I've never seen Roth mentioned without buckets of lavish praise for his apparently singular genius (often coming from very close quarters too). Yet when I go looking for works of his to start with, I can't help but feel his critics had a point - there is a clear undercurrent of spite, condescension, egotism, solipsism. He openly mocks 'small-minded middle America' and its 'perverse moral bent'.
Being a member of a younger generation that has grown up in the golden age of narcissism, I can't help but wonder that Roth has lost appeal now simply because this philosophy has been found lacking. In hindsight, who seems the more small-minded and reductionist? We are skeptical of the skeptics now. DFW called him a 'great male narcissist'. Now DFW's ironical absurdism is wearing thin too.
This is from the current issue of Salmagundi, not from 2001. Not sure how it wound up on HN, but I read the whole thing with fascination and horror. If biography is the small man’s revenge, this seems a Lilliputian dagger.
I've never seen Roth mentioned without buckets of lavish praise for his apparently singular genius (often coming from very close quarters too). Yet when I go looking for works of his to start with, I can't help but feel his critics had a point - there is a clear undercurrent of spite, condescension, egotism, solipsism. He openly mocks 'small-minded middle America' and its 'perverse moral bent'.
Being a member of a younger generation that has grown up in the golden age of narcissism, I can't help but wonder that Roth has lost appeal now simply because this philosophy has been found lacking. In hindsight, who seems the more small-minded and reductionist? We are skeptical of the skeptics now. DFW called him a 'great male narcissist'. Now DFW's ironical absurdism is wearing thin too.
This is from the current issue of Salmagundi, not from 2001. Not sure how it wound up on HN, but I read the whole thing with fascination and horror. If biography is the small man’s revenge, this seems a Lilliputian dagger.