My Life as a Man

My Life as a Man is split into two parts, one being a fourty paged story revealing the narrative of a kid going through growing pains with rememberances of his Jewish upbringing (all too familiar with Roth’s own life). The second to third (which is basically the conclusion to the body and the thesis of Useless Fictions) part is Roth becoming a more serious writer plummeting at the deep end of misanthropic turmoil from the perspective of the man in a relationship with a woman and how they slowly begin to fall out mortally and beyond the grave. This book is certainly a great, nuanced way at starting the chronicles of one of literature’s greatest characters of all time (Zuckerman). And it sometimes is more powerful then the books of the series. I highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in the American Tradition, and anyone interested in fantastic portrayals of dysfunctional relationships, families, and Roth’s own reflection drowning in conscience and intervention. Every paragraph slowly reveals these habits and fashions that only make the work more and more powerful.

Philip Roth is a great comic writer. At his best he is one of the funniest writers who has ever written. This work too has many wonderful passages, and brilliant dialogues. It is filled with 'good parts' which seem at the highest level of comic writing. But Roth is also obsessed by his own obsessions and this book tells the same story three times.The opening story is to my mind the best telling of all. And the book as I read it became especially repetitive in its last long account of Tarnapol's imprisoning marriage. Roth does a lot of post- modern trickery in this work, with one fictional writer writing about another, and with characters from Salinger giving us Salingerlike prose in their opinions of Tarnapol's work. I somehow find all these tricks irrelevant and useless. The book is structurally flawed and its redemption is not in all its games of perspective, but rather in that lively language which makes Roth when he is good the best comic writer of all.

This novel is in two parts: the first consists of two stories about Nathan Zuckerman, his loves and his marriage to Lydia, which ends with her suicide; the second is about Peter Tarnapol and his disastrous marriage to vampire-like Maureen. Both sections are "written" by Tarnapol (the first as "fiction" the second as "autobiography"), and part of what Roth is exploring in this novel is the boundary between an author's real life and his fictions. Can an author learn things about the life he's actually living from the fiction he creates? It seems in this case, at least, Tarnapol learns very little, probably because his fictions are too closely parallel to his reality. Tarnapol has entered into a relationship and then married Maureen thinking he is going to "save" her from her calamitous past (two destructive marriages) only to realize that he has become her victim. How many writers can be both venomous and hilarious at the same time the way Roth is? And he is at his best in this novel. With almost every novel since GOODBYE, COLUMBUS Roth had become better and better at his craft; MY LIFE AS A MAN was his best novel up to that point (1974). Excellent.

Philip Roth's sixth novel, "My Life as a Man," first appeared in 1974, after the author spent several years trying to use the material of his first marriage (to one Margaret Martinson) in a fictionalized setting. Readers of Roth's autobiography, "The Facts" (1988), know that his brief cohabitation and extensive legal battles with Martinson were harrowing enough to leave psychological wounds the author continued to lick for decades following her death in a car accident. "My Life as a Man," according to "The Facts," was a book that took an enormous toll, both artistic and emotional, on the author. But it's a good thing he was able to write it, because what we have is a tremendously gripping, chilling, bitter and often hilarious look at the dark side of "romantic" relationships.The first section of the book, entitled "Useful Fictions," includes two stories "by Tarnopol" documenting his carefree childhood and eventual entanglement with the psychopathic "Lydia." Then the novel itself starts, under the title "My True Story." What follows is enough to make anyone feel fortunate for a) being single or b) having a stable relationship. Martinson, who was "Lydia" in the first section, is here renamed "Maureen," and is one of the most unforgettable women in American literature. Self-loathing, neurotic, violent, manic-depressive, grasping, hateful and literally insane, her relentless attempts to control and keep "Tarnopol" (Roth) are what gives these pages such intensity. Her hatred for Tarnopol and his hatred for her make this book unputdownable. Reading "The Facts," one learns that much, if not most, of what occurs here actually took place in real life. No wonder Roth has "women issues" (or so the critics always say). This remains one of Roth's most intelligent, finely crafted books. His use of dialogue is virtually unparalleled in modern fiction, and his sentences are as chiselled and graceful as one would expect of an artist of his caliber. In short, "My Life as a Man," though not the most uplifting book of our time, is an extraordinary (and extraordinarily bleak) accomplishment.

I promise to keep this review short because I know there is nothing more unpleasant than a long review...did he like, or not like the book?....Yes, this book is a masterpiece: this is early-middle Roth when he is just starting to discover himself as a man and a writer...A must read for anyone thinking about becoming a writer.

Roth's considerable abilities are clearly in evidence here: narrative force; powerful intelligence; an unblinking examination of the human heart and mind; an unsparing honesty. But so too are his weaknesses: a truly obsessive concern with men-women relations; an unmistakably bitter tone when he speaks about women; a story that in the end succumbs to its obsessions and anger rather than transcends them, or even finds a feasible accomodation. The endless, fruitless, explorations of the protagonist's pysche finally become too much for the reader; the work begs to be shortened. Still,there are many fine, perceptive (and funny) moments in this book. Roth, even not at his very best, demands reading and consideration.