Word: shorted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Powers details how the CIA, on orders of five presidents, had sabotaged elections, overthrown governments, destroyed men and movements, and routinely interfered in the internal affairs of other countries--spending unknown fortunes in the process. And presiding over the treasonous disclosures was Helms' successor (after James Schlesinger '50's short reign) William Colby, reluctant, but cooperative as the secret history became--to an extent--public knowledge...
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...
...lightly tossed aside. It delves into the mind of a Jewish writer and surfaces only after revealing the harsh compromises that must be made to attain great stature as an author. One imagines Roth secreting himself one night in I.B. Singer's bedroom closet all the while scribbling a short story about what he sees. In the morning he discovers in his lap a small masterpiece, part autobiography, part fancy; but it is the whole truth about the Jewish fiction writer...
...writer's self-sacrificial nature, insistent Jewish guilt, and sexual desire all torment Roth's hero, a young short story writer named Nathan Zuckerman. Nathan's dilemma concerns the purpose of his art: is his ultimate responsibility to himself or his Jewish heritage? Even the writer of the Bible must have paused to consider the personal and social consequences of his creation. In the end, Nathan, like Roth, chooses to write for himself and let the kleenex fall where they may. "There is obviously no simple way to be great," says Nathan...
...Nathan stretches to the far-fetched in his attempt to imagine real life. Several plot contrivances mar the novel. But its richness and vitality cannot be overstated. It reads quickly, much like a longish (180 pages) short story, and so stimulating a novel is hard to relinquish to the bookshelf. The Ghost Writer ends too soon...