The Counterlife

THE COUNTERLIFE

by Philip Roth

 

Award: National Book Critics Circle Winner 1987

 

Nomination: National Book Finalist 1987, NY Times Finalist 1987

 

Date Read: February 10, 2021

 

The Counterlife marks the third Zuckerman novel I’ve read in a row and I am endlessly fascinated at how Roth is like a dog with a bone. Regardless of subject – Judaism, masculinity, sex, literature, you name it - he can brilliantly take any subject and beat it to fucking death. The Counterlife shows Zuck and his brother, Nathan, in various outcomes of existence; a study in paths taken and not, resentments held and released, affairs embraced and forsaken. 

 

I did find Roth’s ponderings about his Jewish ancestry very interesting. I have always been fascinated by Judaism and there is rich ground here for exploration encompassing Zionism, the militarism of Israel, the post-Holocaust Jew in modern culture, the anti-Semitism that is still rife throughout the world. I found all of these probings fascinating and rich.

 

Yet, Roth continuously overestimates the intelligence of the average man. The agent on the plane that was a former “grease monkey” can maintain an intellectual discussion of the “universal loathing of the Jewish id?” I really don’t think so. Not buying it. Maria’s sister, Susan, a housewife, can provide a detailed psychological analysis of her sister and Zuck’s discomfort in a predominantly Christian society? No way.

 

As I came to finish this chapter in Zuck’s life, I realize that a need a Roth-rest. I was going to plunge ahead with American Pastoral and Human Stain but I am going to save those for a little further on. I feel like I’ve overdosed on chocolate.

 

Looking Forward: American Pastoral, Everyman, The Human Stain, Operation Shylock, The Plot Against America, The Professor Of Desire

 

Looking Back: The Anatomy Lesson, The Ghost Writer, My Life As A Man, Sabbath’s Theater

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