Word: roth
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...PHILIP ROTH READER Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 483 pages...
...should anyone buy books filled with fiction that has already appeared in other books? As any number of Philip Roth or Stanley Elkin characters might say, why not? Even those who happen to own all the 18 volumes that Roth and Elkin have written over the past 20 years are likely to find these two collections of golden oldies a sound investment, a way of consolidating large past pleasures into compact present ones. New readers have a different and equally worthwhile treat in store: the happy discovery of two serious comic writers...
...breed is rare. Aside from Roth, Elkin and Thomas Pynchon, it is hard to think of many other contemporaries who consistently qualify. Humorists go strictly for laughs, and more power to them. Roth and Elkin take a different direction; they pretend that they would gladly stick to brass tacks and the big issues if only the world were not so loony. The hero of Portnoy's Complaint (1969), Roth's most celebrated novel, cries out to his psychiatrist: "Doctor Spielvogel, this is my life, my only life, and I'm living it in the middle...
Carter defended his record on "humanitarian" issues and attacked Reagan's support of the Kemp-Roth tax bill, calling it a "heartless kind of approach" that would cut taxes primarily for the rich...
...cannot defend Carter's record on the economy, but Reagan would be worse. To argue that one can slash taxes (Reagan supports the Kemp-Roth proposal), increase defense spending and balance the budget strikes us, as Reagan's own running mate (and a terrifying personality in his own right) has said, as "voodoo economics." Where Carter has consistently supported labor, Reagan still questions the validity even of the minimum wage. Reagan would not stop with trimming domestic programs; he has promised to eliminate some agencies (the Departments of Energy' and Education, for example) that Carter has established...