Roth, _The Humbling_

I KEEP BUYING and reading Philip Roth novels, I've decided, rather the way I keep buying and listening to Neil Young albums. Both of them settled upon a handful of characteristic moves and gestures quite a while ago and are largely content to replay them. Both of them, odds are, have already done the work for which they are most likely to be remembered. As influences, they are dead ends; both of them are so utterly and idiosyncratically what they are that it would be foolish for any young writer or musician to imitate them. In an uncharitable mood, one could accuse both of simply imitating themselves.

The Humbling certainly gives one feelings of déja lu. The main character, Simon Axler, is an actor who has suddenly lost the ability to act, putting us in mind of other Rothian versions of the artist whose inspiration is blocked or dried up, Nathan Zuckerman in The Anatomy Lesson, Mickey Sabbath in Sabbath's Theater, "Philip Roth" in Operation Shylock. Like those three characters, Axler gets himself into some unsuitable shenanigans, throwing himself into an affair with a lesbian named Pegeen (named for the Synge character), who turns out to have a dangerous penchant for unsuitable shenanigans herself, like her many, many sisters in the Roth gallery of shikses fatales. And then there is the recurring late Roth pondering of death: following Everyman, Exit Ghost, and Indignation, The Humbling seems to wrap up a death tetralogy (unless we count A Dying Animal as the inaugural volume).

So far, so familiar. And then there's the Rothian trick of having some major plot development occur in a gap in the narrative, so that we readers learn of it only after it has occurred. The Rothian way of folding-in episodes that occurred years before the action begins. The marathon male-female dialogues, like Chinese ping-pong, enormous exertion and strategy put into the volleying back and forth of a tiny, nearly weightless ball.

And you know what? I couldn't put it down. I read it in a day. I can't stop myself. As long as he keeps publishing them, I'm going to be reading them. When whatever he leaves unfinished, his Original of Laura, gets published, I'll read that too, if I'm alive. I just can't get enough.