Customer Reviews

Nemesis

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

One thing the prospective reader may want to know is that "Nemesis" is an old-fashioned novel. The book has the glow of a twilit, though painful, reminiscence. It is set in the Jewish Weequahic section of Newark during the war year of 1944. Roth imagines the community suffering through a devastating polio epidemic that cruelly maims and kills its youngest members. The protagonist is Bucky Cantor, a young man, a stalwart common man, whose decision whether to remain at or abandon his post as summer playground director will have fateful consequences.

Very early in his career Roth sent to Saul Bellow a draft of a short story he was trying to get published, asking for comments and advice. Bellow replied: "My reaction to your story was on the positive side of the scale, strongly. But mixed, too. I liked the straightness of it, the plainness." A half century later, Roth's new novel respects Bellow's preference. Direct, straight and plain, "Nemesis" unfolds in a manner you may not immediately associate with Roth. It is as if, having chosen to set his tale in the mid-twentieth century, Roth decided to set aside the signature style and quirks he's perfected in the last few decades, and, instead, hark back to the American literature of that earlier period, embracing its feel and direction. For me, that embrace is one of the pleasures of this short novel.

The straightforward narrative of "Nemesis," which follows the traditional path of exposition, rising action, conflict, and aftermath, eschews the inventive and experimental course Roth took in some ambitious novels of the 1980's and 1990's, notably "The Counterlife" and "Operation Shylock." The surprisingly plain voice of the new novel, narrated not by some maniacally garrulous Nathan Zuckerman type, but by an even-tempered, practical-minded witness (who later reveals himself to have been one of the Newark child polio survivors) imparts a classic balance to the proceedings. Also un-Roth-like is the absence of ethnic satire (the Jewish community is lovingly portrayed). Readers expecting to encounter Roth's comical eye for the worst in people, a celebration of joyous rebellion, a sexual adventurousness, will be disappointed. Also, though fulminating anger abounds (Bucky repeatedly shakes his fist at a God "who spends too much time killing children"), that energy may not be enough to change the final verdict of some readers who will find the book lackluster and timid.

In its style (simple and earnest) and in its themes, "Nemesis" reminds me of the classic mid-20th century American fiction that has long been a staple of high school English classes -- especially the books, stories and plays featuring common men, ordinary Joes, who meet tragic ends. "Nemesis" shares with Steinbeck's "The Pearl," Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea," and Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," the theme of the vicissitudes of fate and the contingency of our existence. Roth shares with those authors and their social realist contemporaries -- the writers who commanded the stage when he was young -- an interest in the way the world at large shapes our private lives, and how accidental forces shape individual destiny. If you still have a fondness for those books -- maybe because they were the vehicles through which you first learned to read intensely and interpret critically -- then you are bound to like "Nemesis."

"Nemesis" is unafraid to tackle the moral dimensions of our actions and lives. By book's end we have come to realize all of us are carriers of disease -- "bringers of crippling and death" -- if not in a literal sense then in the form of anger, suspicion, self-pity, greed and selfishness. Roth raises anew the old questions: What is our responsibility to our fellows? Are we all to blame? One is reminded of Arthur Miller, especially the stark examination of these issues in his play, "Incident at Vichy," set in World War II. Are we left with the impossible choice between either resigning ourselves to the suffering of others or taking on a responsibility whose dimensions doom us to failure?

Time will tell, but "Nemesis" could emerge as the one classic Roth novel all should read.

In 2003--the height of the SARs outbreak--during a visit with my Mother, she told me of her childhood in the midst of a polio outbreak in her hometown that left two of her friends crippled. Thanks to Dr. Salk, it was a threat I never had to face. When I heard the subject of Philip Roth's new book, I was drawn back to the story she had recounted, and I had to read it. I had hoped the book would give me an insight into the world in which she had grown up, and it did not disappoint.

'Nemesis' is a fictitious account of an epidemic terrorizing the citizens of Newark, New Jersey. Bucky Cantor, 23 year old phys ed teacher and playground director, is one of the few young men left in Newark after Pearl Harbor. Being rejected by every branch of the military for his poor eyesight, Bucky is not only saddened to see his friends leave, he is hurt that he is unable to participate. While his friends fight to advance the allied foothold in France, Bucky is facing an equally devastating adversary on the playground he is in charge of. Polio is rapidly sweeping Bucky's ward and, in witnessing it's effects, Bucky is struggling with his own courage to stand up and fight.

