about politics like this one is starting to (am over half way thru) then I'll pass on it, enough already, I find my mind numbing and blurring. I KNOW where he's coming from but, how to put this, I thought we all had this out of our systems. Maybe not, obviously NOT for Roth, maybe for me, tho).

I always thought all that activism was a reaction to the....Eisenhower years of supposed prosperity, the post war Levittowns a chicken in every pot era which the young sensed the...shallowness of and the old couldn't BELIEVE their good fortune. People whose families had never owned a home suddenly did, no matter that it was in the Levittowns of the world where you literally wandered in the wrong house at night because you couldn't tell your house from the one next door. I remember that. It was a time of change on both sides. Then the next generation wised up. Now the Xers WANT the big houses the big cars from the get go, they feel entitled, from the word go, but they have values, too, it makes you fearful for their children, it really does.

I think it's a cycle.

Ed, our ED! TELL us about Newark back in the 50s and 60s. When I saw Betty's post and those names, I thought, OH I bet she's right! I thought I have LIFE magazines from that era I will go LOOK!!! And I do remember those names, that's right, but darn it all, the magazines are from 1944 and 45, I don't think that counts. I bet Roth researched this, tho. I bet Betty's right.

Ed, does the lace industry call itself Newark Lace?

Newark always (and I'm a South Philly/ NJ girl) meant slums to me, but Ed's a native and still there, he remembers Willow Grove, he will be our final authority on it!

ED, what is Bambergers? I remember Wannamakers, Gimbels, Lits, Saks, Bloomie's, where was Bambergers in all that? Cheap? Good quality?

I just passed in the book how Swede got his name. He was blonde and fair with piercing blue eyes and so looked Sweedish and thus the coach cheerfully gave him the name. Apparently there's nothing pejorative yet about being called a Swede, isn't that interesting? Yes, let's remember this thing for Stain.

ED, how would you have pronounced Levov?

Levov is, to me, obviously a shortened name. I had to repeat the mantra "sounds like the love" a million times before I could begin to pronounce it like "the love." I don't think that's an accident, myself.

I don't remember any erotic love scenes in Goodbye, Columbus and I sure don't see any here so far, porn maybe, no love. Not yet.

So she hated the house? Personally I feel, at this point, sorry for Swede. I will not be surprised to see him disintegrate at the end of the book, if he does. The house was his dream but now he's casting it aside for the sake of his obviously mentally ill wife. That's "the love."

Let's see where it gets him.

So, Charlie, you are saying with that tragedy quote that the tragic flaw in every man is his inability to deal with the vicissitudes of life: that's his tragedy? How does history enter that picture and how could anybody prepare? That's kinds a specious argument, isn't it? Very defeatist, so everyman is a tragic figure, according to Roth? Things are beginning to fall apart now for me in the logic of the plot line, but help me get back on track!!

ginny

Betty; You are correct..my reference is to Roth's state of mind. No question that he is a talented writer,but I'm not sure that he emotionally ever got past age 15....there is a very vivid sequence in Portnoy's Complaint involving a piece of liver....much more graphic than a scene in the movie "American Pie".

Ginny:There was an extensive article about the Newark lace industry in the NY Times about a year ago,but they charge a fee to pull an archive.

Newark still has lots of slums,but as real estate and rentals go through the roof in NYC,there is definitely an upward movement for housing in Newark.

Bamberger's was a division of Macy's that was supposed to have more expensive,more upscale merchandise, and mostly in suburban areas. There was a Bamberger's in a mall in Bucks County (about 20 years ago)but they are long gone. I'm not sure the name still exists.

Ginny, I'm not the final authority on anything...but I would venture an opinion on everything (it's that Philly brashness)

Levov....Lev (like levee...drop the final ee)...ov (like ovulate...drop the ulate)

On the slim chance that I can explain this adequately, I want to share one of my all time favorite movie scenes, because it instantly brought to mind Roth's provocative idea of how wrong, wrong we are when we attempt to perfectly "know" or understand another person. The content of the 2 ideas to be compared is not similar; it's the shocking debunking of a common idea. It's the far reaching implication(s) of the debunked idea.

This is one of my favorite, romantic love scenes, favorite because it's so weird and you either instantly love it or frown and say, excuse me?? (I watched it last night on television.)

