Ring Roth on the intercom

Readers are experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms. The problem is not the heroin in the Rogoredo woods or the fentanyl used by the homeless, but rather, as many are aware, a shortage of Philip Roth’s books. In fact, they are no longer available on the market, cries the collective voice of readers (who, however, do not bother to visit the library or Libraccio), because Adelphi has acquired the rights to his complete works, pending their republication in their pastel-coloured covers. The drama shaking civil society—forget referendums or the Iranian crisis—actually stems more from Einaudi’s failure to renew the rights—having distributed the writer’s books in Italy for thirty years—than from Adelphi’s subsequent acquisition. Following the reissue of Portnoy’s Complaint, a second dose of methadone arrives on 8 April with the reissue and new translation (by Ottavio Fatica) of Operation Shylock, a 1993 novel and one of Roth’s lesser-known works. The plot finds the writer Philip Roth, after suffering a breakdown following an overdose of psychotropic drugs, ending up in Israel and stumbling upon a man with exactly the same name as himself. It is pretty intense stuff.

This abstinence should then give Roth’s work a new lease of life, because it is well known that an oversupply leads to a fall in demand, and vice versa – just like school, which forced you to read books that were tragically boring (or boring simply because they were imposed on you, from Manzoni to “L’amico ritrovato”). The results are well known. By contrast, prohibition and sold-out situations invariably increase desire, as musicians know and as my grandmother knew, forbidding us during holidays from reading the novels she herself devoured voraciously. ‘They’re not suitable,’ she would say, sadistically. That is how a generation of young book addicts is created.

But today, when everyone is demanding not so much ‘the print edition’ as ‘experiences’, ‘live’ content and ‘events’, here is a tour following in Roth’s footsteps, in Newark, the capital of New Jersey, famous above all for its airport, but also for being the birthplace of our man (and Tony Soprano). Forty minutes from Manhattan—much like Voghera from Milan—amid the snow that has blanketed America’s East Coast, I set off on a pilgrimage I have been putting off for years, arriving at Newark’s Penn Station on one of those all-stainless-steel trains like the ones in "Trading Places" (probably those very ones, never refurbished or maintained over the years). Newark was, and apparently remains, the insurance capital: amidst the squatted buildings and an air of desolation heightened by the snow falling softly on dilapidated brick buildings and numerous ‘For Sale’ signs, the colossal Prudential Centre rises up, listed even in tourist guides as a ‘highlight’ of the area, and Roth’s insurance agent father always springs to mind – both the real one and the one transformed into the constipated parent in Portnoy’s Lament. The one who, because he was so good at his job but was Jewish, was sent by the not-particularly-pro-Zionist company – rather than being promoted – to chase after the poor Black people in the ghettos – that is, the very same ones we are walking through today – to make them pay for their meagre insurance policies.

Out and about in Newark, rather than Roth, one really feels the withdrawal from Fentanyl. The ghettos seem, sadly, to have remained as they were in the 1960s: we decide against visiting another Roth-related attraction that had been recommended – a restaurant he frequented on a side street off the main thoroughfare – because not only are we the only white people there, but we are also being regarded with great hostility by the few passers-by. There are plenty of mobile phone shops, as common as opticians in the Italian provinces, on this quiet Saturday in the neighbourhood. In the central square, past the cathedral (the third attraction), which looks as though it were built of sand, there are Canadian-style tents for the homeless in the small park, and then the public library (the fourth and final attraction of the glittering Newark), a Neo-Renaissance-style building dwarfed by the enormous mass of the global headquarters of Audible, the Amazon Group company that produces audiobooks, a grand metaphor that might well have amused old Roth. Not only was he never awarded the Nobel Prize, but they haven’t even named the entire library after him in this very town where he was born on 19 March 1933. In the library, where he used to devour books voraciously, there is, as is well known, a Philip Roth Room housing all his memorabilia. In the lobby, there are screens for watching films and reading newspapers, and, amongst the books prominently displayed on the wooden shelves, "How to Cook with an Air Fryer" and "Love and Whisky: The True Story of Jack Daniel’s" stand out.

