Philip Roth's final interview | The Adventures of Saul Bellow | American Masters | PBS

[@theotherguy5516]

Roth was always so generous and sincere in extolling the virtues of writers he admired. If only we could all offer praise to our own friends, peers, and contemporaries without envy or jealously staining our utterances!

[@jonharrison9222]

And also shredded them in his novels.

[@theotherguy5516]

@@jonharrison9222 Which writers did he shred in his novels? Bellow and Malamud, I think, were the two writers Zuckerman worshipped in The Ghost Writer; those portrayals, to my mind, were clinical but not without affection. Were there others? I'll concede the point if you're referring to former wives and lovers. Roth, in that respect at least, should have done more to let things go.

[@kevinwhelan9607]

Well said, sir. The Lively biography details what a kind and supportive friend he was to so many. I don't care that he was an atheist, I'm still going to say it: God rest you, Philip Roth❤

[@colmgeiran3476]

PR's prose is exquisite. Unparalleled.

[@David_Alvarado_Vilchis]

Right now I'm reading The dying animal, the first Roth's novel I read in my life. I love it, I've fallen in love on he's prose. Once upon I finish it, I'm going to read another Roth's book. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@jbmyerov]

Roth’s prose has an intensity I don’t see in other English language writers. I can’t take it sometimes, it’s so energetic. Bellow also has a terrific life to his language and characters.

[@brucejackson6451]

The interviewer might have added that one of those 3 or 4 twentieth century powerhouses was Roth himself. Roth might have demurred (and he might not), but it should have been said because it was true.

[@siddheshpatwardhan4920]

1000%

[@kevinwhelan9607]

Patrimony is that truly rare thing: the perfect book.

[@kanghwanlee3]

"Super abundant" i think Roth's novels are exactly that

[@terrenceolivido741]

it takes one to know one. These authors are 1000 miles ahead of what passes for writing today. most writing today is plagerism - plain and simple. i mean the mass-media guys. i am now feeling how astonishing and powerful were REAL creative novelists in forming the sensibilities of their readers. but how many people read ? no, it seems like largely a backwater.

[@alexb162]

Will the full interview be released?

[@whawkins8636]

My favorite writer

[@maxryder995]

Saul Bellow is A God!

[@bsjeffrey]

might put hemingway in that dominate writer of the 1st half of century.

[@huet1997]

Roth was flouting conventional thinking. And while Hemingway influenced countless writers, was he a powerhouse? No.

[@maxryder995]

So Did Roth!

[@TrendingTigerBerserk]

@@maxryder995 Cormac McCarthy is better than this Roth ... Hemingway,Faulkner,O'Connor,Ballow,Cormac,De lilo,Pynchon are greats

[@rishabhaniket1952]

How do Americans forget William Gaddis?? He was the kin of them all. In fact he was too good and complex for his own good.

[@KevinBrown-h9m]

Have you read any of Roth's works? My goodness. To put Pynchon, De Lilo, Faulkner, etc. in the same sentence with Roth is laughable.@@TrendingTigerBerserk

[@terencewinters2154]

Roths mensch comes out in this .

[@rishabhaniket1952]

The only powerhouse in American literature of the last century was William Gaddis. The unsung hero who was too good or ambitious for his own good.

[@jonharrison9222]

And borderline unreadable.

[@terrenceolivido741]

i will chek him out - never heard of him - shows how conventionally ignorant i am ... I will add that the author who " saved my life " was Henry Miller. he is completely obscured.

[@andreatelodacorte2098]

Roth the best writer!

[@howardgottlieb5452]

How about Fitzgerald and Salinger?

[@huet1997]

Compared to Faulkner or James or Melville? They lacked range and intensity.

[@TrendingTigerBerserk]

@@huet1997 Sallinger was great....better than this Academic Roth

[@miriamshah4151]

@@TrendingTigerBerserkNo way

[@lewisc215]

They has their moments, for sure.

[@jonharrison9222]

@@huet1997 Faulkner is too convoluted and obsessive. James over-wrote. Melville fell in love with his own grandiosity. Gatsby focuses on the American dream with the burning precision of a laser. Salinger? The beam cuts because it’s narrow. Next.

[@kreek22]

Generous praise, but note how subtly Roth slips in an implicit notice of Bellow's greatest weakness as a fictionalist. Bellow's narrators, who are often also the main characters, are not so strongly drawn as the minor characters who surround them. They tend to be significantly autobiographical creations. This may be the source of the trouble. In the end, Bellow was more interested in other people than in himself, leading him to neglect the development of his narrators in favor of the lesser characters. However, this means that he never drives deep into the nature of any of his characters--not into the narrator who bores him, and not into the more or less caricatural creations orbiting the narrator. Bellow was never able to create a deep portrait such as Roth achieved in Mickey Sabbath.

[@nochickennick2416]

I agree, though I find that Roth's Zuckerman narrator tends to take a tonal backseat to his secondary and tertiary characters... made more full than Bellow's through their existence in liminal scenes between the epic narratives that Zuckerman observes. Nothing innately wrong with that, of course, I tend to crave and love the inconstant reminders of Nathan's existance through tangential editorializations of his interviews or inserted scenes of his own memories of Weehawken middle schools and the like.

[@jonharrison9222]

Roth was too self centred.

[@chessa77]

Yes I noticed the same, love it. Nothing beats Mickey though.

[@yangyin09u]

Oye! Very gud.

[@lewisc215]

The Nobel hacks ignored him.

[@terrenceolivido741]

i see the comment below and it was exactly what i was going to say! wow..., how wonderful. @theotherguy5516