Indignation

Just finished Philip Roth's latest and wanted to post my review here as soon as possible. If you haven't read a novel by the author, you owe it to yourself to pick one up and see what all the hype is about. Personally, I'd recommend for first-timers THE DYING ANIMAL, THE GHOST WRITER or his first, GOODBYE, COLUMBUS, a novel with 5 short stories added. The new one is also pretty good, too. Read on.

INDIGNATION:





indignation / n : anger aroused by something unjust, unworthy, or mean.

Philip Roth’s 29th book (and the 15th of his I’ve read) is the best of the last few, similarly short, novels he’s produced. I thought EVERYMAN was a total waste of time, and saw EXIT GHOST as an interesting but not wholly successful follow-up to THE GHOST WRITER, but his newest really worked for me. The first-person narrator, Marcus Messner, possesses a voice that is equal parts brilliant, precocious, antagonistic and innocent. The time is 1951, the place is a small Ohio college, where this kosher butcher’s son from Newark has just transferred as a sophomore. The university is Winesburg -- an allusion to Sherwood Anderson’s fictional town and novel about rural town grotesques -- that is pure, Christian-valued, Americana. Of course, it’s the perfect place for a Jewish genius to get in touch with his intolerance, test his social and sexual mores, and escape the seemingly endless march of young American soldiers into the Korean War.

The plot revolves around Marcus’ attempts to separate himself, both physically and emotionally, from his suddenly tyrannical father, who has grown paranoid and distrustful, convinced of his son’s impending death at the hands of the big, bad world. Marcus rebels in the only way he knows how, by escaping five hundred miles away to a Gentile-filled campus where he blends in by disappearing altogether. He attends class, argues with his roommates, and focuses all of his prioritized energies on getting straight A’s and achieving the rank of school valedictorian. Complications, big and small, arise, leading the main character into a questionable romance with a labyrinthine girl, a number of confrontations with the soberingly thoughtful yet condescending Dean of Men, as well as a slew of other pursuits both intellectual and emotional.

The main conceit of the novel, beyond Marcus’ desire to avoid the war and distance himself from his father’s madness, is something I won’t reveal here, allowing the surprise and climactic discovery to remain a genuine twist for the reader to ponder and enjoy. Beyond Roth’s main hat trick, there are plenty of wonderful scenes and characters to revel in, with their compelling thematic thrustings and morally ambigiuous ramifications supplied to attack and dazzle the senses. The novel, like his earlier works, is about youth and the hope for understanding and the wish to be understood. Marcus is at once the polar opposite and a carbon copy of Alexander Portnoy, whose complaints were as important and vital to his being as Marcus’ indignation is to him. It’s been almost 40 years since Roth’s scandalous novel was published, and his newest proves that he still has the literary and controversial chops he had back then.