Climbing the stairs towards corridors with slightly Spanish-style loggias, visitors encounter gentlemen lying face-down on the carpet – not poring over Roth, but charging their mobile phones at the power sockets (libraries all over the world are now one big power bank for mobiles). Finally, we enter the Philip Roth Personal Library, which bears the same logo as the original, round and flowing “Portnoy’s Complaint” from the American edition, in Eugenio di Scalfari’s typeface. The library-study, divided into two parts—one open to the public and the other by appointment only (though there does not seem to be a huge demand for this)—is reminiscent of Alberto Arbasino’s study, reconstructed at the Vieusseux Museum in Florence. Inside the deserted little room lies a small paradise for enthusiasts. The classic Eames armchair (like Arbasino’s) and the tall, light-wood bench where Roth used to write standing up in his later years, due to back problems (Arbasino, on the other hand, sat down, with a floral cushion). Also on display at the Vieusseux is the famous fax-answering machine; here, however, the fax machine – which is actually listed in the records – is missing from the items sourced from the flat on 79th Street on the Upper West Side, which was put up for sale a year after the writer’s death in 2019 for 3.2 million dollars (who knows who lives there now? Roth enthusiasts? Wealthy, unsuspecting Chinese?).

Here is Mum Bess, perhaps similar to the Jewish mother whom poor little Portnoy thinks is everywhere, even at school, disguised as a teacher: he thinks his mother is all the teachers.

There is a haunting album in which Bess records every one of her son’s achievements. Hundreds of clippings. There is his older brother Sandy, his father Herman, and a typewritten letter—perhaps the Olivetti Underwood on display in a glass case—in which Roth warns his parents about the imminent publication of Zuckerman Unleashed, one of the irresistible novels of the 1980s, and says, ‘Don’t worry, it’s all fiction, even though the funeral scene is actually Uncle So-and-so’s funeral, the other scene is Uncle Such-and-such’s birthday, that one is Cousin So-and-so’s bar mitzvah, and so on and so forth. The scene recalls the famous quote cited by Roth in the documentary made by Livia Manera years ago, a line from Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz: ‘When a writer is born into a family, that family is finished’, yet the Roth who emerges from these Newark artefacts appears, on the contrary, dangerously like one of those good – too good – children who today tell Mum and Dad absolutely everything in the never-ending family chat. ‘Those who are much loved by their parents grow up to be conquerors,’ he would always say; a conquistador, but one with a great deal of parental wisdom. Like when, just before Portnoy (1969) was published, he offered to take his parents on a long cruise to spare them the enormous scandal. The episode also recalls Arbasino, who, in the run-up to the publication of the equally scandalous Fratelli d’Italia just a few years earlier (published by Feltrinelli in ’63, and recently reissued as well), set off on a long journey to California—though without Mum and Dad. Roth, for his part, takes a fair number of freshly printed copies of the novel onto the ship, which he sells to passengers at a marked-up price, with the dedication ‘from the writer Philip Roth’s father’.

In connection with this controversy, an online essay by scholar Francesco Samarini examines the reception of Portnoy’s Complaint in Italy, focusing on the translation published in the 1970s. The piece is, to put it mildly, rather amusing. In Il Tempo di Roma, a certain Fausto Gianfranceschi, an ‘Almirantian’ (sic) critic, wrote a piece entitled “Erotismo con la coda di paglia”; then in Lo Specchio, another review, this time “Lamento di uno sporcaccione”. The review reads: “No literary merit whatsoever can redeem a work in the face of which even barracks-style pornographic publications seem like examples of refinement.” Even more troubling are the comments from more prestigious figures. ‘Roth’s novel is so despicable that no decent person would wish to be associated with it,’ writes Carlo Cassola in *Il Corriere*. And further: ‘It is regrettable that it was written, and that a major Italian publisher rushed to translate it’ (the publisher was Bompiani, following Rizzoli’s refusal. Roth would move to Einaudi in 1997). Fortunately, the unjustly forgotten critic Paolo Milano, writing in L’Espresso, wonders whether the author of La ragazza di Bube had actually read Portnoy. Natalia Ginzburg, in La Stampa, does not completely tear it to shreds but refers to it as “rubbish” and argues that “you can tell the author was thinking about success whilst writing it”. Thinking about success is, in fact, a very serious matter. Among the few level-headed critics was Arbasino: in Il Corriere, he analysed the various influences on Portnoy—ranging from Woody Allen to Gore Vidal—before comparing Roth to Gadda in La Cognizione del dolore (not least because of the relationship with ‘Mamma’); and finally he declared that, thanks to his language, Roth transforms ‘the depressing domestic drama’ into ‘excessive fun in the style of Groucho Marx’.

