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A review by holodoxa
Philip Roth: The Biography by Blake Bailey
3.0
In many ways, this is an impressive work of biography. Blake Bailey provides what appears to be a fairly honest and incredibly detailed picture of Philip Roth the man and the author. However, I fear the work would benefit from a little more organizational self-discipline and less lurid indulgences.
It is more than clear (even just from reading Roth's work) that Roth was a man with an insatiable libido - a libido that inspired a carousel of torrid affairs. In the book, the gossipy details of these largely run together. This is of course something that the biography needed to discuss, but I felt Bailey's focus on it came at the cost of deeper discussion of Roth's literature or even his thinking on important issues or the nature of his friendships and vendettas (wanted to learn more about him and Norm Podhoretz).
I felt that Bailey should have provided more detail, analysis, and criticism of Roth's oeuvre. On Roth's major works, excepting American Pastoral, Bailey provides only superficial or brief commentary in favor of dilating on how elements of Roth's works intersected with the actual details of Roth's life. This is interesting to an extent but cataloging them does little to advance the readers understanding of why Roth was such an important writer or what about his writing is enduring, powerful, meaningful, etc - maybe this isn't the purview of biography but it should be when chronicling the life of an author.
Admittedly I've not read a ton of Roth (just American Pastoral, The Ghost Rider, and various selected passages), but I don't come away from reading Bailey's biography feeling more informed on Roth's authorial qualities and accomplishments. However, I do come away with an understanding of Roth as a human being and social presence, which appears to have been Bailey's aim.
It is more than clear (even just from reading Roth's work) that Roth was a man with an insatiable libido - a libido that inspired a carousel of torrid affairs. In the book, the gossipy details of these largely run together. This is of course something that the biography needed to discuss, but I felt Bailey's focus on it came at the cost of deeper discussion of Roth's literature or even his thinking on important issues or the nature of his friendships and vendettas (wanted to learn more about him and Norm Podhoretz).
I felt that Bailey should have provided more detail, analysis, and criticism of Roth's oeuvre. On Roth's major works, excepting American Pastoral, Bailey provides only superficial or brief commentary in favor of dilating on how elements of Roth's works intersected with the actual details of Roth's life. This is interesting to an extent but cataloging them does little to advance the readers understanding of why Roth was such an important writer or what about his writing is enduring, powerful, meaningful, etc - maybe this isn't the purview of biography but it should be when chronicling the life of an author.
Admittedly I've not read a ton of Roth (just American Pastoral, The Ghost Rider, and various selected passages), but I don't come away from reading Bailey's biography feeling more informed on Roth's authorial qualities and accomplishments. However, I do come away with an understanding of Roth as a human being and social presence, which appears to have been Bailey's aim.