Indignation
RE: Indignation by Philip Roth
Sirs:
In your review of Philip Roth's Indignation, your reviewer implied that the character Marcus had died early on in the novel. The review stated, In an interview recently heard on BBC3's Night Waves,
Roth told Philip Dodd that it wasn't so, that Marcus was only in a fog of morphine until his death at the end of the book. Roth also tells us that as an author he never "has to make things up." He says, "I just remember what happened."Maybe I shouldn't tell you this. Maybe I should let you read Indignation on your own, but I'm feeling cheated by Marcus' death, and I want you to feel indignant if not cheated too ... even though Roth tells us just before the blow-job scene that Marcus is reciting all this from a free-floating death space. We know ahead of time that Marcus is a goner.
You are not inventing, which is frightening. You are remembering ... which is what I do all the time.
jlan301@