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A review by andyc_elsby232
I Married a Communist by Philip Roth
5.0
I think that the three most powerful characters in these three books of Roth's "America Trilogy" aren't the main characters, not even close. They're the others. The cynics and skeptics. The life-beaten and disabled. Those driven to their last mile by the exhaustion of time itself. For American Pastoral, it's Jerry Levov, the Swede's brother, who almost laughs at his brother's devastation but is actually justified in his lack of sympathy; for The Human Stain, it's the murderous husband who suffers from so much PTSD from the Vietnam war that he even hates the Chinese, who is himself the ultimate cliche, the ultimate example of a horrible war made a farce; here in this book, I Married a Communist, it is Murray Ringold, who has suffered as much, if not more, than any of the characters in this spiritual trilogy, and he is far from the focus of the story.
Roth books, if you're a fan, are usually littered with sentences and passages you ache to remember, and this book is no different. I quote this, a rather inconsequential bit of the story that comes towards the end that might've hit me harder than anything I read in American Pastoral (a book I had to put down to keep composure as well as fend off tears). It sums up the whole of the emotional impact these three books collectively had on me; three books that are heartbreaking in their own ways.
"And so who I betray is my wife. I put the responsibility for my choices onto somebody else. Doris paid the price for my civic virtue. She is the victim of my refusal to-- Look, there is no way out of this thing. When you loosen yourself, as I tried to, from all the obvious delusions--religion, ideology, Communism--you're still left with the myth of your own goodness. Which is the final delusion. And the one to which I sacrificed Doris."
It isn't even the best bit in the book, but look at that second line: "--Look, there is no way out of this thing." Roth has gone on and on in each book, sometimes beautifully, about our inability to accept what cannot be remotely fathomed: what burns alive our hearts until we shrivel up with them, yet that single line is it: the answer, or the closest to. It is the equivalent to the author throwing up his hands, proclaiming "I dunno, man, people are really fucked up," (paraphrasing). This trilogy, especially this book, is about what we lost in the fire in the 20th century (are still losing), and Murray Ringold--more than Zuckerman or the central tragic figure of the story, Ira Ringold (aka "Iron Rinn")--is a victim to time. Roth doesn't only want to get across the point that Joe McCarthy and his Commi-witch-hunt were responsible for pushing so many honest people in the quicksand (aka "getting thrown under the bus"), he wants us to know that the time and place isn't of consequence in the long run, it's that we all walk into the sinking pit at some point.
Sounds depressing as shit, right? The book is pretty marvelous, though, and should be read. It is almost as funny as it is bleak, and it is almost strange how intimate and touching it becomes, since seasoned readers of his might expect the author to pull the rug from under us and show more human dirt and depravity, but instead he gives us catharsis akin to that of a long, loud, heaving crying spell; Roth is actually comforting you.
Roth books, if you're a fan, are usually littered with sentences and passages you ache to remember, and this book is no different. I quote this, a rather inconsequential bit of the story that comes towards the end that might've hit me harder than anything I read in American Pastoral (a book I had to put down to keep composure as well as fend off tears). It sums up the whole of the emotional impact these three books collectively had on me; three books that are heartbreaking in their own ways.
"And so who I betray is my wife. I put the responsibility for my choices onto somebody else. Doris paid the price for my civic virtue. She is the victim of my refusal to-- Look, there is no way out of this thing. When you loosen yourself, as I tried to, from all the obvious delusions--religion, ideology, Communism--you're still left with the myth of your own goodness. Which is the final delusion. And the one to which I sacrificed Doris."
It isn't even the best bit in the book, but look at that second line: "--Look, there is no way out of this thing." Roth has gone on and on in each book, sometimes beautifully, about our inability to accept what cannot be remotely fathomed: what burns alive our hearts until we shrivel up with them, yet that single line is it: the answer, or the closest to. It is the equivalent to the author throwing up his hands, proclaiming "I dunno, man, people are really fucked up," (paraphrasing). This trilogy, especially this book, is about what we lost in the fire in the 20th century (are still losing), and Murray Ringold--more than Zuckerman or the central tragic figure of the story, Ira Ringold (aka "Iron Rinn")--is a victim to time. Roth doesn't only want to get across the point that Joe McCarthy and his Commi-witch-hunt were responsible for pushing so many honest people in the quicksand (aka "getting thrown under the bus"), he wants us to know that the time and place isn't of consequence in the long run, it's that we all walk into the sinking pit at some point.
Sounds depressing as shit, right? The book is pretty marvelous, though, and should be read. It is almost as funny as it is bleak, and it is almost strange how intimate and touching it becomes, since seasoned readers of his might expect the author to pull the rug from under us and show more human dirt and depravity, but instead he gives us catharsis akin to that of a long, loud, heaving crying spell; Roth is actually comforting you.