Plotting against Roth

Coming back to Roth and the accolades from the right-wing blogs that he has received recently… Giving some thought about, reading through an article on the invention of the individual and how it has become “an ideology of how we regard it proper to think about ourselves and others” I got to the conclusion that my angle was wrong. Or at least it was not exactly to the point. So with a little twist to the argument, one can say instead, that Roth probably deserves all this attention from the conservative bulk because of the relentless individuality of its main characters. Even when they are tormented by their origins, whether racial or political, as in the case of “The Human Stain” and “I Married a Communist”, they still come to terms with it in a rather individualistic way. Roth characters are driven by individual thrust; by the heroic chants of the untamed individual human will. Indeed, by the intensity of human form that he identifies in himself, the author - Philip Roth. They are strong characters, even when they seem to be torn by fear of death, or by the ambiguities of being from American Jewish background. They are assertive characters, though extremely introspective. This individual drive blends naturally with the sexual one; an unrestrained breach of the reality principle that renders sexuality a sort of ersatz against death. The first Roth - a flurry of sexual desire and male unobstructed predation. The old Roth - how to save manhood from the ashes of old age and regain the impetus of Don Juan as a revenge against death? Indeed, it has award him the accusation of being an uncorrectable misogynist; no wonder that the consensus in the Swedish academy has not been easy to reach.

Old men sexuality, mirroring to a certain extent the author withering away of the unrestrained falus, is not an all rothian theme. On the contrary, it is not difficult to find such a traumatic display of senescence on the greatest contemporary writers. Such names as Coetzee and Garcia Marquez do come to mind. They too reiterate mercilessly the untiring topic of old men sexuality. Garcia Marquez with his Putas tristes and the reveries of the ever-young male body. Coetzee with his despise for the corporeal and the life up for grabs that his heroes pursue in teenagers bodies. And even Lobo Antunes is in a permanent battle against death and its bodily inflicted debris. Take the individuality for granted, it would seem that death versus sex would be the perfect formulae to scare the most unflinching conservative away. Yet, it doesn’t. It seems to lure them like the light bulb does to tiny scary insects.

There is of course another explanation. The stult conservatives, extreme-right wing in their essentials, only know from Roth but his last books. Maybe this comes close to the truth. I have many times wondered why people that display the Pope’s ten best utterances of the year, hold Roth in such high consideration? Haven’t they come across the piercing puns regarding Catholics – and any other religion, for that matter, even the Jewish one – that Roth delivers without as much as flinching in such books as Sabbath’s Theater and Portnoy’s Complaint? How can they cope with it? How can, in their innermost catholic search for harmony, spiritual or otherwise, feel comfortable with the all or nothing that Roth gives us through, for instance, Mickey Sabbath? This sort of nihilist jump into the mortal coil as Hamlet would have it, just for the sake of it. There is, painfully visible, a contradiction, a gap, between the euphoric receiving of the last Roth amidst the conservative circle. A sort of mongrelizing of literary taste and affections. Sex can play a role in the fetishising of the new and the old right alike. It can be the measure of escaping the encumbrance of strict Catholicism. We can even add that the last Roth’s books might have come with a secret religious halo; one that touches the deeps of their catholic fervour. Indeed, Roth’s latest books have but been striped of its initial force, its original magma. Roth signing in his old age; his giving up slowly to the promises of everlasting life by means of literary creation. Is this what the right is so fond of? The giving up on his introspective mood – with all the devils and ghosts jumping around in a demonic frenzy – for a more palatable story telling; a more circumstantial mise en abîme; a more consensual outward-looking – or, as they said, expansive books? If this proves correct, than what the right-wing actually likes in Roth is his gagging, his recent containment, and not his deliverance.

p.s. se houver algum professor de inglês na sala agradecíamos que corrigisse o texto - paga-se bem...