Moonstruck is the movie (academy award for best movie, I think that's right). Cher, Nicholas Cage, Olivia Dukacas. The scene takes place after he has taken her to the NY Met opera, late at night. He's in a tuxedo and she's in red silk. Without her realizing in which direction they have been walking (she's upset about her father), she suddenly realizes that he has walked her to his apartment front door. She's freezing cold, upset about her father, guilty about having slept with the brother of her fiance the night before and here she is with him again (the brother) for the second night. She does not want to go with him into the apartment. He is desperate to have her say yes again to sleeping with him. He declares he's in love with her. She is not responding at all to this, is upset with herself and him (mostly with guilt and confusion---although it was clear that she was swept away the previous night) and is saying that she's freezing cold and she wants to go home.

Then Nicholas Cage bursts out with an impassioned declaration about what love is and what it isn't. He's standing at his door a few feet from her and is somewhere between crying and yelling as he waves his arms to express his frustrated belief. He yells, "I love you, Loretta. It's NOT what they told you love was!! Love hurts us!! It ruins everything!! It breaks our hearts and then we die!!!" .....long pause, points at the door, and "Now,...GET...IN...MY...BED!!" He reaches out his other hand to her and the audience has to hold its breath to see if she takes his hand. She does, of course. End of scene.

I like the scene not because I agree with everything he said---maybe a tiny bit of it, but because it's completely different from all the idealized and over-romanticized versions of "love,"---the happily ever after stuff seen in a gazillion movies. I think it's one of craziest, bravest, coolest love scenes.

Ginny you are right about Roth researching the glove industry - apparrently he did so quite extensively.

On the tragedy quote - that's what Roth says, not me. I'm frankly not sure how I feel about it.

Ed - Do you subscribe to the NYTimes?. The Boston Globe (same company), now has 20 free archive retrievals a month for subscribers, which I think is a great idea and very fair.

Moonstruck is a huge favorite with my wifes sisters (she has 3) - they periodically get together and watch it...

I saw and enjoyed Moonstruck but did not agree with the characters's assessments of much of anything, actually. I thought it was good and enjoyable entertainment and always like Nicholas Cage, whom, as I remember, Cher had chosen as he was (was he?) one of her boyfriends or friends and pretty unknown at the time. They were both really good. I didn't get any lasting value out of it, but it's been a long time, I need to see it again.

Charlie, having finished the book, I'm with you: thinking. What IS Roth saying? This is a great deal like the book Revolutionary Road in theme and form, very similar. Very.

What is Roth trying to do here? IS he saying the Jewish American can NEVER make it, no matter how many shiksas (sp) he might marry no matter how great he is a football player and American icon? He, in the end, will be betrayed even THO he may be an American icon?

Did Roth say let's take Miss NJ but not go so far as Miss America and take an All American (no, let's not go that far, All State) and let's keep old man Lou Levov to the bitter end so that we can complete the symbolic contrast and say that it's never going to happen? ("What on earth is less reprehensible than the life of the Levovs?")

Or is this EveryMan who is also doomed to fail, because he can't ever succeed and why is that? Is it a mistake that both Levov brothers are successes? Jerry the abrasive Doctor/ "god," an occupation which IS in America a "god?" Swede the Athlete "god" married to a Beauty Queen goddess?

All failures?

Where, by the way, did the author of the piece go? The man who interviewed Swede over lunch?

The book begins with bread breaking and ends with same. But what does the book SAY?

"A moratorium on all the grievances and resentments, and not only for the Dwyers and the Levovs but for everyone in America who is suspicious of everyone else. It is the American pastoral par excellence and it lasts twenty-four hours."

So Thanksgiving now is a battlefield too?

Would you say, having read this book, that you personally can identify with any of the characters, and does this book say some profound truth to YOU?

ginny

Well, I'm less enthusiastic as I finish the book, beaten down is more to the point. Me, the believer in ultimate human wellness, even goodness. It's there, I'm sure of it. Don't know what Roth believes, but it's straightforward, I'll bet. Something like: life is hard. Something like: try as you might, some human mysteries do not have answers. Or: searching for answers is the human condition. Now, that does ring a bell. We do tend to want an answer to everything---who did this, who's to blame? Who's at fault? Or, a more neutral--what makes us tick.

I don't know that Roth is limiting his ideas to the Jewish experience. That's where his mind writes, but I wonder if it doesn't represent the human condition.

-------------------------------

Moonstruck isn't even one of my favorite movies, although if I haven't seen it for a while, I'll watch because it's such an exaggeration of Italian life and very, very funny. And it does have my all-time favorite scene.

Betty, that was one thing I struggled with too, IS it Everyman or IS it the Jewish experience in America?

