Word: lonoff
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Dates: during 1979-1979
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Nathan--Alexander Portnoy disguised by a U. of Chicago education--arrives at the New England home of his aging mentor, newly popular short story writer E.I. Lonoff, whom he has never met. Here he embarks on an intellectual journey to discover both the mystery behind Lonoff's ghost-like absence from the "real world" and the secret to Lonoff's uncanny ability to characterize the Jewish anti-hero in his stories. Along the way, Nathan encounters Hope, Lonoff's lonely, bitter and jealous wife, and the enchanting Amy Bellette, his precocious and loving student...
With E.I. Lonoff, Roth brings to life a compelling and intricate character. Lonoff, in a self-destructive pursuit of the perfection of his art, exemplifies the life of a great writer for Nathan, for whom quelling desire in the interest of better art is a new phenomenon. "There is his religion of art, my young successor: rejecting life! Not living is what he makes his beautiful art out of," wails Hope...
...Nathan wants to be a great writer and The Ghost Writer reflects the intensity of his desire. It closely examines that desire, offering a stimulating tour of the maturing writer's mind, ground Roth knows only too well. His writing about writers stands unparalleled. In a perfectly turned monologue, Lonoff bitterly details the tedium of a writer...
Later, during the night he spends in Lonoff's study, Nathan climbs atop a writing desk and a Henry James novel, then presses his ear to the ceiling to better eavesdrop on a pathetic love dialogue between Lonoff and Amy. Safely descending his makeshift ladder, he laments...
...real Amy curtly evades Nathan's questions about her background. She is a smart and very tough cookie. As is Lonoff; as is Zuckerman; as is Roth himself. The Ghost Writer is a bruising book. Within its artfully tangled plot, Roth tells off his critics and debunks romantic notions of the writing life. Henry James' "passion of doubt" and "madness of art" become a medieval incubus and fanatic patience; Lonoff, more the ascetic Old World Jew than his Yankee trappings might indicate, spends all his time pushing sentences around and worrying about them. His comment on writing...