The book explores beautifully how people cope with loss, and how people react in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. It also delves into the decisions we make, the motivations behind those decisions, and the repercussions that only become clear in hindsight.

The book--almost mercifully--is a short, quick read. It is incredibly intense at times and does not afford much in the way of reprieve from the intensity. That is not to discourage readers, however, because what Roth has given is not only an account of life during a polio epidemic, but a piece of WWII-era Americana. 'Nemesis' is a fascinating and enlightening read that I would highly recommend.

Philip Roth reimagines history like no other author alive. He takes true events and displaces them, adding his own blend of imagination and plausibility.
Though "Nemesis" is placed in the same category in Roth's bibliography as "Everyman", "Indignation", and "The Humbling", it actually falls closer to "The Plot Against America" in terms of plot and style.

There was no polio epidemic in New Jersey in 1945, but Roth imagines one, and then proceeds to tell us of its devastating effects, not just on those stricken with the disease, but also a young man who witnesses these events. Bucky Cantor is a twenty-three year Physical Education teacher, and unlike some of Roth's other heros, is not a tormented intellectual, but rather a solid individual, truly injured at what is happening to the children around him. Gradually, as the epidemic spreads, Bucky begins asking himself questions for which there are no answers.

This is one of the first books in which some of Philip Roth's infamous outrage is directed at the divine. In past novels, it is almost always men and women (usually women) who are the source of the protagonist's crises. But this time, the nemesis is a disease, a germ which cannot be killed at this point in history. It is nameless, faceless, and silent. Roth recognizes that we as human beings require an enemy, someone to blame for the inexplicable happenings in our lives. Who better than God to point the finger at when young children, not old enough to yet be stained by guilt, are ravaged by pain and then die? There is an extremely powerful passage that takes place at a funeral in which Bucky begins to harbor his doubt of the Almighty.

Rather than summarize the plot, I will say that Fate in this novel is a blood hound on the scent of our young hero. A sensitive man who cannot understand why God would allow such suffering.

In the later short novels, Roth has been a writer obsessed with Death and its various forms, both self inflicted and random. How we view life through the lens of impending Death is the subject of "Nemesis" - an apt title considering the hero is uncertain who the enemy is. Is it God, Fate, himself, the disease? Or is it simply Life, that chews us up and spits us out, mindful of no one?

The prose, as always, is some of the most precise in the English language. Roth is an author sure of himself and his abilities and "Nemesis" is a worthy addition to the Roth cannon.

Bucky Cantor, a twenty-three year old physical education instructor and weight lifter, runs the Chancellor Avenue playground for the city of Newark in 1944, when a polio epidemic strikes. In the first section of NEMESIS, Bucky, who has a keen sense of duty and personal responsibility, fights back against this epidemic, which he eventually considers to be God's war against the children of Newark. In doing so, he provides normal healthy activities for children, as polio strikes with vicious and deadly randomness. At that time, a respected community figure says to Bucky: "You're contributing. It's important that neighborhood life go on as usual--otherwise, it's not only the stricken and their families who are victims, but Weequahic itself becomes a victim. At the playground, you help keep panic at bay..."

A book with obvious parallels to NEMESIS is the THE PLAGUE, in which a range of characters resists a ruthless and implacable evil, thereby transforming simple conscientious decency into a form of heroism. But in NEMESIS, the young Bucky succumbs to the onslaught of the epidemic, as well as the sexy enticements of his girlfriend, and quits his job at the playground to work as a camp counselor in the Poconos, where there is no polio (and the chance to make out). What Roth examines in NEMESIS is the effects of this decision on Bucky and the deformation that can occur when an unlucky and inflexible person goes against his conscience.

NEMEIS is narrated by Arnie Mesnikoff, a Newark playground boy and a victim of the epidemic. Arnie is an ordinary man and able to live a normal life despite his disabilities, He describes Bucky as "not a brilliant man", "largely humorless", "haunted by an exacerbated sense of duty," and "endowed with little force of mind."

IMHO, this is a risky narrative scheme, since this forces Roth to present an ordinary man's take on a limited man's life. And in Arnie's telling, there's not much nuance and the experiences and choices that life presents to Bucky seem both flat and stark. Only at the conclusion of the book, where readers see what the athletic and confident Bucky possesses in depth, does Arnie display much narrative power. Otherwise, NEMESIS, as told by Arnie, seems heavy-handed and thinly imagined.

