Alessandro Gaudio (University of Calabria)
The ghost comes out of his mind. The human ambivalence of Philip Roth
lesson leading up to Memorial Day
University of Calabria, 14 January 2009
Sin verses by Dylan Thomas put in the epigraph to The Phantom leaves the stage - "Before death takes you, all remain" - Philip Roth's latest novel seems to confirm the system of oppositions that dot many of its tests narrative history, body and culture, captured in their immeasurable modern concrete (in their totality and in their invalidity), appear and disappear, and eclipse were raised to new life, according to a pattern of emotional ambivalence is certainly Freudian before they literature. It is based on a generational conflict of the poem quoted by Thomas Roth: This is an essay of 1933, entitled "Find meat on bones (the meat on Search bones) and then included in Twenty-five poems, a compilation published in '36: A father urges his son to react all'inesorabilità of death, "the worm that no one can kill '(' [...] the maggot no man can slay ' ). The young, however, accepted the cyclical nature of time that passes and has no intention to accept the recommendation of his father not to resist temptation and to enjoy life fully, suggests, indeed, to change their mind before it's too late . Beyond the consonance between the theme of the novel and the poetry of English poet, Roth seems to want to leverage their strong matrix body and the way they suggest the transition from the author's personal involvement into the fabric of the work to the determination of his office recently universale.Nel Everyman, Roth described the perception of a disaster, inner and collective at the same time, which you can escape only through irony, that is, through a form of individual reactions and bitter, pre-existing and lonely, which (in its universality and ambivalence) is strictly literary. You can not save them from decay, depression and inculturation, if not in terms of writing metempirico, unique art and foolish not to die: the literature, with its power of illusion, is the quintessence of human language and the only the survivor, who has not yet been 'Taken from the dead' or - which is the same thing - for those who want to escape the clutches of posthumous existence. But to understand the principle which underpins the ghost leaves the scene is necessary to go back to the beginning of the epic of Nathan Zuckerman (Roth's alter ego) as it is told in the ghost writer, a novel written in the late seventies. The story (set in 1956) had already made it clear that the strategy adopted by Roth to address both stereotypes and the literary tic, as the excesses of Jewish orthodoxy and sense of exclusion led by a refugee would be endemically leverage the power biting and revitalization of the imagination ("everything that's humiliating my own father had suffered, and from which so much anguish and fury had tried to redeem all, you could get a head-on literature and so caustic severe intensity ", SF, p. 10). [1] After having lived the experience of that night spent in the house (solitary and peaceful) of the great writer Lonoff jew Emanuel Isidore and his wife Hope, the young Zuckerman decides to away from the New York publishing world which still prefer the isolation of the countryside of Berkshire, not But to give up the literary consciousness that would allow him to act, from his secluded home, on the present. The dream of marrying Amy Belletti, twenty-seven student, host of Lonoff, who claims to be Anne Frank, is nothing but an extension of his literary docile existence and is, therefore, the resistance to it, is the defense of romance by the bitter charges of anti-Semitism in Roth launched by the Jewish community: It is weird to think that, beyond this desire, there is nothing but death, that is, nothing ("For thirty years writing drama. I - says Lonoff - nothing ever happens ", SF, p. 13). And yet, the Zuckerman is not a dream vacation from reality: it is a model of humanism that seeks to find the ultimate truth of the contemporary world. That is why the intellectual dimension that Roth prefers and pursues, thus is linked to factuality, craftsmanship of writing and thinking as well as to his innocence and profound ineptitude, opposed its veto to "innocent profession" (SF, p. 18), reviewers, scholars and naivety odious skilled thinkers, the "lice of literature" (EDF, p. 224). At this identikit certainly meets Richard Kliman, the aspiring biographer Lonoff that in the Phantom leaves the stage, will in tutti i modi l’avallo etico e la collaborazione di uno stizzito e recalcitrante Zuckerman.Le convinzioni di Roth sul mestiere di scrivere non devono indurre a pensare che sia sua intenzione prospettare un modello di scrittore improvvisato, un dilettante che mentre osserva la realtà dal suo punto di vista isolato ne arrangia un prospetto credibile o accattivante. A chiarire il suo pensiero partecipano anche le trascrizioni delle conversazioni che, intorno alla metà degli anni Ottanta, intrattenne con Primo Levi e Aharon Appelfeld. Dal dialogo con Levi viene fuori la predilezione di Roth per un’anima intellettuale nella quale la figura dello scrittore (o – è lo stesso – quella del superstite) e quella dello scienziato si legano e si reinforce each other. The'uomo precision '(embodied by Levi), who thinks and looks directly at the world of real things, is driven by an intense desire to understand that comes from being both inside and out than the things themselves, in an organic and abnormal condition of precariousness. Starting from this anomaly (in Levi, made much of its existence as a survivor from his company militancy), the awareness of non-human, writing continues to demonstrate and reinforce the ubiquity of human value. Quality - Foucault would say - ignore the "serenity