“There are no two words more precious to a writer than, ‘You’re free.’” (Philip Roth)
My desk is a mess. It’s impossible to see its wooden top save for a few fuzzy patches, hair on a balding man. Ideas are scattered everywhere. I had it in my head that I would write about the book I just read; Walter Yetnikoff’s memoir (with David Ritz): ‘Howling at the Moon: The Odyssey of a Monstrous Music Mogul in an Age of Excess’, and now the time has come.
Bottoms up! I started this post with a 110 proof of Philip Roth and a jigger of Yetnikoff… I feel a theme coming on. Here it is: two intensely ambitious Jewish titans of a certain vintage (born; same year, four months apart); one from New Jersey, one from New York. Both are proud-nosed cowboys blazing their singular trails to wealth and notoriety. Both have felt the unbearable lightness of the world at their feet. One has won a Pulitzer (where in hell is his Nobel?), and one has shtupped more women and bumped more coke than a rock star on a life-long bender.
Aside from being a feverish fan of the Roth oeuvre, and having swallowed Yetnikoff whole in one long night (no pun intended, horn dogs), I can’t help but ask myself, what’s the fascination here? Why do I relate? Raising funds for my film JACK & ELLA, I canvassed wealthy Jews of a similar vintage- old and new-money alike. It was the nouveau-riche who jumped on board my risky passion play- with whom I sincerely bonded; the alpha-male entrepreneurs who crashed and bashed their way to the top of the heap. I can’t say that their lives (let alone- stock portfolios) mirror my own, but I feel a kinship with these mouthy aging warriors; who always, and I mean always, say what they mean and mean what they do.
I ponder the lingering dream of a good (in Roth’s case- great) book. Despite the fact that I am a Jewish woman (hear me roar), is there a part of me that is secretly a battering ram of a self-made Jewish man (fearless and full of fear)? If I wrote the story of my life, who would I make myself out to be?
5 Responses to I am a Jewish (wo)man
I am an addict but I have been clean for 3 years. Just had my 3 year cake and it was delicious. It tasted like napalm in the morning. I will always be a Philip Roth addict even though I hate the man. I never met him and never will but as long as he refuses to love me–no, as long as he continues to detest me– I will not read another word. Well, maybe The Facts because it is so willfully terrible. Writing his own life as nonfiction, how could it be anything but terrible. Especially when it compares to the amazing lives of Zuckerman and Roth: dopplegangers that he repeatedly tells us are not him.
May the Nobel Prize never come. He should taste the iron sting of the bloody mouth that comes from unrequited love. His approval would be enough.
Man can he write though:
Portnoy’s Complaint
Operation Shylock
Sabbath’s Theater
The Counterlife
My Life As A Man
Goodbye Columbus
The Ghost Writer
True pleasures all.
Keep up the good work BrendaJoy
how
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Why so sad? Philip Roth does love you, otherwise you wouldn’t love his characters. He can feel your pounding heart miles and miles away. He knows what you eat for breakfast. He can write you in his sleep. Don’t put a hex on the Nobel he so deeply deserves!
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Hey Brenda
So I finally took the time to give your page the time it deserves. You write so beautifully, it’s so alive and inspiring, it drags me up from a slouch. I saw Bjork live on Monday. What a mischievous, life loving nymph she is, and a singular artist who commands unusual (deserved) reverence in the modern era. She was majestic. Speaking of majesty you need the Bon Iver album ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ in your life, everyone does. I leave you with the two lines that have got me through the past 6 months –
‘You know I dreamed about you, for 29 years, before I met you’ – from the song ‘Slow Show’ by The National, on their album ‘The Boxer’
and
‘Hold to the now, the here, through which the future plunges to the past’ – from ‘Ulysses’ by Joyce (of course)
Much Love
Soon
Neil x
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Thank you for your kind words and quotes, dear Neil. Your communication warms my heart. Let’s take the opportunity to plug your fab UK film fest here- go FILMSTOCK! And boomerang back anyone you think might enjoy Burns the fire- why not?!!
Check it out, film lovers:
http://www.filmstock.co.uk/home.html
With love
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