Philip Roth, 1933-2018

Philip Roth, 1933-2018. Pictured in 2012, he's reading Ike's Bluff, by Evan Thomas.

Philip Roth died on Tuesday at the age of 85. It’s been a bad ten days for my favorite writers. Like Tom Wolfe, Philip Roth was someone I had read about for many years before I actually started reading his work. I read the novella “Goodbye, Columbus” in 1999, just after graduating from high school. It was in the textbook for a class called “Short Novels,” although we didn’t actually read “Goodbye, Columbus” in the class. I liked “Goodbye, Columbus” when I first read it, but for whatever reason I didn’t read any more of Roth’s work until I read his 2010 novel Nemesis, which would prove to be his last book. (I reviewed Nemesis here.) The book struck a nerve with me, and I found it fascinating. I then went on something of a Roth binge, as I re-read Goodbye, Columbus, which I reviewed here, and then read several of his other books, like The Great American Novel, American Pastoral, Portnoy’s Complaint, Zuckerman Unbound, and his 1988 memoir, The Facts. In a long piece that I’m especially proud of, I wrote about the various connections between Portnoy’s Complaint, Zuckerman Unbound, and The Facts. 

Roth wrote about himself, of course, but he was also astute and perceptive about the United States. His novels tell us much about American life during the late 20^th century. Roth was funny, biting, moving, and always interesting. His career had a fascinating trajectory. He was anointed as an important writer from the very beginning. Roth’s first book, Goodbye, Columbus, won the National Book Award in 1960. He was quickly known as a “writer to watch.” However, his follow up novels, Letting Go and When She Was Good, did not light up the best-seller lists. 

Things changed for Roth in 1969 when the uproariously ribald Portnoy’s Complaint was published. It was a huge hit, and also condemned by many as utter filth. Roth didn’t produce another hit like Portnoy during the 1970’s, and even into the 1980’s it seemed that he might be remembered as someone who peaked early and produced decent, in unspectacular, work regularly after that. And then, something funny happened. In the 1990’s, as he moved into his 60’s, he started turning out one acclaimed book after another. In 1995 he won another National Book Award for Sabbath’s Theater. In 1998 he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for American Pastoral. Suddenly, Roth was being acclaimed as the Great American Novelist of his time. There have been few other American writers, if any, who could match Roth’s late blooming productivity and critical acclaim. In the 20 year period from 1990 to 2010, Roth published 15 books. That’s a huge number for a serious literary author. 

One interesting difference between Philip Roth and Tom Wolfe is how Roth was embraced by the literary establishment in a way that Wolfe never was. Wolfe never won the Pulitzer Prize, or any other of the major awards that Roth seemed to collect as easily as baseball cards. I would assume that some of that is due to the fact that Wolfe started his career as a journalist, and only moved to writing fiction when he was in his 50’s. I think some people always thought of Wolfe as a journalist, a category that they consider below fiction. And it may not have helped Wolfe’s case that he basically told fiction writers that they were missing the boat during the 1960’s and 1970’s—that most of the really great writing done about America during that era was done by authors who could be grouped together under the banner of New Journalism. 

What Roth and Wolfe had in common was their iconoclasm. They were never afraid to shake things up, and question the status quo. Both suffered the slings and arrows of outraged critics. Roth had to fend off attacks from Jewish critics that he was a self-hating Jew. He has long been criticized by feminist authors and critics as being a misogynist. Wolfe had to fend off attacks from writers like Norman Mailer and John Updike, who both essentially said that his 1998 novel A Man in Full wasn’t literature. 

I found the 2013 American Masters documentary Philip Roth: Unmasked, to be a fascinating look at the author. In it, Roth comes across as quite funny and down to earth. Thanks to the documentary, I also learned that Philip Roth was left-handed, which was another reason for me to like him.

My Tom Wolfe Parodies, by Mark C. Taylor

The one and only Tom Wolfe, 1930-2018.

After Tom Wolfe’s passing last week, I thought it would be appropriate to collect in one place all of my parodies of Wolfe’s writing style. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and these parodies of Wolfe’s style are written with real affection. The titles refer to the book reviews that they are taken from, and clicking on them will take you to that review. 