of positive . [2] The desirability of an objective style, the need to adopt a broad perspective and comprehensive, the value given to irony are all qualities that blend well, yet in the interview with Appelfeld, with the requirement writer deported, displaced, uprooted, that Roth seems to prefer: clarity and proportion that become even more essential at a time when, as in his novels, the reality is interwoven with fiction and, indeed, this is the understanding of that. In the way in the novels of Roth's guilt becomes indictment and a desire to reform the world there is also his attempt to come close, come Appelfeld, alla piena comprensione della sua identità cui è sotteso, ancora una volta, un principio umanistico. [3] Lo sfondo decadente della contemporaneità descritta da Roth prevede, perciò, uno spazio per l’immaginazione e per il risveglio delle possibilità: questo luogo fantasmatico si affianca alla narrazione dei fatti (la secca cronaca sempre sostenuta dalla sognante ironia) in modo da portare sulla scena l’attività creatrice di cui è animato: nello Scrittore fantasma, nei corsivi che rendono le parole non dette (le «insidiose fantasticherie», SF, p. 18) di Zuckerman; nel libro più recente, in parts he invented devoted to dialogue between him and her. This devout exercise creator is not that the transcription of their wishes and also constitutes a portion of reality, even when it can not in any way to influence it. However, reality and desire to have the same pitch and the same "turbulence" (SF, p. 27). The result is a series of moments in the history of instability, made moments of clarity and confusion that contribute to the understanding of the whole, although it is not that the flashes of madness. In what Roth, the ghost writer, described as "madness of art" (SF, p. 63) we find the balance of that reality is not written running away from all the parties, that is, yes, and absurdly disproportionate and inexplicable need to be translated in writing so that they may have a more exact knowledge. Not a mere invention, therefore, but passage translation that presumes real life in the novels of Roth (and not just those written about here) there is a vital relationship between the madness of art and imagination, it is a connection that remains far beyond the simple creation of stories because it is a practice designed to be spontaneous, excited, and of course linked to reality and must be based on the exercise of passion of the writer and therefore in doubt and the possibility che da questo sorgono. È come se Zuckerman bramasse una seconda esistenza alla stessa stregua del modo in cui Amy Bellette («la grande desideratrice», SF, p. 120) imita l’arte del grande scrittore spacciandosi per Anne Frank. Entrambi desiderano una seconda possibilità laddove l’unica accordata loro ha mostrato i suoi limiti e si sta esaurendo: questo piccolo e miracoloso incantesimo (che Roth mutua dalle riflessioni sull’arte che concludono un racconto di Henry James) passa attraverso l’immaginazione e le sue impreviste conseguenze. La realtà viene risucchiata dalle storie che Zuckerman ha sviluppato su Amy e che ella stessa ha costruito: viene, cioè, assorbita nel non esistente, tirata fuori dal non vissuto (Cf. SF, p. 141), from all that, not known, you can discover the imagination. Zuckerman, fifty years later, he stopped living in the present ("I was now just a spectator and an outsider . I do not meddle in the general drama, and drama not generally intrudes into my private life ', EDF, pp. 81-82), and "mentally insane" Conrad would say, has now turned himself in Lonoff: attempted idea not to publish more, has retired in his "hut" in Berkshire, where it can "stay in America no longer absorb America into a [self]" (EDF, p. 61). Between the bars of this cage (as Lonoff for "daring to believe that he was allowed to rewrite a paragraph fifty times a day while living in something other than a cage," EDF, p. 20) will change, unexpected, the absurd hope of solving the problems of impotence and incontinence that afflict illusion that causes him to return to New York and to reconsider the opportunity to overcome that limit, the solution to let it go senile is supplanted In short, the emergence of a new virility of mind and spirit. And then the ghost comes out of his mind at the moment when - as in the (symbolic for Roth), the master of the shadow line - know the tragedy that young people experience when 'start to enter fully into life "(EDF, p. 105), including, also, that" these moments of madness does not happen only when we are young "(EDF, p. 113). Imagine marrying Anne Frank was one of these actions and was also launched in response to the accusation Zuckerman (and Roth stories of Goodbye, Columbus) to be incapable of understanding the motives and morals of the Jewish people. Register, then as now, one thing never happened does not alleviate anything, and, however, is absolutely essential to write (see EDF, p. 118-119). To advocate this assumption (the importance and the great difficulty of a literature that serves to think) Roth is once again Amy Belletti: Zuckerman meets her again, sick, confused, almost in a state of ineptitude, but, by 'old fool' (ESF, p. 148), able to find the energy and wisdom to write a lucid letter (in response to an article in the Times on Hemingway) on the function of writing, about the end against a literary and cultural journalism. As his face disfigured by Amy is the visible face of the disease that dwells in his body, what he writes makes visible the transgression that embodies. The 'lyricism' of his illness is never an end in itself: the folly of literary Amy, though empty, is fully devolved to the function reveals that holds within Roth's work: it is - one might say - the starting point. The letter condensation