We're on a road trip--to Asheville, where we toured the Biltmore Estate, had some fine barbecue, and enjoyed a tootsie restaurant called Rhubarb; and then to Maggie Valley, out at the edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where Eileen was invited to a picnic and program for survivors of bladder cancer at the Cataloochee Ranch.
Right now, we've broken up the trip back at Roanoke, about halfway to Washington, and the location, as befits an old railroad town, of a wonderful museum devoted to the finest of railroad photographers, O. Winston Link. The museum named after him is located between the Museum of Transportation, itself right beside what are now the Norfolk Southern tracks and the historic Roanoke Hotel.
Asheville itself, of course, is a charming artsy town with a thriving downtown filled by shops of all kinds, including a fine bookstore called Malaprop's. Those of you who have taken the tour of the Biltmore Estate know that it's the largest house built in the U.S., designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, who also built New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the grounds by Frederick Law Olmstead, of Central Park and other great green spot fame.
The Vanderbilt who built the pile, which does look as if it somehow migrated to 125,000 acres in Asheville from the Loire valley, clearly knew who to hire. He also had John Singer Sargent down to do the family portraits. Otherwise, his artistic taste was somewhat stodgy, with heavy European furniture and many, many prints, most not up to the level of the few Durers he acquired; there also are some marvelous tapestries from Brussels that are definitely worth extended viewing.
My favorite bit of Hunt's design are the angled windows on a grand staircase that takes one up to the next two floors from the overwhelming first level. They are delightful to see both from the inside and the outside as the kind of folly that makes structures like this one memorable. We also enjoyed seeing the vast gardens, although much of the planting was finished by this time of year.
Moe's Original Bar-B-Q, near Biltmore Village, is also the real deal. Fantastic brisket and ribs, with a clearly local crowd, and not from the arts district. We arrived at the Cataloochee Ranch after a drive through Maggie Valley, a typical town at the edge of a national park, and then climbing about 1,300 feet on a three-mile curving ride up to 4,000 feet.
It was the 9th annual such assemblage and provided a helpful occasion for attendees to receive updates on developments in medical and treatment research, as well as to exchange experiences about survivors who received different treatments and those who live with and care for them. The views of the mountains at that elevation are spectacular and a fine time was had.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Revisiting Portnoy
Eileen and I have been attending a course given by our notable local bookstore, Politics and Prose, on the Early Novels of Philip Roth, taught by an English professor emerita from Princeton, Elaine Showalter. Tonight the subject was Roth's best known work, Portnoy's Complaint (1969).
In preparation we both re-read the novel, for the first time since it was published. In my case, it was the first time in that I read the big parts of the novel when Roth published them in the New American Review and other magazines way back then, but I realized I had never read the last part, especially the ending set in Israel. One big change since 1969 and the cause celebre that the novel became is that nobody in the class was especially offended or shocked by it.
That's not to say that some people didn't express the view that they could see themselves being offended. In one of Roth's many interviews, he was asked if Jews were right to be offended by the novel, to which he responded that he thought there were things in the book that Gentiles might be offended by.
To me, the reason it's his most significant novel is that it best captures his humor. Roth has sought to emphasize that he is an American not just a Jewish writer, but his funniest and seemingly most trenchant moments always concern Jews. He is one of the only writers I've ever read who produces laughing-out-loud pieces of writing.
We do learn things from these classes. Roth himself was psychoanalyzed by a famous psychiatrist who also published his account of analyzing Roth in a psychological journal with the analysand thinly disguised. Though the psychiatrist of course denied it, this was clearly and completely unethical. Also, there was a lot of discussion about the significance of the famous last line (the "Punch Line") of the book, uttered by the psychoanalyst: "So now ve may perhaps to begin."
Everyone seemed focused--well, at least the two psychiatrists in the class were--on it indicating that the psychiatrist felt that now that Portnoy had told his story it was the right point to begin to analyze his account and determine what underlay his behavior. I thought and said that the reason Roth calls it the Punch Line is that most readers are likely to feel that after this narrator has ranted and raved for almost 300 pages about his growing up and his affairs, all the psychiatrist can think of to say is that perhaps ve now may begin. That to me is what makes it a punch line.
Anyway, some questions were answered, many were explored, and I'm still not at that certain as to why the title character seems to have a breakdown and is impotent when he gets to Israel.
In preparation we both re-read the novel, for the first time since it was published. In my case, it was the first time in that I read the big parts of the novel when Roth published them in the New American Review and other magazines way back then, but I realized I had never read the last part, especially the ending set in Israel. One big change since 1969 and the cause celebre that the novel became is that nobody in the class was especially offended or shocked by it.
That's not to say that some people didn't express the view that they could see themselves being offended. In one of Roth's many interviews, he was asked if Jews were right to be offended by the novel, to which he responded that he thought there were things in the book that Gentiles might be offended by.
To me, the reason it's his most significant novel is that it best captures his humor. Roth has sought to emphasize that he is an American not just a Jewish writer, but his funniest and seemingly most trenchant moments always concern Jews. He is one of the only writers I've ever read who produces laughing-out-loud pieces of writing.
We do learn things from these classes. Roth himself was psychoanalyzed by a famous psychiatrist who also published his account of analyzing Roth in a psychological journal with the analysand thinly disguised. Though the psychiatrist of course denied it, this was clearly and completely unethical. Also, there was a lot of discussion about the significance of the famous last line (the "Punch Line") of the book, uttered by the psychoanalyst: "So now ve may perhaps to begin."
Everyone seemed focused--well, at least the two psychiatrists in the class were--on it indicating that the psychiatrist felt that now that Portnoy had told his story it was the right point to begin to analyze his account and determine what underlay his behavior. I thought and said that the reason Roth calls it the Punch Line is that most readers are likely to feel that after this narrator has ranted and raved for almost 300 pages about his growing up and his affairs, all the psychiatrist can think of to say is that perhaps ve now may begin. That to me is what makes it a punch line.
Anyway, some questions were answered, many were explored, and I'm still not at that certain as to why the title character seems to have a breakdown and is impotent when he gets to Israel.
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