This is the fourteenth novel by Philip Roth that I've reviewed on Amazon.com. This is the first that is not a rave. Still, recommended if you're a Roth fan.

When I was in the middle elementary grades in Chicago, about 10 years after the setting of this story, our teacher, Ethel Salk, walked into the classroom one morning and quietly stated to us, "My nephew has saved your lives." Her nephew, needless to say, was Jonas Salk who developed the first safe and effective polio vaccine. The fear of polio was devastating and the worst epidemic took place a few years after 1944, the time of this haunting American novel. Nemesis captures the terror and dread of the Iron Lung and vulnerability.

Bucky (Eugene) Cantor is the new gym teacher and playground director at a Newark school. His mother died in child-birth, his father was a no-good gambler but he was raised by loving grandparents. He revered his grandparents; they were poor but showered him with love and integrity. Bucky, an athlete, who but for poor eyesight, would have been fighting in the War, dedicated himself to the boys in the playground. He showed respect for them and their parents; he believed in the miracle of good sport, games and the air we breathe. His belief becomes unraveled as the boys terrifyingly become ill, first with severe headaches, nausea, neck pain, loss of muscle control in their limbs spreading to their inability to breathe on their own to entering the Iron Lung and possibly death. Bucky makes the rounds of his Jewish community offering condolences on the deaths of the boys who were valued by their families. Roth delivers their sorrow with blunt force, the implacable grief is etched in the parents' eyes and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. There is no apparent religious comfort.

What I found refreshing, if that is the word, was the characterization of the Jewish community. Instead of the usual stereotypes, Roth praised their moral strength and intelligence. However, other city areas that were afflicted by polio felt the usual need to blame the Jews, the perpetual scapegoat. Rest assured those families readily accepted Jonas Salk's vaccine in later years, even though he was a Jew. Roth has us study the will of God, survivor's guilt and the need for us to find safe havens while praying to escape the disease. Everyone was frightened and with good reason. I recall sitting in a school desk and told to use the books of Judy P., who, even though her father is a doctor, was also crippled for life. I begged for different books during that hot Chicago autumn.

Bucky, despite his overpowering guilt and need to make things better, has romance in his life which Roth treats with respect. He also brings in some humor with a fireside camp ritual, but both humor and beauty are muted. Roth believes Bucky deserves love and security, but Bucky apparently does not. Bucky becomes obsessed with his accountability. Roth's prose is slow and careful; he lays out his theme, "sometimes you're lucky and sometimes you're not," as the story comes together.

Roth's narrator is cleverly introduced and he unfolds Bucky's chronicle as he succumbs to an isolated existence in the latter part of the book. This is literature at its best, an American masterpiece, I highly recommend it.

SPOILER ALERT: Plot points are revealed in pursuit of polio enlightenment.

The villain in this novel is polio, the disease that transported my Dad from a congested Brooklyn neighborhood to his first exposure to a working farm and the disease that would return fifty years later to ultimately claim him.

Roth's novel, set in Newark, NJ in the summer of 1944, looks at pre-vaccine polio through the eyes of protagonist Bucky Cantor, a school gym teacher, mentor and coach, kept from service in World War II by his poor eyesight. Bucky's secret humiliation at being unfit for military service and his enormous empathy and courage in the face of the terror and injustice of polio, frame the novel's theme.

As Bucky embraces the opportunity to replace a drafted camp waterfront director at a camp in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, I can almost feel my Dad's epiphany as he embraced the rustic environment of Haverstraw, NY where he was sent for rehabilitation. My Dad often said that polio gave him the opportunity to learn that he wanted to be a farmer. I ran free in the woods of Guilford, CT because my Dad embraced the natural world.

Roth writes:
"He [Bucky] had always lived in a city flat . . . and had never before felt on his skin that commingling of warmth and coolness that is a July mountain morning . . . There was something so enlivening about spending one's workday in this unbounded space . . . something so thrilling about going to sleep beneath a blitzkrieg of thunder and lightning and awakening to what looked like the first morning ever that the sun had shown down on human activity."

But, as a writer, I knew Roth was setting me, the reader, up for a crushing blow. Roth skillfully weaves words into a tapestry of emotion:
". . . the two clung to each other with their unparalyzed arms, swaying together to the music on their unparalyzed legs, pressing together their unparalyzed trunks . . ."

