A Diving Rock on the Hudson

He proves that Great Writing still lives; real, from-the-gut writing. It's possible that he might, as the previous reviewer has said, have given us other brilliant "songs" but I for one am quite happy with all he has given. "Call It Sleep" proves that some writers only need one masterpiece to take their place in history. Today we are so greedy - we want our writers to give us book after book - we chew them up and spit them out. I plan to cherish the body of work this man has created. How many Hope Diamonds does a person need before he can be declared rich? And how many books by Henry Roth do we need before we can say that he has enriched our lives?

You have to feel a little bad for Henry Roth. Reading this mostly painful novelization of his tortured teenage years brings to mind the angst of a Bronx-born Stephan Dedalus, only this time Christ on the Cross and the fires of purgatory have been replaced by the tyranny of an overbearing Eastern European yiddisher mamma, a hot-headed ne'er do-well, abusive father, and a feeling of irreconcilable cultural dislocation that makes one better appreciate the plight of the immigrant. While Roth's "Diving Rock" is undeniably haunted by the ghost of Joyce, its voice is also uniquely "Rothian," -- resonant with the language and poetry that sometimes arises from the disharmonious meshing of cultures - the poetry that is all the best and the worst of this place we call America. I wish Mr. Roth had come unblocked decades ago - who knows what other songs he might have sung?