The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby:

If you are really going to appreciate Tom Wolfe, I mean, really understand him, and understand where these early pieces are coming from, the one word you need to know, simply must know, is arteriosclerotic. Arteriosclerotic? Yes, that very word! It means a hardening of the arteries, and Wolfe uses it in piece after piece in this book to describe people who are old, square, rigid. Wolfe explained his use of “arteriosclerotic” in his 1966 Vogue magazine interview: “Repeating words means that they have become for me inseparable from the meaning I want. Eventually I get over them. Arteriosclerotic-I was obsessed for a while with people’s blood vessels getting stiffer and stiffer without them knowing it.” (Conversations with Tom Wolfe, p.11)

Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine:

“The Truest Sport: Jousting with Sam and Charlie,” about fighter pilots in Vietnam, is kind of a tune-up for Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff. Pilots! The heroes of the skies! Defying death with every trip! They have ice water running through their veins! Was Tom Wolfe actually up there on the flight deck with them? In his white suit? What if it got dirty, full of oil and grease stains? Skkkkreeeowww! A fighter jet roars past! You can feel it, actually FEEL the vibrations in your bones! Tom Wolfe gets INSIDE the heads of these fighter pilots…knowing how they think…you are there for every minute of their flight over North Vietnam…scanning the skies…looking out for Charlie, or the SAMs, the surface to air missiles…trying to stay above the flak…lookout, SAM at one o’clock!!! And then it comes over the radio, “No more parodies of Tom Wolfe’s writing style!” WHAT??? How can I review this book without resorting to multiple exclamation points!!! It’s NOT possible…okay, fine…back to boring normal review writing…

The Bonfire of the Vanities:

After years of being renowned as one of America’s leading writers of non-fiction, Tom Wolfe decided to turn his talents towards writing fiction. But what would he write about? After you’ve covered Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, Leonard Bernstein hosting a fundraiser for the Black Panthers, modern art and architecture, and the early days of the space program, where could you possibly go from there??? So Wolfe decided to take on an entire city! Yes! That was the way to do it! He looked out of the window of his townhouse and saw the metropolis sprawling below him…he knew, in that instant, he had to capture New York City in a novel…all the different class levels…racial tensions…fantastic wealth jostling shank to flank with crushing poverty…all the arteriosclerotic old men out there, just making money…yes, this was it! 

The Pump House Gang:

It started on the beach. That was where they first saw him. They weren’t quite sure which member of the group had spotted him first, but eventually they became aware of him. This guy just hanging out on the beach with a notebook. And what was he wearing? A suit? Dig, man, what kind of crazy trip was he on? And how old was he? He didn’t look that old, but he just seemed old, you know, like there was no way he would know who the Beach Boys were, or that he could possibly know anything about chopped and channeled woodies. What kind of a nutso getup was he wearing? I mean, fer Chrissake, who in the hell wears a suit to the beach, man? 

And he asked them all of these really basic questions, it was obvious he had never been surfing. They had to explain everything to him, which they were only too happy to do. KA-SPLOSH, the surf came roaring in, and it almost gets him wet, and he’s got these white buck shoes on, if he gets those babies wet they are done for, but zoom! He moves back real fast, and doesn’t get a drop on him. Nothing seems to faze this guy, it’s like he’s off on his own out in some other time zone, neither hip nor square, just in his own bag with his own groovy happening going on. 

He has this soft voice, like he doesn’t want to draw too much attention to himself, despite the Beau Brummell wardrobe. He’s got this real high, cresting forehead, with this mass of hair swooping over from left to right. He pulls out this notebook, this great, hulking green notebook with the spirals at the top, and he starts firing questions, one after the other. He’s scribbling furiously, feverishly trying to get it all down on paper as they tell him the dope on their lives. 