Although I anticipate that our hero will battle polio, I'm still rooting for Bucky.

Roth is like a feline hunter, playing with its prey, backing off, pouncing again. He keeps the tension alive as Bucky learns of the battlefield death of his buddy Jake amid the dazzling description of indigenous skills revived by author Ernest Thompson Seton, (later founder of Boy Scouts), central to this camp's infrastructure.

My heart breaks for Bucky, as the powerless witness to a world ravaged by disease and war. When Donald, a camp counselor and promising diver mentored by Bucky, suddenly becomes ill, I have to set the book down. I suspected this, because my Dad had gone swimming in Coney Island and could not get out of bed the next morning.

But in Roth's hands, Donald, who gets chills the first night, returns to dive the second night. Roth weaves one slightly foreshadowing hint of possible trouble in one imperfect dive, but that could also be interpreted as Donald's learning curve. Foreshadowing, done well, is seamless.

Since I began reading NEMESIS, I've watched closely for telltale hints of polio to come. Roth's description of healthy limbs, promising athletes, and innovative thinkers is subtle, but I know what's coming. My paternal grandmother believed that celebrating achievement and success tempted a god demanding humility. Or maybe growing up in a world of Polish/Russian pogroms enhanced her vigilance.

I'm reading NEMESIS with her heightened sense of vigilance, which I'm sure borders on paranoia. Bucky's guilt over leaving Newark for the Poconos and his devastation by Donald's polio attack has Bucky convinced he's a polio carrier. I feel Bucky's paranoia and although I know that the polio vaccine will be available in the future, I'm still transported back to the 1940's when polio refused to reveal a pattern to its war-like devastation. Why did polio kill some people, maim others and leave others alone? In 2010 we still do not know.

As the story flashes forward, Bucky, having incubated the virus, possibly for weeks, finally succumbs to polio. Roth describes the Sister Kenny treatment that my Dad also had. I'm convinced Sister Kenny is the reason so many people regained movement of their paralyzed limbs.

Polio's cruelty lies in its unpredictability. Bucky, more severely stricken than my Dad, does regain most of his mobility, but I'm left with the impression that the healthier the body, the more viciously polio attacks.

The worst shock in Roth's "strand the protagonist up a tree and then throw rocks at him" approach is that Bucky loses more than one arm and one leg to polio. He loses his definition of himself. I was angry at Roth for that until one of Bucky's former students, also a polio survivor, explains that Bucky was an adult, with a teaching career and had largely defined himself by his athletic prowess. Bucky does not seem to realize the mental skill he'd developed to be able to succeed athletically.

Once Bucky's mind latches on to the idea that he was a "polio carrier and disease spreader" - is that even possible? - polio claims him mentally as well as physically.

Perhaps because my Dad was only 15-years-old, still in High School, his adult life not yet begun, polio impacted his life path, but never his choices. Unless Dad was wearing swim trunks, you'd never look at him at think he was physically deformed.

I'm trying hard to maintain my respect for Roth's deft storytelling, while dealing with my anger at Bucky for losing to polio. How dare polio win out over love? But we are all different and Roth did what I, as a reader, wanted him to do: deepen my perspective on an aspect of my Dad's life that he rarely spoke about at length.

I'm personally invested in the theme and angry about the final plot twist, but NEMESIS is one of those books I will read again.

With Nemesis, Philip Roth has added another novel (arguably, at 280 pages, short enough to be a novella) to his series. The others were The Humbling, Everyman and Indignation. Luckily, each can be read out of order. Nemesis not only covers a polio outbreak in Newark in the summer of 1944 but also contains a suspenseful and surprising twist. At the center of the book is a physical education teacher name Eugene (nicknamed "Bucky") Cantor. He organizes sports programs for boys to help keep up morale and also distract the youngsters from the polio epidemic in Newark.

Against his best instincts, Bucky gives in to his girlfriend's pleas to leave Newark and help out at a summer camp in Pennsylvania. He does resist but finally gives in. However, he does feel extremely guilty and even believes he may have betrayed the children in Newark.

The book is extremely well-written, especially given Roth's trademark attention to the smallest details. Readers not only gain new information about polio but also possible ways to approach life and unpredictable illness and death - before a polio vaccine was created. There is also a secret about Bucky that I can't reveal or it would be a major spoiler.

