I Married a Communist
by Philip Roth
List Price:
Our Price: $7.22
You Save: $7.78 (52%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.68 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Philip RothEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-11-02
ISBN: 0375707212
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of I Married a Communist
Book Review: Every action produces a loss
Summary: 5 Stars
Near the end of Philip Roth's underrated wonderful novel "I Married a Communist", a character who is kind of unsatisfied with existence arguments that every action produces a loss. The right sentence, as we all know, is that every action produces a reaction -- but nearly the end of his life, Murray is certain that the so called reaction means losing something. However not Roth doesn't use the whole book to prove it, he certainly agrees with his character.
The narrative that goes back and forth in time depicts the life of Ira Ringold (Murray's brother), a very famous radio star who marries a very famous Hollywood's silent movies star named Eve Frame. It turns out that the "I" in the title of the book is Eve. But it is not out of the sheer patriotism that she declares her husband is a communist. Their story is told by Murray to Nathan Zuckerman, a sort of Roth's alter ego that has been in many of his books.
Alongside with "American Pastoral" and "The Human Stain", the novel is part of a trilogy written by Roth depicting life in North America in the XX Century. But different from the other two books, in "I Married A Communist", Zuckerman is much more active. This time round he used to be friend with the main character in the time when the events happened. Therefore, more than being only a listener or a narrator, the he is a character of Ira's story -- as told also by Murray.
When Zuckerman was a young boy, Murray used to be his English teacher and he met Ira who was already a famous radio star and married. In this sense, we can have two different points of views of Ira's rise and fall -- albeit both are biased and both men loved Ira a lot. The brother tells the inside story; while Zuckerman is able to tell how the world (specially his family) saw the radio star in different periods.
"I Married a Communist" has a plot better developed than "The Human Stain", albeit not as bombastic as "American Pastoral". But as most Roth's books, the narrative is first among equal, so is the use of language and the character development. The writer is able to inject life in every human being he proposes to create (even in the strange Portnoy, back in the past). Nothing is gratuitous in his books. Roth has a place as one of the best novel writers of the late XX Century. In his microcosms of Newark he is able to paint the world.
Sometimes tragic (Macbeth is quoted many times in the narrative) and often funny, "I Married a Communist" as a portrait of the past bridged to the present. Exploiting the witch hunting of the McCarthyism Roth reminds us that we are always looking for witches to be haunted -- no matter they are real or imaginary. And he reminds us that paranoia can be the first threaten to freedom of expression.
Summary of I Married a Communist
I Married a Communist is the story of the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, a big American roughneck who begins life as a teenage ditch-digger in 1930s Newark, becomes a big-time 1940s radio star, and is destroyed, as both a performer and a man, in the McCarthy witchhunt of the 1950s.In his heyday as a star?and as a zealous, bullying supporter of "progressive" political causes?Ira marries Hollywood's beloved silent-film star, Eve Frame. Their glamorous honeymoon in her Manhattan townhouse is shortlived, however, and it is the publication of Eve's scandalous bestselling exposé that identifies him as "an American taking his orders from Moscow."
In this story of cruelty, betrayal, and revenge spilling over into the public arena from their origins in Ira's turbulent personal life, Philip Roth?who Commonweal calls the "master chronicler of the American twentieth century?has written a brilliant fictional protrayal of that treacherous postwar epoch when the anti-Communist fever not only infected national politics but traumatized the intimate, innermost lives of friends and families, husbands and wives, parents and children.
Iron Rinn (né Ira Ringold) is a self-educated radio actor, married to a spoilt, rags-to-riches beauty, silent-film star Eve Frame (née Chave Fromkin). He is a Communist, and a "sucker for suffering," locked into the cycle of violence from which he has emerged. She has risen by assiduous imitation of what is "classy"--which seems to include a wide swathe of anti-Semitism--and ultimately denounces her husband as a Soviet spook. And who would be the narrator of this McCarthy-era meltdown? None other than Philip Roth's longtime alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, who learns the full tragedy several decades later, owing to a chance encounter with Ira's brother: "I'm the only person living who knows Ira's story," 90-year-old Murray Ringold tells Nathan, "you're the only person still living who cares about it."
Characteristically, Nathan also discovers that his own story was bound up with the blacklistings and ruined careers of the immediate postwar period. It seems that he had been tainted by his association with the Ringolds--Murray was in fact his high-school teacher--and was denied the Fulbright scholarship he deserved. "They had you down for Ira's nephew," Murray tells Nathan. "The FBI didn't always get everything right." Roth's acerbic style and keen eye for emotional detail goes to the heart of this moment of high tragedy in which the American dream was damaged beyond repair. --Lisa Jardine
Literary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Literary Books
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Angelsby Marian Keyes
William Morrow; Published: 2002-05-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.12
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.74
Price in other shops:
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptationby Paulo Coelho
Harper; Published: 2006-07-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Boonville: A Novelby Robert Mailer Anderson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Carameloby Sandra Cisneros
HarperAudio; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Headhunterby Timothy Findley
PERENNIAL PUBLICATIONS; Paperback; Book
The Crimson Petal And The Whiteby Michel Faber
Harcourt, Inc./Harvest; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Plot Against Americaby Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 2005-09-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.90
Price in other shops:
Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoirby Claire Bloom
Back Bay Books; Published: 1998-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.02
Price in other shops:
The Counterlifeby Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 1996-08-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.48
Price in other shops:
Operation Shylock : A Confession (Vintage International)by Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 1994-03-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.91
Price in other shops:
Sabbath's Theaterby Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 1996-08-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.20
Price in other shops:
The Mechanical Bride - Facsimileby Marshall McLuhan
Gingko Press; Published: 2008-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.05
Price in other shops:
Goodbye, Columbus : And Five Short Stories (Vintage International)by Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 1993-01-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.24
Price in other shops:
Portnoy's Complaintby Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 1994-09-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.40
Price in other shops:
American Pastoralby Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 1998-02-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.97
Price in other shops:
The Human Stain: A Novel American Trilogy (3)by Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 2001-05-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.56
Price in other shops: