Word: rothe
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...will keep his pension and health benefits, worth $88,922 annually, had cut a deal to stay on for 90 days-a charge Dole vehemently denied--the majority leader announced that Packwood would leave office on Oct. 1 and surrender his chairmanship immediately. Now, with the less seasoned William Roth of Delaware heading Finance, Dole must manage a raft of bills--even as he runs the Senate and campaigns for President...
Sabbath's Theater demonstrates that Roth still has the power to shock and amaze, although it doesn't have the fresh manic energy of Portnoy's Complaint (1969), a novel that capitalized on the then popular literary subjects of Jewish Americans and psychoanalysis. The paganized, foul-tempered Mickey Sabbath is beyond all that. Some readers will find the material and language too scabrous for their taste. Others will have their own reasons to cry foul. Roth's old adversaries in the suburban Sanhedrin should have no beef: Mickey is not bad for the Jews; he is bad for everybody...
...further critical explication of the separate realms of fact and fiction can no longer insulate the comedy from the offense . But the sexual obsession and obscenities are intrinsic to Sabbath's exaggerated character as a dirty old man. There is much humor in what makes us uneasy, and Roth extracts it, as he has done for nearly 40 years, with a technique and verbal flair unmatched by his contemporaries. Sabbath the houseguest rummaging through a teenager's underwear drawer or attempting to seduce his host's wife is the sort of baggy-pants antic that a young Philip Roth probably...
...slapstick by his desire to find relief and wisdom in his past. He comes closest in a conversation with a 100-year-old man who once delivered vegetables in Mickey's old neighborhood. Getting the spirit of the aged on paper has become something of a sub-specialty for Roth--notably in Patrimony, his tender and unsparing account of his father's life and death. The encounter between Sabbath and the centenarian is reminiscent of the earlier memoir...
Nostalgia, on the other hand, is not Roth's strongest suit. Sabbath's memories are frequently weakened by his untransformed self-pity. Furthermore, his return to scenes of childhood has an autobiographical tinge that clouds the distinction between the author and his creation: the shameless, self-destructive rebel who wants to be remembered as a "Beloved Whoremonger, Seducer, Sodo mist, Abuser of Women, Destroyer of Morals, Ensnarer of Youth." There should be no confusion between Sabbath the puppeteer and the novelist who pulls the strings. Of course, there will...