Ghost Writer

Philip Roth

Oddly enough I purchased this book about 15 years ago and just now got around to reading it. Philip Roth's Ghost Writer is about a young author who visits his idol, a much older author, for a weekend. The protagonist, Nathan Zuckerman, hopes to convince the older writer, Lonoff, to be his mentor. During the weekend Zuckerman witnesses the dysfunctional relationship between Lonoff and Lonoff's wife and a third, younger, woman who may be Lonoff's mistress. Zuckerman fantasizes about Lonoff, dreams that Lonoff's mistress is actually Anne Frank and builds airy castles about his own, Zuckerman's, literary success. The best part about this novel is Roth's depiction of an author's love for literature which shines through almost every line. Stylistically the novel is pristine. The problem is that Roth has almost nothing to say. The novel offers a barren landscape which presents but dodges essential questions. We're allowed to glimpse mountains and pillars in the distance but are forced as readers to wander around them, so that we always remain in an unremarkable plain. A third of the way through the book, Roth has the protagonist discover a quotation from Henry James which one gathers is to be the keystone for The Ghost Writer: "We work in the dark...we give what we can...we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art." I loved this quotation and was frustrated because Roth, although obviously aware of the pit, skirted it. He gives us, not the passion of doubt, but the consolation of compromise and resignation. Perhaps that's Roth's point, that one should give up before really struggling with the essential questions. Perhaps his goal was, to wrench a line from Yeats, to leave the reader with "his senses and his heart unsatisfied."