The Painted Word:

Tom Wolfe takes on the art world! Tom Wolfe critiques the leading theories in contemporary art! Tom Wolfe tells you all about the different stages of being an artist, from the Boho Dance to the Consummation which ensures critical success! Tom Wolfe takes on the mysteries of abstract art! You can imagine him, can’t you, in his pristine white suit, squinting close at an abstract canvas up on the wall of some Seventh Avenue gallery uptown, one of those galleries that doesn’t want to look like they’re trying too hard, that serves cheap box wine at show openings and has little cheeseballs on platters, and those little one-bite brownies that the receptionist ran out to get at Whole Foods on her lunchbreak. Delicious! The receptionist is one of those girls you see at practically every gallery, the fine-boned, sleek, mini-skirt wearing type, just out of college with a B.A. in Art History; ready to conquer the art world! Wolfe has her sized up right away-she flirts a little with the male customers, but just enough to make them confused as to if she’s actually flirting or not. They can never tell, so they keep coming back for more! And she’s eagerly solicitous of the female customers, dropping little tidbits from her daily life into her conversations with them to make her seem “relatable,” “friendly,” and not a “husband-stealing bitch.” Wolfe keeps staring at the painting, and suddenly, WHOMP! He sees it! He wonders to himself, why is it so damn flat? Why isn’t there any pigment visible on the canvas? I’m looking at a painting, but why can’t I tell that it’s a painting? It’s the damnedest thing! So he walks out of the gallery, with his hat and his walking stick, and he ponders. He makes his way to the nearest bookstore and finds their art section. He starts reading criticism. He reads Clement Greenberg, the patron saint of Abstract Expressionism. And then he learns about flatness! The sacred integrity of the picture plane! Wolfe becomes determined to peel the layers of the onion that is contemporary art.

Here’s the longest piece I’ve written in Wolfe’s style, “Tom Wolfe on Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign,” from August, 2015:

Author’s note: The piece that follows is a work of fiction, and is not actually by Tom Wolfe. As I was reading a story in The New York Times about Donald Trump’s visit to the Iowa State Fair yesterday, I thought, “How great would it be if 1960’s-era Tom Wolfe was covering Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign?” So I decided to write this affectionate parody of Tom Wolfe’s writing style. I invented all of the quotes uttered by Donald Trump in this piece. 

BZZZZZZZZ. As the helicopter scuttles across the sky, the Iowa crowd grows restless with excitement. “Is that him?” “In a helicopter?” When it touches down at last, and the rotor blades stop whirring, a familiar figure steps out. TRUMP! There he is! How does his hair look? He’s wearing a hat! Trump strides out into the crowd, trailed by a phalanx of reporters and several aides. Trump’s lips seem to be forever frozen in a petulant Jaggeresque pout. And then there is his hair. Covered by a red baseball cap emblazoned with the words, “Make America Great Again,” the famous orange-colored comb-over is not to be seen today. MOOOOOO! In the distance cattle from the cattle barn make their opinions known. Trump offers helicopter rides to the kids swarming around him. When someone mentions the word “liability,” Trump shrugs his shoulders and says, “Whatever, I’m covered. I’m worth $10 billion dollars. I’m good.” BZZZZZZ goes the helicopter again, whisking away someone for a short ride.

The candidate walks towards the Agriculture building, where the famous cow sculpture made out of butter resides. “A cow, made out of butter? Wow, that’s fantastic,” Trump says. “You know,” he says to no one in particular, “I’ve done deals with butter companies. Really great people. Great product.” Inside the Agriculture building, Trump finds himself hemmed in by the crush of people trying to get close to him. WHHIIIRRRRRR. The air conditioning hums away, preserving the butter cow for the curious crowd. Trump is unable to get close enough to the butter cow display to see it. This seems to frustrate him, as he says, “You know, this building has a lot of potential. You could add more floors to it, maybe a moving walkway or something so people could get to the butter cow easier. Maybe have a golden display case for the butter cow. I could really make this place huge and fantastic. Trump Des Moines, how does that sound?” WHHHIIIRRRRRR. As Trump talks, his hands are in perpetual motion, jabbing the air, stabbing to make a point. “America’s very weak right now” JAB! “President Obama has been a total disaster” STAB! “The Chinese are crushing us in trade” STAB! JAB! JAB!

Trump poses for selfies with cellphone-wielding people in the crowd. CLICK! “I think what you’re saying needs to be heard right now.” CLICK! “I loved The Apprentice!” CLICK! “Did you try the pork chop on a stick?” CLICK! “Thanks so much for coming to Iowa!” CLICK! After a short speech, Trump heads back to his helicopter, thanks everyone for coming out to see him, and flies away. BZZZZZZZZZZZ.

