Nemesis

World War II is not quite over, but in the summer of 1944 there is a war of a different sort on the home front. A deadly polio epidemic is sweeping the playgrounds and streets, attacking randomly, and children, teens and adults are in iron lungs and left paralyzed or dead. No one is quite sure how polio is transmitted, and everyone is frightened:

"We were warned not to use public toilets or public drinking fountains or to swig a drink out of someone else's soda-pop bottle or to get a chill or to play with strangers or to borrow books from the public library or to talk on a public pay phone or to buy food from a street vendor or to eat until we had cleaned our hands thoroughly with soap and water."

Bucky Cantor, a young school teacher, is show more the playground director for the summer in a Jewish Newark neighborhood. After several of his playground charges get polio, Bucky wonders whether he could be doing more to protect them. He has already been feeling guilty because he was unable to enlist in the army due to his poor eyesight. Now he feels he is failing in the battle on the home front. It gets worse when his girlfriend tries to convince him to give up his job at the inner city playground and join her in the "safe" countryside as a camp counselor.

Particularly having recently experienced the covid epidemic, I found the evocation of the fear and paranoia to be very real and convincing. (I don't know when the polio vaccine became widespread, but I don't think it was available until I was a few years into elementary school. I do know there were at least two kids at my very small school in leg braces from having had polio.) It is also a very good depiction of Bucky's doubts and feelings of helplessness, and self-blame:

"He was struck by how lives diverged and by how powerless each of us is up against the force of circumstances. And where does God figure in this?"

Highly recommended

4 stars

First line: "The first case of polio came early in June, right after Memorial Day, in a poor Italian neighborhood, crosstown from where we lived." show less

I thought this historically imagined tale of a polio outbreak in Newark, New Jersey was outstanding. Polio and its insidious spread is the metaphor for things which make us fear and from which it is difficult to protect oneself. Roth's insight into the workings of the human mind and heart are brilliant. The ultimate questions are what kind of God would create such a disease, what kind of God would allow small children to suffer, die, or move into adulthood permanently maimed? Yet.......there is the beauty of the protahonist's javelin throw......go figure! Great read!

O grande mérito dos grandes escritores é o de estar prevendo o futuro ao escrever sobre o passado, prevendo um zeitgeist antes mesmo dos observadores mais espertos por saber mesmo que cada época da humanidade é cíclica e se repete indefinidamente.
É o que acontece com Roth aqui, indicação mais do que precisa da Lilia Schwarcz para esse pico pandêmico até agora. Antes de morrer Roth meio que legou seu último livro a uma epidemia que ainda estava para acontecer e o fez como paralelo ao holocausto judeu na Segunda Guerra concomitando com outra espécie de holocausto também ocorrendo nos EUA na época: a pólio. E o faz invocando a eterna culpa judaico-cristã que assola em demasia todo o ocidente e que faz com que as pessoas show more mais conscientes durante uma pandemia permaneçam vivas: o que será de mim se eu passar uma doença fatal/debilitante para as pessoas que amo?
O que falta aos negacionistas é exatamente isso, a ausência de culpa que evite com que hajam como psicopatas, se no livro do Roth é a falta de informação científica que faz com que o vírus se espalhe sem que se saiba como isso acontece, não podemos dizer que seja falta de informação que nos fez chegar até aqui, não podemos sequer culpar a pulsão de morte que nos é inerente, mas uma coisa é certa, nas próximas décadas haverá muito estudo a ser desvelado pelas ciências humanas em torno do que acontece no Brasil hoje. show less

Bucky Cantor is strong and muscular, a physical education teacher. During the very hot summer of 1944 he is also a committed and enthusiastic playground director of a summer activities programme for boys. Set in Weequahic, the mainly Jewish suburb of Newark, New Jersey, this novella explores the effects of a serious polio epidemic, both on the community and, specifically, on Bucky. He is a rather naïve, idealistic 23 year old, who feels both devastated and ashamed that poor eyesight has disqualified him from joining-up with his friends to fight in Europe. However, he is determined to make up for this by doing his job well, and by keeping “his” boys safe, but his beliefs in himself, in fairness and in God are all challenged when show more children begin to fall ill, become paralysed, and even die. No matter how hard he “battles” against both his conscience and the epidemic, he feels doomed to failure.
I found this a very moving and compassionate story, which captured all the sense of panic and fear which gripped the community, and portrayed all the displaced anger which people are inclined to express when feeling utterly powerless. Bucky’s personal struggles with his own ambivalent feelings – his conscience, his sense of duty, his instinct for self-preservation – are examined in depth, and very vividly described. I felt totally engaged with his over-whelming and painful feelings about a profound sense of loss of innocence and belief. I liked the way the author used the story to draw parallels between those who were away fighting for their country, and those who were left behind to fight a different battle.
Roth’s spare, effective prose, and his almost forensically detailed descriptions of the physical features of his characters create instantly vivid images, as do his descriptions of the locations he describes. His switch from telling Bucky’s story in a third person narrative for most of the novel, to having it told in the first person, for the final forty two pages and nearly thirty years later, by one of the boys who survived, was a very moving, effective and successful literary device.
Of the four books in his “Nemeses” series, I think this is by far the best - possibly reading it as the world lives with the fear of Covid19 contributed to my capacity for empathy! show less

This novel is about young gym teacher struggling to find his place in the world of WWII and the polio epidemic. It's a fairly straightforward story and an easy read. The plot is basically just horrible though--- kids constantly dropping dead and getting crippled. I see that Roth is attempting to focus on Bucky's unusual psychological profile as the cause of his "downfall" and while interesting, the structure of the story makes everything feel anticlimactic and unreal. Definitely not one of Roth's best IMO.

Audiobook. Should be a 3.5. I have followed Roth's recent books with interest. He is a few years ahead me on the road to old age and is writing about that experience in a way that fascinates me. This book has a somewhat different take on the concerns of my group and those just ahead of us. This story goes back to the polio epedemics of the 40s and 50s and brings that story near to the present. Fear of polio vaguely haunted my childhood. I came to know those in my age group who had polio (my immediately family and friends in my small town were spared) but I remember all of the drama around the polio vaccines. Going to the county armory for first the shots and then the sugar cubes. So this book was of great interest. What surprised me show more most about this book was its last chapter. Naturalizes the telling into a first-person narrative by someone living in the story. Takes the story of Bucky into the future of the book. And the undauntable Bucky is daunted. It becomes in its final moments a meditation on what makes folks flexible, able to cope, and what can doom to rigidity, being trapped. I find myself lingering over this book more because of the way it ends, without the happy ending I would have liked. show less

One of Roth's shorter novels, this one is timely. In his usual spare, clear prose, Roth explores the uncertainty, fear, anger, and blame that results from a polio epidemic striking Brooklyn in 1944, with all the uncertainty and fear of WWII as a dark echo and backdrop. The novel is focalized primarily through earnest, twenty-three-year-old Cantor, who, even after it's all over, cannot clearly assess his role in it and who bleakly ponders the unanswerable question: how can a benevolent god allow such things to happen? My favorite Roth novel (of those I've read) is THE HUMAN STAIN, but this one felt pertinent and raw.