One wonders whether the two ever corresponded, Arba and Roth. The audio guide available in the library, narrated by Morgan Spector—formerly Baron Robber George Russell in the series The Gilded Age—does not indicate this, although he may have been selected because he also appeared in the adaptation of Roth’s The Plot Against America (how terrifying). Roth’s handwriting, however, is small and meticulous; this is evident in the notes on the drafts of his various novels, and it brings to mind—amidst the endless interplay between life and work that lies at the heart of Roth’s world, as the prescriptive professor (or Roth’s mother disguised as a professor) might say— the novel My Life as a Man (my favourite), featuring a merchant father who torments his young son for having poor handwriting, locking him in a storeroom for hours, and then, after this torture, showers him with kisses when the boy finally manages to produce a neat signature (he will, of course, grow up to be a neurotic narcissist).

Apart from my mother, I do not seem to see, in the deserted little room in Newark, any trace of Roth’s women, even though we know how important they were. There are no wives: not his first, Maggie, the one who persuaded him to marry her by showing him a positive pregnancy test (obtained by buying a urine sample from a genuinely pregnant woman – another story that ends up in "My Life as a Man"); Nor is there his second wife, the English actress Claire Bloom, whom he tears apart in "I Married a Communist" with a curare-laced portrayal of the musician Anna Steiger, daughter of Bloom and Rod Steiger (the novel was published after Bloom released her memoir, "Leaving a Doll’s House," a cornerstone and tombstone in the monument to misogyny that stands forever between Roth and the Nobel Prize). There is no Jackie Kennedy, no Ava Gardner, nor his friend Mia Farrow (to those who asked him how he managed to associate with her, he would reply pragmatically that she embodied, in a single soul, enough neuroses to create a whole host of characters). Instead, there are his friends and colleagues: Primo Levi, Milan Kundera, and Saul Bellow, his senior, who did in fact win the Nobel Prize (and yet he really doesn’t stand up to comparison; one need only reread him today). Bellow, together with Norman Mailer—blended together—becomes Felix Abravanel, a Jewish-American literary celebrity with a very short ‘attention span’ and a beautiful girlfriend visiting the college, to the admiring amazement of the young students and the Narrator in the poignant chamber novel The Ghost Writer.

Here are just a few of his countless awards: the Presidential Medal presented to him by Obama in 2011, back when the White House was not yet a global merchandise empire with its own cap shop. There is the Pulitzer, awarded for American Pastoral in 1998; the legendary prize takes the form of a smoked crystal prism that resembles a market-stall stress ball or the gear levers found on high-end Chinese cars. There is the Grinzane Cavour (do you remember it? It used to be a highly prestigious award, but then the founder was accused by his butler – just like in a film starring Lino Banfi – and it all came to an end). Then there’s a large, slightly rusty key: it’s the key to the city of Newark, which was bestowed upon him in 1991, and in the photos you can see him looking happy and perhaps a little embarrassed at the ceremony – a bit like Alberto Sordi as mayor of Rome for a day alongside Rutelli. There is also the honorary degree awarded to him in 2014 by the Jewish Theological Seminary, which marked a truce with the Jewish world. The one conspicuous absence, of course, is the Nobel Prize itself. But perhaps, in the end, things turned out well for Roth after all: today, if he were still alive, as well as being a misogynist and white, he – who was tormented for eighty years because he wasn’t Jewish enough – would surely be considered too Jewish.