After Trump departed, I decided it was time to try some of the fried foods. I bought a deep-fried Snickers bar. As I took my first bite, I quickly wheeled around and grabbed some extra napkins. After all, I have to keep this white suit spotless.

Book Review: The Apprentice Fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edited by John Kuehl (1965)

Paperback cover of The Apprentice Fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by John Kuehl, 1965. That's one of my Fitzgerald shelves. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

F. Scott Fitzgerald, probably taken during his time at Princeton.

The Apprentice Fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by John Kuehl and first published in 1965, collects Fitzgerald’s first 15 short stories, written from 1909-1917. The stories take us through Fitzgerald’s school career, from Saint Paul Academy to the Newman School, a prestigious Catholic prep academy in New Jersey, to Princeton University, which Fitzgerald left in 1917 before completing his degree. (Fitzgerald was posthumously awarded an honorary diploma from the Princeton class of 2017.) 

Fitzgerald was very selective about the short stories that he selected for the collections that were published during his lifetime, so he might be annoyed if he knew that future generations of readers could pore over his prep school works. However, as juvenile as some of these stories might be, they do give us some insight into the future of Fitzgerald’s writing career. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s very first appearance in print was at the age of 13 in the October, 1909 issue of Now and Then, the school newspaper of Saint Paul Academy. His short story “The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage” was included in that issue. It was something of an inauspicious debut, as the readers of the detective story never actually learn who stole the titular mortgage. The story could almost be read as a parody of detective stories, as the mystery of the mortgage remains unsolved. However, it’s more likely that the shortcomings of the plot stem from the youth of the author, rather than a deliberate attempt on Fitzgerald’s part to parody the conventions of detective stories. 

By the time Fitzgerald wrote “A Luckless Santa Claus,” in 1912 he had learned more about grabbing the reader’s attention. The first sentence of the story is: “Miss Harmon was responsible for the whole thing.” (p.48) Instantly, your curiosity is piqued. What whole thing is Miss Harmon responsible for? 

Lifelong preoccupations of Fitzgerald’s surface in these early stories. His second story, published in the February, 1910 issue of Now and Then, is “Reade, Substitute Right Half.” It’s a brief sketch that shows us how a scrawny youth wins recognition for his stellar play on the football field. Fitzgerald longed for glory of his own on the athletic fields, but at 5 foot 8 and of slender build, it was unlikely that he would succeed at football. (According to F. Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota: Toward the Summit, he weighed 138 pounds. P.77) One of Fitzgerald’s keenest disappointments during his college years was that he didn’t make the Princeton football team. While football never became a major theme in Fitzgerald’s work, he remained a devoted fan of the sport his whole life. When he suffered his fatal heart attack on December 21, 1940, he was reading and annotating his copy of the Princeton Alumni Weekly, making notes about the current Princeton football team. 

Fitzgerald’s interest in the Civil War shows up in his stories “A Debt of Honor,” and “The Room with the Green Blinds.” Fitzgerald was somewhat torn between the North and the South. He was raised in the North, in Minnesota and New York, but his father’s family was from Maryland, a border state that remained in the Union but retained slavery and had many Southern sympathizers. Fitzgerald was always drawn towards lost causes, and he seems to have retained a romantic vision of a languid Southern aristocracy. And, of course, he married a Southern belle, Zelda Sayre, from Montgomery, Alabama. Zelda’s family was well entrenched in the Old South—her father was a Justice on the Alabama Supreme Court. 

The weirdest story in The Apprentice Fiction is “Tarquin of Cheepside,” later revised and reprinted in Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. The story describes a young man’s flight from angry pursuers, and the friend who shelters him. Although the man who is fleeing remains unnamed, we learn that he had assaulted a woman. Once the pursuers have left, the young man starts writing a poem—“The Rape of Lucrece.” The young man is William Shakespeare! Fitzgerald is calling the greatest writer of all time a rapist! Didn’t anticipate that plot twist! The writing in “Tarquin” is impressionistic and poetic, but I would guess that the subject matter irked some readers. 

