Philip Roth has died
nytimes.com
Philip Roth has died
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Re: Philip Roth has died
#2His book "Plot Against America" helped to change my worldview. It was the first time I thought about the fact that it was not a foregone conclusion that America is a country that hadn't fallen to fascism in the mid 20th century, and led to me start reading history with a more critical eye. After that I realized just how much history is comprised of shades of grey rather than right and wrong.
Re: Philip Roth has died
#3His book "Plot Against America" helped to change my worldview. It was the first time I thought about the fact that it was not a foregone conclusion that America is a country that hadn't fallen to fascism in the mid 20th century, and led to me start reading history with a more critical eye. After that I realized just how much history is comprised of shades of grey rather than right and wrong.
I have made the experience that merely anything in life has shades of grey. It causes a lot of cognitive dissonance for me. For most people, including me, it is thus easier to simply stick to one particular world view. At least for a certain time.
So as a smart person, either you are some sort of “schizophrenic” or you ignore some facts and possible interpretations and stick firmly to one side of the coin. Both is difficult
Re: Philip Roth has died
#4His book "Plot Against America" helped to change my worldview. It was the first time I thought about the fact that it was not a foregone conclusion that America is a country that hadn't fallen to fascism in the mid 20th century, and led to me start reading history with a more critical eye. After that I realized just how much history is comprised of shades of grey rather than right and wrong.
I have made the experience that merely anything in life has shades of grey. It causes a lot of cognitive dissonance for me. For most people, including me, it is thus easier to simply stick to one particular world view. At least for a certain time. So as a smart person, either you are some sort of “schizophrenic” or you ignore some facts and possible interpretations and stick firmly to one side of the coin. Both is di…
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Re: Philip Roth has died
#5His book "Plot Against America" helped to change my worldview. It was the first time I thought about the fact that it was not a foregone conclusion that America is a country that hadn't fallen to fascism in the mid 20th century, and led to me start reading history with a more critical eye. After that I realized just how much history is comprised of shades of grey rather than right and wrong.
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Re: Philip Roth has died
#6An astonishing writer who couldn't write a bad book.
But one is allowed to pick favorites, so here they go: Operation Shylock, I married a communist, and The plot against America.
Re: Philip Roth has died
#7His book "Plot Against America" helped to change my worldview. It was the first time I thought about the fact that it was not a foregone conclusion that America is a country that hadn't fallen to fascism in the mid 20th century, and led to me start reading history with a more critical eye. After that I realized just how much history is comprised of shades of grey rather than right and wrong.
I have made the experience that merely anything in life has shades of grey. It causes a lot of cognitive dissonance for me. For most people, including me, it is thus easier to simply stick to one particular world view. At least for a certain time. So as a smart person, either you are some sort of “schizophrenic” or you ignore some facts and possible interpretations and stick firmly to one side of the coin. Both is di…
I think you're right, and there's definitely a balance to be had here.
The first time I came across the notion that there might be a downside to keeping everything 'hypothetical' was in reading William James (I think it was in his Pragmatism lectures). He points out the opposition between 'thought' and 'action'. There is a tradeoff in continuing to think about certain subjects in that your ability to act on things related to the subject is impaired. If there is nothing left to question in relation to some domain in which you'd like to act, then the actions you take will carry force and generally be more effective.
A more concrete example: let's say you're a tennis player and working on improving yourself. You can keep on questioning whether a certain technique for swinging is the best one or not, and if you keep questioning for a longer time, you have a better chance of finding the best technique. But, you're ability to execute that technique is another thing entirely, and if you're still questioning it while playing a game, you will perform worse than if you acted with conviction.
In life, perhaps unfortunately, we don't get the clear distinction between when it's a 'game' vs. 'practice', and force of habit is a thing, so how to handle this for optimal results is not such an easy problem.
Re: Philip Roth has died
#8An astonishing writer who couldn't write a bad book. But one is allowed to pick favorites, so here they go: Operation Shylock, I married a communist, and The plot against America.
I've read only 3 1/2 of his books: Operation Shylock, Plot against America, Portnoys complaint: and part of American Pastoral -- which I had trouble getting through. I wonder if others found it too dense?
Otherwise, the above 3 books are really great!
Re: Philip Roth has died
#9I started reading Roth a couple months ago as part of a project to learn how to write better fiction (I also chose Philip K. Dick at the same time for some reason...). I partly chose Roth after seeing by how much he outnumbered any other writer in terms of entries for best 100 novels of the 20th century (I don't remember who published the list, but it was something pretty credible, and he had 6 entries on there IIRC).
I started with Portnoy's Complaint and enjoyed it, but I wasn't blown away or anything. More recently I've been reading a novelette + 5 short stories in a single volume (named after the novelette) titled, "Goodbye, Columbus"—and I've been seriously impressed. I finished the novelette and 2.5 of the short stories; both short stories were astounding (IMO), and the novelette was damn good.
My understanding is that the themes of being Jewish in the U.S. and male sexuality are solidly mainstays in his writing, which at first seemed like would limit the material's interest to me, since I'm not Jewish at all—but if you read descriptions of his novels across the years you'll find a very interesting (bordering on bizarre at times) range. I'm looking forward to reading more.
Re: Philip Roth has died
#10His book "Plot Against America" helped to change my worldview. It was the first time I thought about the fact that it was not a foregone conclusion that America is a country that hadn't fallen to fascism in the mid 20th century, and led to me start reading history with a more critical eye. After that I realized just how much history is comprised of shades of grey rather than right and wrong.
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