NY Observer > Philip Roth http://www.observer.com/taxonomy/term/28573/feed Articles from Observer.com en Lineup for April 30, 2008 http://www.observer.com/2008/lineup-april-30-2008

If you remember this year's White House Correspondent's Dinner, you weren't there. Felix Gillette, John Koblin, and Choire Sicha flood the zone in D.C..

Janet Silver is moving from Houghton Mifflin to Nan Talese's imprint at Doubleday. Leon Neyfakh checks in with with Ms. Talese who says, "I called Janet and she sent us a list of the authors she had worked with and the ones who’d said they wanted to come with her, if not immediately then eventually." That list may include Philip Roth and Jonathan Safran Foer. Plus: Islam observers on Wieseltier's Amis review; James Frey's PR Dream Team; Spitzer's bio; Nabokov's unfinished novel.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/lineup-april-30-2008#comments Arianna Huffington David Mamet Eliot Spitzer Frank McCourt James Frey Janet Silver Jonathan Safran Foer Nan Talese Philip Roth Salman Rushdie Tom Brokaw Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:49:07 -0400 Matt Haber 68564 at http://www.observer.com Foer! Janet Silver, for Nan Talese, Circles J.S.F., Philip Roth http://www.observer.com/2008/foer-janet-silver-nan-talese-circles-j-s-f-philip-roth

On May 1, former Houghton Mifflin publisher Janet Silver starts her new job as an editor at large at Nan Talese’s boutique literary imprint at Doubleday.

Back in January, Ms. Silver and several other editors at Houghton Mifflin were made redundant as part of the company’s merger with Harcourt.

But Ms. Silver and Ms. Talese may have the better end of the stick: The author list Ms. Silver built at Houghton, which included Philip Roth and Jonathan Safran Foer, did not play a small role in Ms. Talese’s desire to recruit her.

“I called Janet and she sent us a list of the authors she had worked with and the ones who’d said they wanted to come with her, if not immediately then eventually,” Ms. Talese said. “We ran down the financials and ... we made an agreement with her that she would stay up there in Massachusetts. It was all done in a rather good fashion.”  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/foer-janet-silver-nan-talese-circles-j-s-f-philip-roth#comments Media Houghton Mifflin Company Janet Silver Jonathan Safran Foer Nan Talese Philip Roth Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:40:45 -0400 Leon Neyfakh 68513 at http://www.observer.com Philip Roth’s Grim Everyman Takes a Bow with Takács http://www.observer.com/2007/philip-roth-s-grim-everyman-takes-bow-tak-cs

The novelist is in the house! He applauds as his words are married to music.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2007/philip-roth-s-grim-everyman-takes-bow-tak-cs#comments Arts & Culture Philip Roth Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:29:32 -0400 Russell Platt 59588 at http://www.observer.com Zuckerman Unsound http://www.observer.com/2007/zuckerman-unsound

Next to The Ghost Writer, Exit Ghost seems leaky and limp.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2007/zuckerman-unsound#comments Arts & Culture Philip Roth Tue, 02 Oct 2007 07:32:44 -0400 Adam Begley 58382 at http://www.observer.com Wit and Sharp Argument Skewer a Damaging Euphemism http://www.observer.com/node/36636 The last decade and more of American public life will be remembered, among other things, for the tri  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/node/36636#comments Arts & Culture George W. Bush Henry Ford Philip Roth Walter Benn Michaels Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:00:00 -0500 Chris Lehmann 36636 at http://www.observer.com Angleworms in a Bottle, an anti-New York Story http://www.observer.com/node/33285 I spent a couple days in New York city this week, including an obligatory meeting with a pseudo-friend. If you don't live in New York, you might not know what a pseudofriend is. New York is full of them. These are the people who want to get out of you a lot of the benefits of a friendship—the exchange of ideas and gossip, the warmth, the removal of loneliness—but without really paying out as a friend in any real generosity of spirit. Truly, they'd just as soon you do badly, and they even act to achieve that result. I'm not talking about friend/rivals. That's an old and honored category of friendship. Old friends know how to negotiate that (ask Gore Vidal and Truman Capote..).

Pseudofriend is a professional category. It's hard for writers to get along that well in N.Y. cause N.Y. is the writers' olympic village. As it's the olympic village for investment analysts, TV people, legal turks, advertising people, etc. I bet they have pseudofriends, too.

Here are two eminent writers holding forth on the subject. First is the late Saul Bellow, as interviewed by Philip Roth in The New Yorker:
I've thought quite a lot about the New York setting of "Seize the Day" and I'm inclined to agree that the loneliness, shabbiness, and depression of the book find a singular match in the uptown Broadway surroundings. I think that for old-time Chicagoans the New Yorkers of "Seize the Day" are emotionally thinner, or one-dimensional. We had fuller or, if you prefer, richer emotions in the Middle West. I think I congratulated myself on having been able to deal with New York, but I never won any of my struggles there, and I never responded with full human warmth to anything that happened there.

Wow. Note that: Bellow never won any of his struggles in New York. (No wonder Roth lives in CT).

Now here's Hemingway in a famous passage from The Green Hills of Africa:
Writers should work alone. They should see each other only after their work is done, and not too often then. Otherwise they become like writers in New York. All angleworms in a bottle, trying to derive knowledge and nourishment from their own contact and from the bottle. Sometimes the bottle is shaped art, sometimes economics, sometimes economic-religion. But once they are in the bottle they stay there. They are lonesome outside of the bottle...