Fitzgerald’s interest in the theater is also on display in his early stories. As a teenager, he wrote four plays for the Elizabethan Dramatic Club, a group of young amateur actors in Saint Paul. Fitzgerald also contributed to several shows for the Triangle Club, Princeton University’s dramatic club. “Shadow Laurels,” from April 1915, is presented as a play, complete with stage directions. There’s a marvelous line in it, as one of the characters says, “He was bright and clever—when we worked, he worked feverishly hard, but he was always drunk, night and day.” (p.74) The same could be said of F. Scott Fitzgerald himself. 

The Princeton short story “Babes in the Woods” later shows up as Amory and Isabelle’s initial meeting in Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, published in March of 1920. A line in the story “Sentiment—and the Use of Rouge” is later repeated in This Side of Paradise, as Eleanor is asked if she is a sentimentalist. She replies, “No, I’m a romantic. There’s a huge difference; a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes they won’t.” (p.150) This quote seems to be an apt description of Fitzgerald himself. 

“The Pierian Springs and the Last Straw” is a very interesting story. I read the characters of Uncle George and Mrs. Fulham as portraits of Scott and his lost love, Ginevra King. That might be too much of a stretch, but Fitzgerald got much of his inspiration from his own life. Ginevra King was one of the most famous debutantes of the era. She was from a wealthy family in Lake Forest, Illinois. King and Fitzgerald dated a few times, but later in life she didn’t even remember if she had kissed him or not. Their relationship was mainly through letters. Scott kept all of Ginevra’s letters to him, and later had them bound into a book. The book was 227 pages long. Ginevra didn’t keep any of Scott’s letters to her. Many Fitzgerald biographers believe that Ginevra was the model for Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. 

Throughout The Apprentice Fiction you see Fitzgerald working out what will become his classic themes—class, status, money, love, drinking. There are flashes of good writing and insight, but also clunky sentences and hackneyed plots. There are no real hints that the author of the stories in The Apprentice Fiction will become one of the major American authors of the 20^th century. However, you can see that Fitzgerald has progressed a long way from the juvenilia at the beginning of the book.

I wouldn’t recommend The Apprentice Fiction for casual readers of Fitzgerald’s work, but it’s a very useful collection for readers interested in Fitzgerald’s youthful writings.

Rob Lowe: Stories I Only Tell My Friends-Live at the State Theatre

Rob Lowe live!

Rob Lowe is handsome. Like, really, seriously handsome. Rob Lowe’s handsomeness has long been part and parcel of his appeal, and the fact that someone so handsome makes fun of himself, and his own handsomeness, also endears him to his audience. Rob Lowe just seems like a really cool person, even if his cheekbones are too perfect. 

Lowe took his one man show “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” to the State Theatre in Minneapolis last night. It was quite an entertaining evening, as Lowe spun stories from his long career in Hollywood. Lowe has had a lot of success of his two books, Stories I Only Tell My Friends and Love Life, and he said that rather than write a third book, he decided to create this show. 

If you’re a fan of Lowe’s, you’ll definitely enjoy seeing “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” and recalling the many great roles that Lowe has played over his career. The clip montage that starts the show definitely made me appreciate just how successful Lowe has been throughout his career. 

One of my favorite stories was the one about Lowe’s very first after-school special, “Schoolboy Father,” from 1980. Lowe tried to impress Jennifer, the cutest girl in his school, about his role. She invited him over to watch it at her house, and said that her father was an actor. It turns out her father was Cary Grant. After they watched it, Grant said that Lowe reminded him of a young Warren Beatty. I’ve thought the same thing, and I always wanted Beatty to play Lowe’s dad on Parks and Recreation. 

In person, Lowe comes off as very genuine, and it's a testament to the kind of person he is that he seems like a really down to earth person, despite the fact that he's been very famous for a very long time. There's even a Q&A segment with the audience, and throughout it Lowe seemed honestly really thrilled to answer questions that he's probably heard many times before. 

Lowe is very funny, and throughout the show you’ll hear his imitations of Bill Clinton, Robert Wagner, and others. If you’re a fan of Rob Lowe’s, from either The Outsiders, The West Wing, Brothers and Sisters, or Parks and Recreation, you’ll enjoy seeing him live. It is literally the greatest live show ever.