Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories

The earliest Roth I've read, and both similar to and different from the rest of his books. While the prose here is breathtakingly good, manages, as it does, to combine subtlety and waste-not-one-word economy in a way that doesn't embarrass the word "genius," can't really be called all that surprising. Philip Roth has the standing he does in American letters for a reason, after all. What surprised me most about this collection of stories was their sheer physicality. The story that gives the book its name is, I suppose, about the class tensions that develop in a relationship between a Newark Jewish boy of low economic standing and a girl whose family has done considerably better. But the story's also about hot summer weather, the chill of show more exclusive swimming pools, suburban luxury, and the thrill of one's first, intense romantic relationship. Having gotten to know Roth in his contemplative, if extremely fruitful, late period, the emphasis he places on bodily pleasure makes it seem that "Goodbye, Columbus" is the sort of story that only a young man could have written. Roth's portrayal of the wealth and ease of the suburbs is, in some places, highly ironic, but it's not without an appreciation for the things that money can buy, either. I also rather enjoyed his portrayal of Nathan and Brenda's relationship. Their love is as any other, but Roth makes it abundantly clear that that doesn't mean that they're always nice to each other: slightly cruel honesty also seems to have a place near the center of their relationship. It's a Yankee courtship, in its way, and also a very honest description of how people can treat each other in intimate emotional spaces.

It's perhaps unsurprising, then, that a talent for efficient cruelty also seems to have been a talent of the younger Roth himself. The last scenes of "Goodbye, Columbus" are devastating, but the last lines of some of the other stories, particularly "You Can't Tell A Man by the Song He Sings" and "Defender of the Faith" take just a sentence to cut right to the quick. Not that there aren't some stories here than hang a little looser: the tone throughout "Epstein" is comically tragic, or tragically comic, and then there's "Eli, the Fanatic." A bit of a departure for a writer that I mostly think of, for all of his marvelous writing, as a realist, this story is both more fantastical and, at the same time, to be a more obvious literary construction than most of Roth's work. Roth makes this story of a Jewish yeshiva populated with Holocaust survivors at odds with its modern, suburban Jewish neighbors seem believable without making it necessarily realistic, which is perhaps about as high a compliment as you can pay a writer. But it also seems to prefigure a lot of the contradictions about Jewish life in the United States that Roth would write about during the next fifty or so years. In some ways, that might be said of this entire book: in the same way that "Dubliners" sketched out the themes that Joyce would chase down for the rest of his writing life, Roth seems to be offering a map of the territory that was to explore in this short, early work. Characters walk difficult lines between assimilation and identity, and between identity and individuality, and in "Eli, the Fanatic," these hard choices are presented as unmistakably literal. Something tells me that Nathan Englander, whose work deals with the same themes using something like the same approach, once fell in love with it. If that's true, he can hardly be blamed. In an age when lots of story collections feel sort of padded, everything here feels essential and is, from this reader's perspective, just top-notch. A classic. show less

Incredibly flawed but still great. Roth’s view of the American Diaspora through his characters is both tragic and a bit pathetic. After reading him you may feel, or at least I did, that American Jewry is fundamentally out of place. And, extrapolating this, that Jews amongst each other, are almost habitually divisive. Religious or Secular, arch conservative or liberal, it doesn’t seem to matter to Roth as our collective psyche as Jews is cracked. From reading Roth it falls to the individual to wander, at least to me, and to attempt to reconcile ourselves to our basically fragmented identities.Phillip Roth is a tremendously skilled writer. He paints details and describes characters in a way both attractive and maddening.

Why have I never picked up a Philip Roth book before? In these pages were honesty and beauty and strong voices with things that actually HAPPEN. Not like those dumb as faux literary magazines (that's right Ploughshares and Tin House and the rest of you idiots) whose mind-numbing stories ramble on and on until finally, nothing happens. I spit on your nonsense!

But here, oh here, is fun and perfection and a goddamn point! Highly, HIGHLY recommended. For everybody.

http://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-of-goodbye-columbus-by-philip....

I took my tattered paperback copy of Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth on a recent bus trip because I knew it was small enough to fit in my back pocket as I walked around Washington, DC. I was late and I wanted something to read, and Goodbye was close at hand.

This is why I keep a needlessly large library on hand; these emergencies arise from time to time, and if I only kept the most literate books or my favorite books or the prettiest books, then in moments like this I'd be S.O.L.

I've never read Roth's first work before, though I've confessed how much I enjoy his prose. A novella and four short stories, Goodbye Columbus has all the hallmarks of the Roth I show more know: caustic, irreverent protagonists who do far too little to care for the people around them (especially the women); "well adjusted" assimilated families quietly falling apart under the strain; Newark, NJ as a backdrop.

The thing I enjoyed most about Goodbye was the nakedness of the power struggle between the characters. When Neil pushes his girlfriend to buy a diaphragm so they won't have to use condoms, and when she responds by leaving it where her parents are sure to find it, both characters know what they've done and why. They ask each other the precise question we're asking as readers- why and they don't have meaningful answers. I think life is like that, especially when we're young and still testing the limits of mistakes, forgiveness and consequences.

There are no happy endings here, but for each of the protagonists life goes on. For each of them it is broken in some permanent way by defensiveness and feelings of inadequacy, by the exposure of parental authority's weakness, by the conniving and intolerance of people who should know better. show less

This was a great collection of fiction. I was amazed by the titular story and the other famous ones. Two of them missed the mark, but the rest were relevant, entertaining, and meaningful. Roth really surprised, and astounded me, with this collection and I think it largely stands as a reason why the writer is still revered in literary circles. I will look at other Roth works, to be sure, after being reassured with this one.

4 stars!

Neil Klugman is a 23 year old man living with his self martyred aunt and uncle in Newark, New Jersey while his asthmatic parents convalesce in Arizona. "Goodbye, Columbus" is told from his point of view and could be seen as a Jewish American coming-of-age story about Neil's summer romance with wealthy, snobbish Brenda Patimkins. It is closer to the truth to say "Goodbye, Columbus" is a commentary on class. Neil and Brenda's socioeconomic differences create subtle tensions between the couple until they discover their relationship is built on lust rather than love. This is most apparent when Neil says, "Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them - at least I didn't, to phrase them was to invent them and own show more them" (p 19). show less

This was the first time I sat down and read a book by Roth in earnest. Many times I'd flipped through and skimmed some of his novels. I'm glad I started with his first novel. It was straightforward but the writing had a mesmeric quality. The stories I'd encountered in Esquire anthologies and been impressed with. Generally he seemed like a writer who could carry the reader along at a brisk pace while engaging his or her intellectual sensitivity. There are sentences you have to think about, which is not to say you don't want to think about them.
Perhaps one of my favorite touches was the dialogue of the narrator's Aunt from Goodbye, Columbus. You'll see what I mean when you get to it. These small, creative touches mark Roth apart for show more subtlety. He might have just been another Saul Bellow, but the difference is on the sentence level. There's a finer edge to Roth.
I would recommend starting with the included short stories. Once the rhythm of his writing sinks in his longer work is more easily digestible.
The only reason this one did not receive 5 stars is because certain passages in Goodbye, Columbus seemed slightly inconsequential. They all flowed together well, everything contributed in small ways to the character development, but there were times when the characters made a big deal out of a small thing, and commented on it profusely, and then did it again. I had the sense that the story line was blown a little out of proportion, or Romanticized. The last page was breathtaking, but some of the conflict appeared stilted to me. Still, it was an easy, thought-provoking read.
I think this volume is a great one to start with and I am fully confident that if I continue exploring his oeuvre there will be a five star rating to come, if not multiple. show less