From my perspective, it would have been fascinating if this book was written in first person, in the voice of Bucky. It is not. Even so, Bucky is a riveting character who seems to be determined to fight back and not let polio overwhelm his spirit - and to encourage others to fight back as well. In time, events lead Bucky to judge himself. Bucky's personality is also revealed - later in the book - through the perspective of Arnie, one of the boys struck down by polio. Arnie encounters Bucky and learns about Bucky's life. He judges Bucky - but for somewhat different reasons than Bucky judges himself. This additional perspective adds depth and richness to the book.

There is also a larger view of the polio epidemic in both Newark and Pennsylvania, including how the average person reacted, often with great fear, depression, and desperate attempts to control outbreaks. Anti-Semitism and scapegoating run rampant. Like the other Nemesis books, there is a moment when one person, Bucky, has a chance to follow his best impulses or give in to what turns out to be a serious weakness (but only in retrospect).

While you may find other volumes in the Nemesis series to be more compelling, this is the one that held my attention most fully. There is an astonishing amount of information and detail in this relatively short book. To be fair, it should not be compared to some of Roth's better known works. Instead it stands on its own, probably not destined to become one of Roth's classics. Even so, it is a thought-provoking work, centering on how to handle uncontrollable and life-threatening events as well as coping with random but inevitable deaths or deformities from polio. Of course, this includes the particularly painful loss of children, among parents' worst nightmares.

It is greatly to Roth's credit that Bucky is so believable, both in his strengths and flaws. The title, Nemesis, has a multitude of meanings and covers Bucky's struggles to resist despair. Nemesis also alludes to the epidemic itself.. The book is tightly written and well worth reading.

I consumed this novel in a little over 2-hours, abetted by the fact that the plot is linear, with few, if any, diversions. Without a doubt, the nostalgic atmosphere of the American home front in the 1940's is vividly and sympathetically captured, along with the dread and deadly consequences of a viral epidemic working its way through a working class, urban, ethnic environemnt.

Yet, the identity of the narrator is deliberately witheld for most of the book, and only later introduced in a somewhat awkward and potentially misleading fashion. Again, one should avoid reading the blurb on the inside book jacket, since it unfortunately foretells the arc and direction of the story.

What keeps things going here is the ongoing current of hope and sadness that permeates the essence of the novel. My overall reaction, however, is that the end product is adequate rather than overwhelmingly successful. Hence the 3-Star rating.

Roth in his latest novel seems somewhat more generous and empathetic in his depiction of desperation and moral angst. Other reviewers have also drawn on the obvious parallels with Camus's Plague and Saramago's Blindness. Unlike his more ascerbic underlying take on the human condition in his earlier novels however, Roth here has a gentler touch in portraying the protagonist Bucky Cantor and other secondary characters as they navigate the confusion and fear-ridden episode they found themselves in. His close description of Bucky's internal battling, doubt and sense of social and communal obligation laced with guilt and questioning self-interest was spot on - a highly recommended read.

The nemesis in this superbly written novel is polio and ones' self. As the saying goes, "we have found the enemy and they is us." The protagonist in the tale is Bucky Cantor, the town's playground director. He is a very conscientious young man in his early twenties, perhaps even over-conscientious, He wants with all his being to join his two buddies and go to war, but his poor vision necessitates that he wear thick eyeglasses, and he can barely see without them, so the military turns him down. He enjoys his work with kids who are not yet teen-agers and they adore him. He is very scrupulous in how he cares for them. Then polio strikes the community. Roth describes how the people react, the children, their parents, a local idiot, Bucky's grandmother, his girl friend, her father, and most of all Bucky himself. Roth shows us how Bucky faces his failure - his mother died at childbirth, his father was a thief, he could not serve in the military, and he feels that he is a carrier causing the people he loves to have polio. Bucky's girl friend, who loves him passionately, has conventional ideas about God and evil, such as polio. But Bucky not only feels guilty as a possible carrier, but questions God: how could God allow polio, why did he create it, how could he let it kill so many children and maim others, and do so to the adults as well.

This was about a dozen years before a vaccine is found to stop polio. People have no idea what causes it. Some anti-Semites claim that the Jews cause the disease, some of the playground children think that the Italians who came to the playground and spit on the ground brought it, other children blame it on the local idiot who walks around without whipping the feces from his body, and Bucky blames himself.

Readers will read about the relationship between Bucky and the girl he loves and whether it can withstand the stress of polio, what happens to Bucky, is he a carrier, does he survive?