Frankly, friends,
What more do you want from Philip Roth?
"Readers, it seems, want enough books to be able to glimpse an author from a number of angles, but they don't want so many that they would have to sign over a significant chunk of their lives just to keep up," writes J.C. Hallman in his latest essay for The Baffler. Consider yourselves scolded.
The hard truth is that Roth's many curtain calls, as he tries to give up the ghost of public life, can be put down to our exorbitant expectations: "To suggest," continues Hallman, "even in jest that a writer has 'retired' is to cheapen that role"—and to exile Roth to the chattering bargain basement of the Literary Death Match.
"It may be that Roth, by his own standards, has written too much." Well!
Don't forget to book tickets to "Man Is Not a Rock," a theatrical adaptation of a conversation between Elizabeth Markstein and Joseph Brodsky that we're cosponsoring. Secret Speakeasy, May 31. (Non-New Yorkers may read along here.)
—The Baffler