I think the continued presence and not only the presence but the overwhelming presence of Lou Levov says something, and I'm not sure yet what it was.

I figured Lou would not have figured so prominently in the end of the book and finished the book looking for the "author."

I have a feeling I may have found both the missing author and Roth, tho.

ginny

Another writer, the screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, has a slightly more hopeful outlook as he explores segments of American misery. Grand Canyon (a movie hated by the critics) is not very well put together but I loved it anyway. During the movie, another movie is mentioned--the old, old Sullivan's Travels, a superb movie. If you haven't seen it, I guarantee you, you cannot possibly see where it's headed during the first half. It has much to say about life.

I'm not so sure Roth was throwing such a broad cloth over the entire American experience. I'm thinking that, coming out of the war, the American Pastoral awaited everyone - to be Lost inevitably. We're at a different time now. Let's see what he has to say in The Human Stain about where we are as a people.

And "Where, by the way, did the author of the piece go?" - why that for me, was one of the niftiet peices of writing-presto-chago I've seen in a long time. I loved that sleight of hand. This was a dream. A "realistic chronicle" of a life as imagined from the inside by Roth's literary alter-ego. Pg 89 - one of my favorites.

"So Thanksgiving now is a battlefield too?" - It was born of the battlefield, was it not?

I'm almost halfway through reading Pastoral, and so far I'm finding it to be one of the saddest stories I've read in ages. How that "guy who had everything" went all through life wearing a facade, a veneer, showing only the plastic parts of himself he wanted others to see. That, coupled with the description of a decying Newark, sets a sombre mood. Perhaps that will all change as I get more into it.

Lorrie

Hi, Lorrie - Without giving anything away - the mood does change somewhat - but not in the way you might expect.

I'm going to be interested to see what Lorrie thinks is the theme and the purpose of the book. I can't get over the feeling the author is saying something personal.

Chollie, since when is THANKSGIVING supposed to be war? I thought the Indians brought corn, fill me in, I seem to remember some recent thoughts that it was NOT as I was taught?

Betty, I've never heard of that movie and will see if it's offered here. I really don't go to movies much, have never been a fan, so when I do see one it usually blows me away, I guess because I see so few.

Glengarry Glen Ross and Looking For Richard had that effect on me, just to think of two, will try to get that one from satellite.

Still thinking about this book!

ginny

Native Americans tend to have a bit of a different perspective on "Thanksgiving" than the rest of us, Ginny

Many times over the past year we have been asked what is the true history of thanksgiving. This comes as no surprise. The truth has been buried for over 375 years. The first Thanksgiving did not occur in 1621 when the pilgrim survivors of the first winter sat down to dinner with their Indian friends. The first official day of thanksgiving and feasting in Massachusetts was proclaimed by Gov. Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637. He did this to give thanks for the safe return of men from the colony who had gone to what is now Mystic, Connecticut to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot men, women and children.

What happened in October of 1621 may have been a harvest home, but the Indians who attended were not even invited by the Pilgrims, who considered our people to be devils. No turkey, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie was served. Just days before this alleged thanksgiving communion, a company of pilgrims led by Myles Standish actively sought the head of a local chief. The pilgrims deliberately caused a rivalry between two friendly Indians, pitting one against the other in the classic European method of divide and conquer. An 11 foot high wall was erected around the entire Plymouth settlement for the purpose of keeping the Indians out.

The other side of the myth

Good heavens, Charlie! Who KNEW? You did but I sure didn't! Good grief, and that's one of my favorite holidays, too, so stress free and all!

Well, never to late to learn, I've printed that one out for my husband who is very interested in history!

Thanks!

ginny

Oh My, oh my! I've finished the part where Merry disappears and her parents are looking for her frantically, and along comes this sadistic little Rita Cohen. That one hotel room scene seemed a bit raunchy to me even,with my jaded sensibilities.

This Roth may be a lot of things to a lot of people, but one thing is undeniable. He's a brilliant writer, and I stand in awe of the way he can string words together. One thing I've noticed. All his books seem to have characters who go into long tirades. In fact, he's a maser of tirades, as it were.

I realize I'll have to read further in order to assess the real relationship between father and daughter. Right now, to me it's murky. Was there some significance to the almost incestuous playfulness when she was smaller, between Swede and Merry?