Yes, I'm collecting string on this subject...

]]> http://www.observer.com/node/33285#comments Gore Vidal Philip Roth Truman Capote Fri, 09 Jun 2006 09:23:00 -0400 Observer Staff 33285 at http://www.observer.com Angleworms in a Bottle: The New York Story http://www.observer.com/node/33257 I spent a couple days in New York, including meeting with a pseudo-friend. If you don't live in New York, you might not know what a pseudofriend is. New York is full of them. These are the people who want to get out of you a lot of the benefits of a friendship—the exchange of ideas and gossip, the warmth, the removal of loneliness—but without really paying out as a friend behind your back. They'd just as soon you do badly. I'm not talking about friend/rivals. That's an old and honored category of friendship. Old friends know how to negotiate that (ask Gore Vidal and Truman Capote..).

Pseudofriend is a professional category. It's hard for writers to get along that well in N.Y. Because N.Y. is the writers' olympic site. As it's the olympic site for investment analysts, TV people, legal turks, advertising people, etc. I bet they have pseudofriends, too.

Here are two eminent writers holding forth on the subject. First is the late Saul Bellow, as interviewed by Philip Roth in The New Yorker:
I've thought quite a lot about the New York setting of "Seize the Day" and I'm inclined to agree that the loneliness, shabbiness, and depression of the book find a singular match in the uptown Broadway surroundings. I think that for old-time Chicagoans the New Yorkers of "Seize the Day" are emotionally thinner, or one-dimensional. We had fuller or, if you prefer, richer emotions in the Middle West. I think I congratulated myself on having been able to deal with New York, but I never won any of my struggles there, and I never responded with full human warmth to anything that happened there.

Wow. Note that: Bellow never won any of his struggles in New York. (No wonder Roth lives in CT).

Now here's Hemingway in a famous passage from The Green Hills of Africa:
Writers should work alone. They should see each other only after their work is done, and not too often then. Otherwise they become like writers in New York. All angleworms in a bottle, trying to derive knowledge and nourishment from their own contact and from the bottle. Sometimes the bottle is shaped art, sometimes economics, sometimes economic-religion. But once they are in the bottle they stay there. They are lonesome outside of the bottle...
]]> http://www.observer.com/node/33257#comments Gore Vidal Philip Roth Truman Capote Tue, 06 Jun 2006 09:48:13 -0400 Observer Staff 33257 at http://www.observer.com Time's (Doomed) Person of the Year http://www.observer.com/node/32744
You know the drill. Every year it starts a little bit early: the press releases, the articles, the low level buzz—mostly amid the publicists who write the press releases and the reporters who dutifully recap them. Yes, it's Time's 'Person of Year' time again, and if the consensus mongers are to be believed, this year's 'winner' might be that bitch who's been ruining our lives since the new year.

No, not Paris Hilton: 'Mother Nature.'

But do we really want Mother Nature to win? So many past 'Person of the Year' recipients take an immediate turn south as soon as they win: What if the same fate befalls Mother Nature?

We'll selectively recap the last 78 years, accentuating the negative and eliminating the positive and you can decide for yourself:

· 2004: George W. Bush (Current approval rating: 37%.) · 2003: The American Soldier (American military deaths since Bush's May 1, 2003 "Mission Accomplished" speech: 1,935.) · 1994: Pope John Paul II (Deceased. Portrayed by Jon Voight.) · 1980: Ronald Reagan (Deceased. Portrayed by James Brolin.) · 1975: American Women (Alito boasted of his '85 work against abortion; Maureen Dowd's new book won't help her pick up guys.) · 1972: Nixon and Kissinger (Former: Impeached. Resigned in disgrace. Deceased. Portrayed in an Oliver Stone movie. Latter: Gently mocked by Jon Stewart.) · 1969: The Middle Americans (Post Election U.S. Map; What's the Matter with Kansas?) · 1963: Martin Luther King, Jr. (Assassinated.) · 1961: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Assassinated.) · 1952: Elizabeth II (Queen is target for al-Qaida, security sources confirm.) · 1941/1949: Winston Churchill (Deceased. Is Bush the Churchill of the 21st Century?) · 1939/ 1942: Joseph Stalin (Deceased. Posthumously condemned by Martin Amis.) · 1938: Adolf Hitler (Suicide.) · 1935: Haile Selassie (Deceased. Curiously beloved by fraternity members.) · 1927: Charles Lindbergh (Deceased. Son kidnapped; Philip Roth foil.) —Matt Haber
]]> http://www.observer.com/node/32744#comments Media Jon Stewart Paris Hilton Philip Roth U.S. Armed Forces Thu, 17 Nov 2005 03:55:00 -0500 Observer Staff 32744 at http://www.observer.com Writing, Religion, Nationality: A Close Look in the Mirror http://www.observer.com/node/50851 Who We Are: On Being (and Not Being) a Jewish American Writer, edited by Derek Rubin.  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/node/50851#comments Arts & Culture Denise Levertov Derek Rubin Philip Roth Saul Bellow Sun, 22 May 2005 20:00:00 -0400 Mindy Aloff 50851 at http://www.observer.com Judy Blume Testy at Book Awards; Kid Defends 'The Five Unknowns' http://www.observer.com/node/50122 Judy Blume snarled! Whatever will we tell our kids?  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/node/50122#comments Judy Blume National Book Foundation Philip Roth Rick Moody Sun, 28 Nov 2004 19:00:00 -0500 Daniel Asa Rose 50122 at http://www.observer.com