Philip Roth
Paperback | Pages: 323 pages Rating: 3.81 | 6592 Users | 496 Reviews
Describe Based On Books I Married a Communist (The American Trilogy #2)
| Title | : | I Married a Communist (The American Trilogy #2) |
| Author | : | Philip Roth |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 323 pages |
| Published | : | November 2nd 1999 by Vintage (first published October 22nd 1998) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Literature. American. Novels. Literary Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. The United States Of America |
Narrative Concering Books I Married a Communist (The American Trilogy #2)
I Married a Communist is the story of the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, a big American roughneck who begins life as a teenage ditch-digger in 1930s Newark, becomes a big-time 1940s radio star, and is destroyed, as both a performer and a man, in the McCarthy witchhunt of the 1950s. In his heyday as a star—and as a zealous, bullying supporter of "progressive" political causes—Ira marries Hollywood's beloved silent-film star, Eve Frame. Their glamorous honeymoon in her Manhattan townhouse is shortlived, however, and it is the publication of Eve's scandalous bestselling exposé that identifies him as "an American taking his orders from Moscow." In this story of cruelty, betrayal, and revenge spilling over into the public arena from their origins in Ira's turbulent personal life, Philip Roth—who Commonweal calls the "master chronicler of the American twentieth century—has written a brilliant fictional portrayal of that treacherous postwar epoch when the anti-Communist fever not only infected national politics but traumatized the intimate, innermost lives of friends and families, husbands and wives, parents and children.List Books As I Married a Communist (The American Trilogy #2)
| Original Title: | I Married a Communist |
| ISBN: | 0375707212 (ISBN13: 9780375707216) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | The American Trilogy #2, Complete Nathan Zuckerman #7 |
| Characters: | Nathan Zuckerman |
| Literary Awards: | Ambassador Book Award for Fiction (1999), International Dublin Literary Award Nominee for Shortlist (2000) |
Rating Based On Books I Married a Communist (The American Trilogy #2)
Ratings: 3.81 From 6592 Users | 496 ReviewsAssessment Based On Books I Married a Communist (The American Trilogy #2)
This wonderful book reminded me that there was a vibrant radical movement in the States before the '60s. Ira Ringold is almost a tragical figure to me with the full Aristotelian meaning: he is exalted to a prominent figure of both the Communist Party and his professional circles. He is reliable, self-confident and above all, idealistic. He struggles to fit in his new life among the rich and famous of New York after marrying his super-famous co-protagonist, a persona who, I believe, represents
Some people have claimed that Philip Roth is being less than chivalrous here about his ex-wife, which if true is not to his credit. But the book is worth it just for the scene where the daughter of the best-selling bodice-ripping author reads aloud a passage from her mother's latest bonkbuster, loosely based on the story of Abelard and Heloise. Her frantic attempts not to giggle as she describes Abelard's proud manhood are somehow a definitive statement on a whole genre of literature. It's never
How do you process a big, bombastic, messy book like this? On the surface, a scant plot: Ira Ringold's wife, Eve Frame, outs him as a Communist in a tawdry memoir. Roth's perennial narrator-cum-alter ego, Nathaniel Zuckerman, interviews Ira's brother to see what really happened in those Cold War days. The result? Complex and conflicted characters torn between the promises of various idealisms and the harder realities of their hypocritical desires: bourgeois comfort, power, sex and revenge.
In this second book in the the American Trilogy, the author Philip Roth is present as his alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, in this fictional biography of Ira Ringold, husband to a sophisticated but fading Hollywood star, Eve Frame. Ira Ringold was a ditchdigger in the 1930s in Newark, a stevedore, a star presenter of a radio show called "The Free and the Brave" in the 1940s, and a devoted Stalinist in the McCarthy era of the 1950s, after his service in the Second World War. Ira's brother, Murray
Although this is an interesting book, I do feel it is not up to the standard of The Human Stain. The incredible power of that book was missing from this one. Yet I loved the characterisation of Hollywood starlet and radio star Eve Frame. It was mesmerising. What a disaster of a woman, brilliantly portrayed!
I stopped reading Philip Roth as a teenager and I can see why. His writing is excellent but the book is very male oriented. The main character is a teenage boy who is very interested in manly men; he admires big, strong, intelligent, intellectual men as models for who he wants to become. The women characters are quite badly done. I'm giving him 3 stars for his writing and his portrayal of the Red Scare of the 50s. But I don't think I'll pick up another of his books anytime soon.
0 Comments