reflection began in 1979 with ghost writer: "There was a time when intelligent people used to think about literature. That time - Amy confesses at the beginning of the writing - is about to end "(EDF, p. 149). The reason for this is that, in newspapers such as schools and universities, literature is no longer seen as capable of influencing the way in which life is perceived, so that it is almost preferable that today she shall not do any more public use. The "cultural vandalism" conducted by newspapers, periodicals and academic journals that introduced with impunity and with a heavy hand in the life of the writer (and lose, however, to view what is actually written) should not lead to more talk of literature and leave it the only player in front of the book to read. If guys like Kliman (moved by a spirit of petty form of research) continue to work undisturbed, literature has lost its intellectual function: it short, or deals with the manner in which each human being experiences life, or affects the exuberant way in which the spirit of the writer is forbidden to have peaceful relations with reality, or not e.Autogenous literature (the same as desire) are concerned, in short, the pain of being present in the present: it is, Zuckerman, conradianamente feel the seduction exercised by each turn in the trail, as well as at the close of the novel, "seek a role in the drama of [his] time" (EDF, p. 219). And reread the portrait of Conrad written by Bertrand Russell, we find that man's relationship with his own ghosts conjured by Roth wisely, "he conceived the civilized and morally tolerable human life as a dangerous walk on a thin crust of barely cooled lava that at any moment could break and leave the unwary sink into fiery depths " . [4] The great passion for the inner order, according to Conrad, can be upset by the fatal, Roth can be broken with the emergence of a desire or - if you prefer - a moment of madness. If the field of fiction, we find a way to endure life and to rebuild its plurality, then we can also find the acceptance of death. According to Roth, this is a necessary step to be taken at a time when you must deal with widespread anxiety and psychological atmosphere stagnante.Superare the shadow line, so gather your inner reality means (for example, the dotted imaginary dialogues Zuckerman) and quella esteriore: se ne trarrà un equilibrio provvisorio che si nutre della conversazione come della sottoconversazione e che consente una nuova presa sulle cose e permette di aggirare le limitazioni imposte sulla verità. Nel perseguire tale fine, la letteratura potrebbe molto se non fosse ridotta a semplice pratica evasiva o, come nell’esperienza di Lonoff, a egoistico tentativo di realizzare le proprie ambizioni sul versante oscuro e limitato di un esercizio di scrittura quasi autistico. E, allora, superare la linea d’ombra vuol dire anche apprendere la radice terrena, umile, della realtà e accettare che dietro il limite delle tenebre non c’è nulla. Roth distilla un carattere umano universale: quello di un uomo diviso, ma anche linked to its origins, a busy man, but also paralyzed by the sense imposed by the culture which appartiene.È clear that the ghost term suggests that the unresolved opposition in the novels of Roth existing between imagination and reality. The ghost who leaves the scene is about the way in which the unconscious wish is fulfilled (in Lonoff, for example, in developing fifty versions of the same story, or the flashes of madness Zuckerman) is the process by which a primary fantasy (which can be seen as symptomatic of Amy Belletti identify with Anne Frank and the fact that Zuckerman falls in love with her) is manifested. In either case, Roth focuses on how the principle of reality can be inferred both from the illusions as to what is passing through the system of perception. Like Freud, Roth is able to recognize the conscious, subconscious or subliminal ghost indeed, play with the degree of compromise between the different levels. This sort of lack of distinction affects both the inner world of Zuckerman (the illusory fulfillment of desires) as the external world and, therefore, its principle of reality. In short, it is clear that Roth considers the fantasy life and its impurities as a vantage point from which to assess the removal or the return of the repressed. Our life is entirely shaped by an imagination that constantly attracts in its own reality. Roth blames the marginalization of literature (endorsed, he said, even the critics dall'ottusità), decreed the end of the function of the imagination intended as a staging of desire: it does an exemplary, both operating at diegetic level (on the alternation of text and hypotext) is operating on a level metaliterary by the constant reference to his relationship with writing and how this has impacted on the installation of what might be called psychoanalytically his family romance.
Alessandro Gaudio [1] From now in poi, nel riferirmi ai due romanzi di Roth citati più frequentemente, userò le seguenti sigle: SF (Lo scrittore fantasma [1979], Torino, Einaudi, 2006); FES (Il fantasma esce di scena [2007], Torino, Einaudi, 2008). [2] M. Foucault, La follia, l’opera assente, in Scritti letterari [1994], Milano, Feltrinelli, 2004, p. 101. [3] Le due conversazioni sono riportate in Ph. Roth, Chiacchiere di bottega. Uno scrittore, i suoi colleghi e il loro lavoro [2001], Torino, Einaudi, 2004, pp. 3-18 and 19-39 . [ 4] B. Russell, Portraits from memory [1956], Milan, Longanesi, 1971, p. 98. The manner in which this principle is tailored to the work of Conrad and, specifically, to see Shadow Line. EW Said, Joseph Conrad and the autobiographical fiction [1966], trans. E. Nifosi, Milan, Basic Books, 2008, especially pp. 175-204.
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