Word: reader
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There are other things in this novel that Roth's detractors will probably dislike. Nathan, a self-conscious fellow, does not allow the reader to forget that the words on the page are made up, inventions: "Being Zuckerman is one long performance and the very opposite of what is thought of as being oneself." So much for sincere, straight-from-the-shoulder storytelling. People who want to know what really happens in a work of fiction, a peculiar but widespread desire, are going to find themselves bewildered. Only one incontestable fact can be gleaned from the book: The Counterlife...
...self-serving, the spineless--those who supported the Occupation in hope of getting extra butter rations, who are now covering up their guilt as hastily as they cover up the traces of the lost deportees. Maspero examines how people compromise their principles during a crisis. He invites the reader to consider questions of personal ethics, when the safety of the individual is at stake...
...Sorrow and the Pity, Marcel Ophuls' documentary of the French Occupation, the novel's barrage of impressions and opinions assaults, even implicates, the reader. Derisive voices chant an anti-Vichy song. A housewife prepares makeshift tea out of water and carrot tops. The odor of filth rises from the streets. Meanwhile, the heated voices of a cautious bourgeois and a young radical debate questions that offer no moral answers...
DESPITE ITS energetic style, however, Cat's Grin has some problems of structure and voice. Perhaps because of his background as a journalist, Maspero feels compelled to tell all. Jarringly, he departs from Cat's limited point of view to give the reader information which the thirteen-year-old could not possibly perceive...
...avant-garde of abstraction shot itself into outer space several years ago. Stella believes that exploring the third dimension has freshened his art, and more power to him. But a reader would have as much chance of finding the salvation of modern art in Working Space as in the latest issue of Batman...