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My Life as a Man
Escrito por Philip Roth
Narrado por Dan John Miller
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At its heart lies the marriage of Peter and Maureen Tarnopol, a gifted young writer and the woman who wants to be his muse but who instead is his nemesis. Their union is based on fraud and shored up by moral blackmail, but it is so perversely durable that, long after Maureen's death, Peter is still trying-and failing-to write his way free of it. Out of desperate inventions and cauterizing truths, acts of weakness, tenderheartedness, and shocking cruelty, Philip Roth creates a work worthy of Strinberg-a fierce tragedy of sexual need and blindness.
Acciones del libro
Comenzar a escucharInformación sobre el libro
My Life as a Man
Escrito por Philip Roth
Narrado por Dan John Miller
Descripción
At its heart lies the marriage of Peter and Maureen Tarnopol, a gifted young writer and the woman who wants to be his muse but who instead is his nemesis. Their union is based on fraud and shored up by moral blackmail, but it is so perversely durable that, long after Maureen's death, Peter is still trying-and failing-to write his way free of it. Out of desperate inventions and cauterizing truths, acts of weakness, tenderheartedness, and shocking cruelty, Philip Roth creates a work worthy of Strinberg-a fierce tragedy of sexual need and blindness.
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A little too over the top for me. The meta-fiction works well, but I kept thinking to myself, "Wow, each Philip Roth in this book really hates women."
This is a crafty, ferocious, angry book.
Peter Tarnopol's life as a man is all downhill after he meets Maureen Johnson. He becomes a pathetic captive of this evil woman, marries her and cannot escape even after after her unregretted death. An exceptional piece of writing, hilarity amid the pathos.
I don't know off hand how many Roth books I've read now, but I suspect it's easily in the two digits. I've also read more essays, reviews and entire books of criticism of Roth than any sane person should. A common criticism of his work is that he portrays women poorly, that he is in fact a misogynist.Maybe it's because I didn't graduate from college and was therefore able to avoid any sort of Gender Studies class, but I never really had a problem with his portrayal of women. He typically has two extreme versions of women in his novels. Woman 1 : Simple, easy to get along with. There to please. Lacking any sort of personality or sense of self.Woman 2 : Bold, articulate, straight forward. Demanding and challenging.In most of his stories, his protagonist will at some point have to decide between these two types of women. They always struggle to choose and the outcome is never the same. While I have considered that it would be nice if he'd occasionally write about a more balanced woman, I don't think that every book I read has to incorporate every type of person ever, so I mostly scoff and roll my eyes at the more feminist criticisms of his work.Then, I read this book.Stop the presses, it's true : Philip Roth hates women. Knowing as much as I do about his background, it is clear to me that this book was a direct attack on his first wife, who died well before the book was written. This novel is the story of their relationship, their downfall and her eventual death. It reads as a bitter, scathing, one-sided and completely unfair assessment of their relationship. The woman is a crazy person, he is perfect. All of their problems were her fault.It was gossipy, hostile and downright unpleasant to read. I will not be reading this again and I'm hoping to soon forget it.That said, the prose was beautiful. He wrote some interesting tidbits about Chicago and the first 1/4 of the book, before he got nasty, was intriguing enough.In summation : Uh, don't read this unless you really, really hate women.