Word: zuckerman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Zuckerman Unbound, Philip Roth...
...thing. A stranger on a bus is disappointed to see him on public transportation and suggests buying a helicopter to "fly straight over the dog-poop." He is urged to invest his money elsewhere than in his shoe, dress more expensively and circulate with other celebrities. The result is Zuckerman in nighttown with a glamorous Irish actress named Caesara O'Shea who reads Kierkegaard and disappears in the morning to continue her top-secret affair with Fidel Castro...
...prisoner of the personality racket is Alvin Pepler, a Newarker known as the "Jewish Marine" when he starred briefly on a TV quiz show during the '50s. Pepler's problem: he was dumped from the show when he wouldn't take a dive. He now wants Zuckerman to help publish his book about the scandal. In addition to this pathetic pest, there is a blackmailer who grows indignant when Nathan refuses to pay $50,000 to prevent the kidnaping of his mother: "Don't get high and mighty with me," says the caller. "Because...
Roth's stab at seriousness is less brilliant. As he dies, Zuckerman's father looks at his son and whispers, "Bastard." Is this the final misunderstanding, the last, most painful blurring of illusion and illusionist? The question is mooted by Zuckerman's response. He is relieved. With his father dead and his old Newark neighborhood unrecognizable, the author of Carnovsky is literally unbound...
Like the end of Portnoy's Complaint, the conclusion of Zuckerman Unbound suggests a new beginning. Nathan even shows his impatience when he says, "Being a poor misunderstood millionaire is not really a topic that intelligent people can discuss for very long." As a sturdy vehicle for Roth's comic genius, Zuckerman may show up again: Will he travel to Prague and discover Franz Kafka as an aged steam-bath attendant? Will he beget children who grow up to be literary critics? Will he win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction and have to return it when everything...