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I Married a Communist
by: Philip Roth

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780099287834
ISBN: 0099287838
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: August 04, 2005
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
Sales Rank: 13639

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Ira Ringold (now Iron Rinn) is a self-educated radio actor married to spoilt, rags-to-riches beauty and silent-film star, Eve Frame. He is a Communist, she is passionately and irrationally anti-Semitic (in spite of her own Jewish origins). Roth's alter-ego narrator Nathan Zuckerman--an idealistic admirer of Ira as a boy-- uncovers the story of Eve's betrayal of Ira to a gossip- columnist, and Nathan's own unknowing involvement with the blacklistings and ruined careers of the immediate post-war period. Roth's characteristically acerbic writing and keen eye for emotional detail reaches to the heart of this moment of high American tragedy, a point at which the American dream was damaged beyond recovery.

The McCarthy era has faded, eerily, into nostalgia, just as Capitol Hill produces its own 90s version of witch- hunt and communal obsession with enemies of the state, and perversions of justice perpetrated in democracy's name. Roth avoids nostalgia by making his narrator an active, if unwitting participant in the original drama, caught up in political currents and counter-currents he did not comprehend at the time. --Lisa Jardine

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- American beauty
Roth is an outstanding prose writer, and "I married a Communist" shows him at his best. Illustrating the conflicts of McCarthy-era American through the tale of pugnacious Communist Ira Ringold, Roth creates a panoply of interesting characters set in a powerful narrative with a slow-building, satisfying storyline.

One reservation: Roth is occasionally carried away by his own writing skill. Result: his otherwise excellent dialogue sometimes goes on at excessive length: the book would be more readable edited down by 30 pages.

Conclusion: excellent heavyweight literary fiction with a few dull patches.

Rating:

- Roth is a master
I thought this was a wonderful novel. It throws light on a subject not much understood (left-wing politics in the USA) but its key themes are those of betrayal and (typically for Roth) the difficulties in really understanding others and their motives. I found the ending almost breathtakingly beautiful. Roth is up there with Shakespeare in his ability to mix the sacred and profane. I doubt there is a better contemporary writer.

Rating:

- The distorting power of bitterness.
Philip Roth is a wonderful writer and a major contemporary voice. I was disappointed with this book, however, because I felt that Roth's vision was blurred by his obvious fury and bitterness towards his ex-partner. I kept feeling that he had just made a really clever observation that would cut to the heart of Ms. Bloom and it kept distracting me. This book was written by a man who was fighting for his reputation and he leaves no prisoners. I have no idea of this position is morally justified by what happened between them, but I think it spoils what might have been a very good book. Roth is a writer who normally takes my breath away. He is sharp,witty,evocative,perceptive and nobody writes better about the American Jewish experience (or ... Read More:

Rating:

- Nathan again --- but with a slightly duller pencil
Let it first be said: Philip Roth is a genius. His writing is astounding, both for its gorgeous display of language and, just as important, for its truth of character and humanity corruption.

"I Married A Communist", the second in the author's trilogy about the huge political movements shaping post-WWII American history (Vietnam, McCarthyism and, with his latest, "The Human Stain", the Clinton era and p.c.-ness), is a very, very good book. However, "American Pastoral" it ain't.

In this second volume, Roth tells the story of Iron Rinn, a militantly naiive political figure of the post-war generation. The themes are typically Rothian: definitions of success, alienation, what it means to belong, what it means to separate. ... Read More:

Rating:

- Excellent book, but could be even sharper
The life of Ira, the Communist of the title, is recounted through a conversation between his elderly brother and a young family friend. In the first section of the story he is built up as a forthright, steadfast champion of the left. He has an unlucky marriage to a fading actress, who causes his humiliation and ruin. He and his left-wing acquaitances are persecuted within the political climate of anti-communist suspicion.

However, as the book develops, it becomes gradually clear that it is not a simple tale of a good man 'martyred'. The book begins to expose a more ambivalent picture of Ira. As well as being a public hero, he is shown as also vain, wilful and self-indulgent. In some ways, the book turns on the extent to which his flaws ... Read More:

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