There is also a display case dedicated to Professor Roth, in those typical American colleges set among forests and picturesque lakes, where he taught various courses; it would be a dream to have Roth leading seminars on Roth (here it would be impossible – first of all, you would end up in ramshackle reinforced concrete lecture theatres designed in the 1970s, then you would have to organise a competition, and there would immediately be an appeal to the Regional Administrative Court from other writers with a lower ISEE and more qualifications—even those obtained online from Pegaso). In short, he had it good – even dying in 2018, when the world was still somewhat normal. Even if he was given a rough ride by the Swedes at the Nobel Prize (Nemesis – incidentally, the title of one of his books – one of his most famous protagonists, Levov, the ‘Swede’ from American Pastoral).

The collection has been somewhat mistreated by certain second-hand dealers among his fellow citizens. A display cabinet contains the catalogue of this Roth-themed room, which is for sale; however, to purchase it, one must contact the office on the top floor—cash only, and so on. I proceed upstairs, taking care not to step on the refill cartridges strewn across the carpet, and arrive at the office, which is deserted. Above the desk hangs a black-and-white portrait. ‘At last,’ I think, ‘at least a little picture of Roth.’ Not at all – it’s Charles F. Cummings, a Newark historian and ‘Assistant Director of Special Collections at the Newark Library’. Well, I’ll be. A woman arrives. ‘Which catalogue?’ she asks. I point to it. ‘Ah,’ she says, as if it were the strangest request imaginable. With typical American enthusiasm, the introduction to the catalogue states instead that ‘when Roth donated his 7,000 books and memorabilia to us, it was a “tremendous responsibility” to “recreate Roth’s architecture and style”.’ Some might consider this somewhat excessive for a small room—as if they had commissioned Renzo Piano. The catalogue does, however, contain extensive information about Mr Cummings, who accompanied Roth on a tour of Newark in 1992; since then, Mr Cummings (whom Roth ‘held in immense esteem’, we learn) became ‘Roth’s go-to local historian’—oh well.

I step out into sleepy Newark and take an Uber for the second leg of my pilgrimage, ‘on location’, as Maria De Filippi would say. My destination is Weequahic, the neighbourhood of detached houses where Roth was born and where his secondary school is located. The Uber driver drops me off on a wide, fast-flowing road. It’s a huge, grey building, made of concrete with spires in an Assyrian-Babylonian style, reminiscent of Milan Central Station or the Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles, though even more sombre. Nothing here recalls Roth, but his desperate urge to escape becomes understandable. It is remarkable that Manhattan is only 13 miles away; had he been born a New Yorker, however, we might never have had those sublime novels.

It’s admissions season at Newark High School – open days. The baseball pitch next door is covered in snow. No sign of the Swede. Nor is there any sign of Roth, for that matter. Whilst American Pastoral opens with the narrator attending a reunion of former pupils from this high school, the ‘hall of fame’ in the real school’s yearbook features a certain Irwin Lee Brody, born in 1944, inventor of a type of teletype machine, and a Dr Robert Dubman, born in 1952, ‘dentist and author’. It sounds like a Roth novel. I proceed toward the ‘birthplace’, which is said to be located in ‘Roth Plaza’. I cross the main road once more, where the risk of being struck is extremely high; in fact, the pedestrian lights never change, perhaps because I am the only pedestrian ever seen in the area. Tuned-up cars honk and stare as they roar past; we are a peculiar Saturday-afternoon attraction in Newark. Of course, ‘Philip Roth Plaza’ turns out to be little more than a crossroads, between streets that are major yet still on the fringes, quiet, sleepy little houses belonging to the microscopic middle classes, with Amazon parcels piled up in the snow and notices of ‘past due’ and perhaps evictions. But the house and the secondary school are indeed right next to each other. Perhaps Roth’s mother really did dress up as a teacher: she’d have had time to do so without anyone noticing. Be that as it may, that’s enough now. I’m going back to Voghera.