Word: roth
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...novel is narrated by Roth’s authorial alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, who examines his high school’s star athlete—a man nicknamed “the Swede” (although he, like the narrator, is Jewish). On the very first page Roth explains that the Swede gave the neighborhood the chance to “enter into a fantasy about itself and about the world.” Zuckerman explains, “Our families could forget the way things actually work and make an athletic performance the repository of all their hopes...
...substratum,” his term for the deep and authentic life of the mind. This quest for the profound proves devastating as the Swede only discusses the happy, superficial lives of his family and does not even mention grieving for his father. During the dinner scene, Roth juxtaposes paragraphs in which the Swede relates inane family anecdotes against extended interior monologues tracking Zuckerman’s overwrought reactions to the disappointing way the meal develops. The chapter concludes with the narrator’s self-questioning rant, “Why the appetite to know this guy?... You?...
...spend so many years in the wilderness, aspiring to be "literary"? "It felt like the safe thing," he admits. "But eventually I realized that the New Jersey of Philip Roth is as much a pure product of make-believe as Alice's Wonderland. If all fiction is make-believe, then writers should not deny themselves great metaphors like ghosts and angels and devils." For Joe Hill, that's the stuff home is made...
Still, that's a long way from the climate faced by many gay politicians in America. Opponents of gay candidates there often focus the race on sexuality - and have found that it wins them more votes. Jim Roth, former Oklahoma county commissioner and the state's first publicly elected gay official, says that in 2002, rivals wrongly claimed his partner had AIDS. In 2006, church groups, he says, passed out literature claiming he would "advance the homosexual agenda." In 2008, while running for a post to oversee the state's energy resources, he faced similar attacks and lost. "Their coordinated...
...This is unprecedented because the software bug hit millions of cards," says Michaela Roth, a spokeswoman for the Central Credit Committee (ZKA), a group that represents five public and private banking associations. "We're looking at different options right now and we're confident we can repair the software on the chips...