NP Roth essay re his new novel

[Paul Mackin]

On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 11:54, Keith McMullen wrote:
>  >>>Among other things what I enjoy about Roth's essay is
> his frank acknowledgement of the autobiographical
> impulse that motivated him.<<<
> 
> One important difference between Roth and Pynchon.
> 

Someone needs to say for the benefit of those not paying attention that
the new Roth novel, although faithfully preserving the real Roth
family's names and personalities, is really COUNTER-autobiographical. In
the story, during the years 1940-41, the world of the fictional Roths is
turned upside down by the presence of an open antisemite in the White
House. The fear of what President Lindbergh will do to the Jews turns
the family from a happy, secure one to an unhappy, devastated one. It's
the difference for Philip (the child narrator) between a happy childhood
and an unhappy childhood, although being a plucky kid he apparently
survives somewhat better than most, living to tell the tale. 

I'm just going by what the essay sez. 

A contrast between the new book and say P's GR would be that, while P
was able to use contextually major historic events which many of his
readers knew about in some detail (WW II, Rockets, Nazis, the Holocaust)
as backdrop for his imaginings, Roth was writing in addition about an
event that never happened. Thus, Roth sez in the essay:
"Another problem was to keep the adult's narrating voice explicit
without its sounding didactic in recounting the imaginary historical
events. After all, my reader can't know anything of the history I'm
inventing, there is no common knowledge that is complete, and so, though
one can allude to Munich or to the Treaty of Versailles, one cannot
allude to the Iceland Understanding (the 1941 nonaggression pact signed
in Reykjavik by Lindbergh and Hitler) without spelling it out."

R's remark about the potential for didacticism reminds us that P in GR
never even had to mention the Holocaust. It was still always there for
the reader.