Thoughts on Tone

A few caveats, some background and at least one digression to get out of the way before I get around to the matter at hand: (1) despite once dating a girl who worshiped the ground he walked on (having discovered him whilst working her way through the Modern Library's 100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century), despite his having won every major literary award available to an American short of the Nobel, despite his shoe-in status for getting the nobel (unless perhaps he's deemed too American), despite having enjoyed a film adaptation of his work — despite actually owning five of his novels — I've never read anything by Philip Roth until now.



(2) The book I'm reading isn't any of the ones I own, The ones I bought on the recommendations of friends or girlfriends or the Pen/Faulkner people or whoever gives out the National Book Award. No, I'm reading Exit Ghost, his latest novel (which, with massive type, generous margins, film-script dialog formatting for and a relatively slim 290 pages, might easily be called a novella). I'm reading it with the intention to review it. (3) I generally don't like books I review, for whatever reason.

(4) I'm exactly seven pages in. (5) They've all been about prostate surgery and its frequent sidekicks, impotence, incontinence (adult diapers; involuntary pissing while swimming; flaccid, nerve-damaged pork swords).

Having said that, let me share my very preliminary thoughts: Page 1: Written from the perspective of an aging, self-important writer, his sentences are complex bordering on labyrinthine. Page 2: he's explaining the minutia of his boring life in great detail. Page 3: too much detail, in fact. Page 4: needless detail. Stultifying detail. Page 5: the writing reminds me — a lot actually — of my own. Page 6: I don't think I like it. Page 7: It's boring.

So then: should I be happy that I write like Philip Roth or worried that I write like one of his 70-year-old luddite characters?

Read the full thing here.