Philip Roth - The Great American Novel

The Great

American Novel

Philip Roth

(1973)

In the 1990s Philip Roth won America's four major literaryawards in succession: the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995), and the Pulitzer Prize infiction for American Pastoral (1997). He won theAmbassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for IMarried a Communist (1998); in"the same year he received theNational Medal of Arts at the White House. Previously he won the National BookCritics Circle Award for The Counterlife (1986)and the National Book Award for his first book, Goodbye,Columbus (1959). In 2000 he published The HumanStain , concluding a trilogy that depicts the ideological ethos ofpost-war America. For The Human Stain Rothreceived his second PEN/Faulkner Award as well as Britain's W. H. Smith Awardfor the Best Book of the Year. In 2001 he received the highest award of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, given everysix years "for the entire work of the recipient."

To Barbara Sproul

...the Great American Novel is not extinct like the Dodo, butmythical like the Hippogriff...

Frank Norris, The Responsibilities ofthe Novelist

Acknowledgments

The baseball strategy credited to Isaac Ellis in chaptersfive, six, and seven is borrowed in large part from PercentageBaseball by Earnshaw Cook (M.I.T. Press, 1966).

The curve-ball formula in chapter five was devised by Igor Sikorskyand can be found in "The Hell It Doesn't Curve," by Joseph F. Drury,Sr. (see Fireside Book of Baseball , Simon andSchuster, 1956, pp. 98-101).

The tape-recorded recollections of professional baseballplayers that are deposited at the Library of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown,New York, and are quoted in Lawrence Ritter's The Gloryof Their Times (Macmillan, 1966) have been a source of inspiration to mewhile writing this book, and some of the most appealing locutions of theseold-time players have been absorbed into the dialogue.

I also wish to thank Jack Redding, director of the Hall ofFame Library, and Peter Clark, a curator of the Hall of Fame Museum, for theirkindness to me during my visits to Cooperstown.

P. R.

Proofer's Note

The following contains material that some may find extremelyoffensive.

This is not a novel for kids.

Just saying.

MNQ

Prologue

Call me Smitty. That's what everybody else called me--theballplayers, the bankers, the bareback riders, the baritones, the bartenders,the bastards, the best-selling writers (excepting Hem, who dubbed meFrederico), the bicyclists, the big game hunters (Hem the exception again), thebilliards champs, the bishops, the blacklisted (myself included), the blackmarketeers, the blonds, the bloodsuckers, the bluebloods, the bookies, theBolsheviks (some of my best friends, Mr. Chairman--what of it!), thebombardiers, the bootblacks, the bootlicks, the bosses, the boxers, theBrahmins, the brass hats, the British (Sir Smittyas of '36), the broads, the broadcasters, the broncobusters, the brunettes, theblack bucks down in Barbados (Meestah Smitty),the Buddhist monks in Burma, one Bulkington, the bullfighters, thebullthrowers, the burlesque comics and the burlesque stars, the bushmen, thebums, and the butlers. And that's only the letter B, fans, only one of the Big Twenty-Six!

