Goodbye, Philip

The famous American novelist, Philip Roth, has died during age 85. we met him forty years ago during a imagination literary celebration during a St. Moritz Hotel in New York. He was already a literary superstar, with a film of his satirical joke of Jewish life in America, “Goodbye, Columbus,” appearing in theaters coast-to-coast, while we was a immature author watchful for my initial novel to be published.

The exclusive, jet-set celebration was in respect of one of Germany’s tip publishers who was visiting New York. My literary representative during a time rubbed his books in translation, so he invited me to a celebration affair. we won’t tell we how we stole a courtesy divided from Roth and a other obvious writers in attendance. Now that we have a prolonged beard, my childish shenanigans aren’t something of that we am proud. The celebration seemed so artificial to me, we felt we had to do something to arise people up. Those were still a days of a hippies and a Age of Aquarius. Or maybe, we did what we did out of jealousy. That’s substantially some-more like it.

Roth during least, and his non-Jewish wife, were really good mannered. He wrote about himself a lot in his novels, divulgence his some-more individualist side and furious fantasies, though during a celebration he acted really reserved. we told him that Dell Publishers was entrance out with my initial novel, and he wished me good luck. we asked him if we could write a screenplay from one of his bestselling novels, and he told me to get in hold with his agent.

Roth became a universe luminary with a announcement of his scathing, anti-Jewish, autobiographical novel, Portnoy’s Complaint. The favourite of a story, Alexander Portnoy, hates his Jewish mom with a savage passion and rants on and on about her wrong via a book, describing in waggish and really indecent fact how a over-possessive maternal beast broken his life and a relations with a women he loved. In many other books, Roth’s literary alter-ego, Nathan Zuckerman, blasts divided during Judaism with equal animosity. The universe desired Roth for it.

The late American-Jewish novelist, Joseph Heller, author of a famous fight satire, Catch-22, also married a non-Jewish woman. we pronounced hello to him during a same literary celebration during a St. Moritz Hotel. One of his final books, before succumbing to a unpleasant sickness, was a common and ungodly joke about a life of King David. we don’t wish to suppose a stage when he met King David adult in Heaven, after carrying done fun of Israel’s prominent hero. Fortunately, Heller had a present with words, since when he met a holy compiler of a Book of Psalms, whom he so ridiculed in his book, he had a lot of explaining to do.   

At a time, though not during a party, we met another famous American-Jewish writer, Norman Mailer, also in a literary Hall of Fame in Heaven, who was married to 8 different, non-Jewish wives. That’s right – eight. Mailer was a bigger-than-life character, and a bigger-than-life author who was compelled to infer that he could be some-more American and some-more Gentile than all American Gentiles put together. we met him during his catastrophic debate to be inaugurated Mayor of New York, a broadside attempt that won him a lot of attention. To his credit, he had a shining poise of a English language, and we copied many things that we dignified in his hard-hitting and argumentative style. He too was no good partner of Judaism, though distinct Roth, he avoided a theme completely, as if being a Jew had zero to do with him.

Since we are mentioning a few of a good American-Jewish writers, Arthur Miller deserves to take a bow. After all, a eminent playwright achieved a biggest American-Jewish Dream of them all when he married a world’s many glamorous glorious queen, Marilyn Monroe. How unapproachable a digested Jews of America were during a good event. For an American Jew, marrying a lady like Marilyn Monroe was a biggest success of all.

Finally, a Jews had done it! Move over Joe DiMaggio!  A member of a Tribe of Moses has stolen a heart of America’s Number One Girl!

The tragedy of these good American-Jewish writers is a tragedy of America’s Jews. Acclaim and assimilation. Brilliance and blindness. Excellence and extinction. May their memories be for a blessing.