I'm into I Married a Communist and the pace feels different. Long ruminations notwithstanding, the hooks at the beginning make you want to find out why the 2 brothers have different experiences of the 50s. Tidbits of historical politics are wonderful. Strom Thurmond ran for president as a third party "segregationist"! Did I know this? I guess not, but it fits.

How does Roth do this (how does any writer)----lays out the general timeline, then weaves back and forth, in Roth's case, endlessly, sometimes every few paragraphs. I was only vaguely aware of the back and forth movement before feeling irritated with it---but I'm only a third of the way through the book, so I don't know if this is a plus or minus.

I've been noting simply spoken existential tenets from the narrator--I'll save these for while---don't know who plans to read the book before Sept 1st. One or two remind me of American Pastoral.

I love the political history told. Roth seems to single out those times in American history that have been reduced to a few generalized mental pictures and begins to look at them with new eyes, albeit farsighted left or right.

Yes, Roth seems to have divided this trilogy into three seperate eras. American Pastoral deals with the Protest Movements against the Vietnam war, I Married a communist is apparently about the McCarthy witch hunt era, and what do you suppose is the era that Roth will describe in Human Stain?

Lorrie

Lorrie- Good question. That was a bit puzzling and meant-to-be-provocative perhaps?

Betty - As I said before, and in disagreement with the prevailing ranking of these two novels - I much preferredI Married A Communist. Note thatboth novels, however, show brothers with completely different sensibilities.

Yeah - Strom Thurmond and the States Rights Party. I just don't "get" Strom Thurmond and the 'gentleman' from North Carolina.

Political correctness, Lorrie? Be ready for this one Betty - I know this is one of the issues that you have thought a lot about and are concerned with.

Pastoral is a very good book. The characters are sharply delineated, the interest sustained, and Roth moves back and forth in time with surprising ease. However, I find it a little hard to make the sudden adjustment from a Merry who owns an Audey Hepburn scrapbook to an overnight, sneering radical who seems to have a sudden hatred of her parents. From what I can see, the whole story is a Dreisian chronicle of three generations of Levov, glove makers whose product is no longer in demand, and a depressing view of a Newark fast fading into decay.

One thing bother me. Was the repugnant Rita Cohen a figment of the Swede’s frantic imagination? Merry later tells her father she didn’t know the woman.

Lorrie

Lorrie, that's just what the father is torturing himself with---how could this little girl of his turn into something he doesn't recognize? We're told if we play by the rules, we win. We're told that parents are responsible for how kids turn out, so it must be something the parents did wrong. Even as readers who are parents, it's impossible for us to read without trying to spot what we might have done differently. I think Roth intended that. I was doing it during the (what I thought was) permissive New York City trips.

The need for a just world fuels lots of our finger pointing. Someone must be at fault, responsible. Roth does capture how we do that to ourselves.

A sure sign of a good writer, to me, is when a key part of the future plot is told well before it happens and, even as it shocks you, none of the mystery is ruined. That just happened in I Married a Communist. There it was, at the end of a sentence, an oh-by-the-way tone of nothingness. Those moments ensure that I keep reading, loving but not understanding how a writer knows how and when to do that.

Betty: Okay, you've convinced me. I can see now I'll have to read I Married a Communist, too, to round off this trilogy. I think I have time to finish it before we start The Human Stain, even at my snail's pace.

Lorrie

Charlie says there is also a confrontation between brothers in that one. That scene Roth set with the conversation between the Swede and his brother Jerry on the telephone was searing, to say the least.

Lorrie, I, too, pondered over the Cohen episode. But I don't see how Cohen could have been a figment of his imagination when she asked for the personal things, unless she was what I ended up thinking she was, just a nasty little thief who took what knowledge she had of Merry and used it for extortion.

Merry said she didn't know her but Merry herself didn't seem very sharp and apparently was in some sort of state of starvation etc.

I think it's a horror of parents of that time that their carefully washed children should turn out to prefer being part of the great unwashed. I have always thought that the only reason that occurs is that they don't have enough exposure when young TO the other side of the coin, they would soon see there is nothing noble in filth.

My problem with the thing is why Swede didn't have her admitted into a mental institution and thus save her, I'm afraid I'm with nasty Jerry on that one, tho on no other.

Two interesting brothers presented here, the high school football hero who just happens to be a great guy and the high school nerd who just happened to end up as a god like surgeon and was not a good guy by any standards.

I'm not sure on the Communist thing, I don't think I'm up for much more political rantings, Betty, your take on the throw away line is pretty enticing tho, let me finish Stain first and then see what time I have.

ginny