Why, I could write a whole book just on the types beginningwith X who have called out in anguish to yours truly--make it an encyclopedia,given that mob you come across in one lifetime who like to tell you they arequits with the past. Smitty, I've got to talk to somebody. Smitty, I've got astory for you. Smitty, there is something you ought to know. Smitty, you've gotto come right over. Smitty, you won't believe it but. Smitty, you don't know mebut. Smitty, I'm doing something I'm ashamed of. Smitty, I'm doing something I'mproud of. Smitty, I'm not doing anything--what should I do, Smit? Intranscontinental buses, lowdown bars, high-class brothels (for a change ofscenery, let's move on to C), in cabarets, cabanas, cabins, cabooses, cabbagepatches, cable cars, cabriolets (you can look it up), Cadillacs, cafes,caissons, calashes (under the moon, a' course), in Calcutta, California, atCalgary, not to be confused with Calvary (where in '38 a voice called "Smitty!"--andSmitty, no fool, kneeled), in campaniles, around campfires, in the Canal Zone,in candlelight (see B for blonds and brunettes), in catacombs, rounding theCape of Good Hope, in captivity, in caravans, at card games, on cargo ships, inthe Caribbean, on carousels, in Casablanca (the place and the movie, wherein, to amuse Bogey, I played a walk-on role), in the Casbah, incasinos, castaway off coasts, in castles (some in air, some not), in Catalonia(with Orwell), Catania, catatonia, in catastrophes, in catboats, in cathedrals,in the Catskills (knaidlach and kreplach with Jenny G.--I taste them yet!), inthe Caucasus (Comrade Smitty--and proud of it, Mr. Chairman!), in caves, incellars, in Central America, in Chad, in a chaise longue (see under B burlesquestars), in chalets, in chambers, in chancery, in a charnel house (a disembodiedvoice again), in Chattanooga (on Johnny's very choo-choo), in checkrooms, inCherokee country, in Chicago--look, let's call it quits at Christendom, let'ssay there , that's been Smitty's beat! Fatherconfessor, marital adviser, confidant, straight man, Solomon, stooge,psychiatrist, sucker, sage, go-between, medicine man, whipping boy, sob sister,debunker, legal counselor, loan service, all-night eardrum, and soberfriend--you name it, pick a guise, any guise, starting with each and every oneof the Big Twenty-Six, and rest assured, Smitty's worn that hat on one or twothousand nights in his four score and seven on this billion-year-old planet inthis trillion-year-old solar system in this zillion-year-old galaxy that wehave the audacity to call "ours"!

O what a race we are, fans! What a radiant, raffish,raggedy, rakish, rambunctious, rampaging, ranting, rapacious, rare, rash,raucous, raunchy, ravaged, ravenous, realistic, reasonable, rebellious,receptive, reckless, redeemable, refined, reflective, refreshing, regal,regimented, regrettable, relentless, reliable, religious, remarkable, remiss,remorseful, repellent, repentant, repetitious (!!!!), reprehensible, repressed,reproductive, reptilian, repugnant, repulsive, reputable, resentful, reserved,resigned, resilient, resistant, resistible, resourceful, respectable, restless,resplendent, responsible, responsive, restrained, retarded, revengeful,reverential, revolting, rhapsodical, rhythmical, ribald, rickety, ridiculous,righteous, rigorous, riotous, risible, ritualistic, robustious (adj. Archaic or Humorous [pick 'em], meaning "rough,rude or boisterous," according to N.W.), roguish, rollicking, romantic, rompish,rotten, rough-and-ready, rough-and-tumble, rough-housing, rowdyish, rude,rueful, rugged, ruined, rummy (chiefly Brit , don'chaknow. Slang odd; queer), rundown, runty, ruthlessrace!

A' course that's just one man's opinion. Fella name a'Smith; first name a' Word.

* * * * *

And just who is Word Smith?Fair enough. Short-winded, short-tempered, short-sighted as he may be,stiff-jointed, soft-bellied, weak-bladdered, and so on down to his slippers,anemic, arthritic, diabetic, dyspeptic, sclerotic, in dire need of a laxative,as he will admit to the first doctor or nurse who passes his pillow, and in perpetual pain (that's the last you'll hearabout that), he's not cracked quite yet: if his life depended on it, the man inthe street could not name three presidents beginning with the letter J, or tellyou whether the Pope before this one wore glasses or not, so surely he is notabout to remember Word Smith, though it so happened old W.S. cracked a new packof Bicycles with more than one Chief Exec, one night nearly brought down therepublic by cleaning out the entire cabinet, so that at morn--pink peeking overthe Potomac, you might say--the Secretary of the Treasury had to be restrainedby the Secretary of the Interior from dipping his mitt in the national till tosave his own shirt at stud, in a manner of speaking.