The Ghost Writer

Sort of like a stream of thought, with a soft structure, and an incredible vocabulary. Not Roth's best work - but quick enough read that if you don't like it, it'll be over shortly.

Philip Roth has published steadily since the 1950's and attracts new readers all the time, who enter his world in media res. For those not as familiar as others, allow me to provide context: Nathan Zuckerman is a character who first showed up in Roth's fiction in the 1970's, and ever since has been considered the author's alter ego. In 1979, Roth published THE GHOST WRITER, which takes Zuckerman back to his days as a young up and coming writer of literary fiction in the 1950's. This is a terrific stand alone read, and it is also an excellent introduction to Zuckerman. Roth knows how to tell a story. He knows where the bones of structure go, he knows how to order his information, deploy a flowing rhythm, adjust perspective and fashion a remarkable voice. He knows how to be funny ha-ha and how to be funny, hmmm. He is a writer of great economy who fits a lot of vision into a cleanly told story. In this book, the young worshipful Zuckerman arrives at the Berkshire retreat of his idol, the famous writer E.I. Lonoff, for an evening of literary conversation over dinner and drinks. Across the span of the evening, Zuckerman learns what a career of nothing but writing can do to a man and, more importantly, to his marriage. He recalls his own family issues that have sprung up now that he has begun to write stories that portray middle class Jewish Americans in the glare of reality. When it becomes late and Lonoff insists he stay the night, Zuckerman learns a lot more about Lonoff than was expected, and contemplates the mysterious graduate assistant who also stays, who inspires in the third movement of the book, an alternative history about Anne Frank. Several different variations of meaning are wrung out of the term "ghost writer" in the course of less than 24 hours.

Roth's always brilliant prose is here in spades. But this is not a fully realized novel. Chunked in four short sections, the book offers a tenuously connected series of riffs dealing with a "what if" history scenario. The story features many of Roth's favorite themes: strained family relationships, masks worn to hide true feelings and identity, and the tangled, hero worship, and the intricate conflict inherent in the question of what it means to be a "good" Jew. It's an absorbing read. But for a more fully realized Roth offering where he reimagines history, I would suggest "The Plot Against America."

Best book I have read in a long time. I laughed out loud several times. Roth has an endearing style of describing things as they are without being corny.

This small novella has many interesting features that will be delightful for those who enjoy Philip Roth's incredibly clear, elegant writing. The Ghost Writer does not have the power of his great novels, as language is relatively plain and without any stylistic digression, but as part of the evolution of Roth's creative thinking, it is clearly a first step towards the masterpiece American Pastoral. Roth here also sort of cathartically exorcizes some of his anxieties of influence (to use Harold Bloom's lingo), as he strives to surpass his predecessors, Liev Tolstoy, Franz Kafka, Saul Bellow and... Anne Frank, and this is just fantastic imho...