Word: tarnapol
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Such a narrow conception of fiction and its imaginative resources annoyed and exasperated Roth. He could have deflected these misreadings by following Portnoy's with a novel whose central character bore no surface resemblances to himself. With characteristic contrariness, Roth did the exact opposite. Peter Tarnapol, the narrator of My Life as a Man (1974), is, unlike Portnoy but like Roth, a writer and one who has enjoyed early acclaim, hailed as "'the golden boy of American literature' (New York Times Book Review, September, 1959)." Tarnapol's obsessive topic is his disastrous first marriage; that Roth had lived through such...
When some of them took the bait, Roth went even further. Nathan Zuckerman, the narrator of The Ghost Writer (1979), seems identical to Roth in everything from his vocation (writer) and faith (Jewish) to his Newark childhood. (Tarnapol at least grew up in the Bronx.) What is more, Zuckerman is facing the same dilemma that Roth did, with considerable attendant publicity early in his career; he has been accused of writing a story involving misbehaving Jews that, other Jews claim, will confirm anti-Semitic prejudices in Gentile readers...
Nivins the Nightshade. The payola game brought Disk Jockey Clay in contact with a string of Damon Runyon-like characters, including Nat ("The Rat") Tarnapol, artist-and-repertory man for Roulette records, and Promoter Harry Balk, indicted earlier this year as a fixer of newspaper puzzle contests (TIME, March 9). But the most lizardous type Tom Clay ever encountered was Harry Nivins, a bald, cherubic nightshade who proved to be Tom's downfall...
| 1 |