Book Review: Exit Ghost by Philip Roth - Page 2

The title Exit Ghost is also a stage direction from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and in honor of that drama, Roth offers us this anguished “play within a play” which enacts the courtship of the wounded Zuckerman and the haughty Logan. In these imaginary encounters, Roth explores the bitterness and despair of his alter ego as all his dreams of a revitalized life in New York are exposed as baseless illusions.

The brutal honesty of Exit Ghost makes for compelling reading. But Roth’s writing here often falls short of his best work. When he offers the reader a lengthy passage comparing Zuckerman’s return to New York to Rip Van Winkle waking from his sleep, one is surprised to see one of our finest living authors relying on such a tired simile, worthy of a high school creative writing student. Other passages also fail to ring true. When Zuckerman launches into an angry rant on Lonoff’s biographer, the illusion of fiction is destroyed – the reader sees this diatribe as Roth settling scores with his current and future chroniclers.

As with his previous Zuckerman books, Roth tries to incorporate current events into his narrative. In this instance, he has Zuckerman’s trip to New York coincide with the culmination of the election battle between Bush and Kerry for control of the White House, and he also tries to draw on the aftermath of 9-11 during the course of the story. But Roth does not integrate these successfully into his book – not the way he brought the Vietnam protests into the heart of American Pastoral, for example. Indeed, some of the best written passages in Exit Ghost (most notably a long section on the life and death of George Plimpton) play no role in moving ahead the story, and thus impart a peculiar, static quality to the narrative.

This is an unfortunate way for Nathan Zuckerman to leave the stage. He is one of the most memorable characters in modern fiction, and has inspired several brilliant novels. But readers wanting to experience the magic of this famous protagonist are advised to start back at the beginning with The Ghost Writer, rather than with this uneven volume.

Article Author: Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia is a writer and musician. He is the author of Delta Blues, The History of Jazz and, most recently, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool.

Visit Ted Gioia's author page — Ted Gioia's Blog