Philip Roth: Novels and Stories 1959-1962: Goodbye, Columbus & Five Short Stories / Letting Go (Library of America) [Hardcover]

Philip Roth (Author), Ross Miller (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 2005

For the last half century, the novels of Philip Roth have re-energized American fiction and redefined its possibilities. Roth's comic genius, his imaginative daring, his courage in exploring uncomfortable truths, and his assaults on political, cultural, and sexual orthodoxies have made him one of the essential writers of our time. By special arrangement with the author, The Library of America now inaugurates the definitive edition of Roth's collected works. This first volume presents Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories, the book that established Roth's reputation on publication in 1959 and for which he won the National Book Award, and his first novel, Letting Go (1962).

The title novella, Goodbye, Columbus, the story of a summer romance between a poor young man from Newark and a rich Radcliffe co-ed, is both a tightly wrought tale of youthful desire and a satiric gem that takes aim at the comfortable affluence of the postwar boom. Here and in the stories that accompany it, including "The Conversion of the Jews" and "Defender of the Faith," Roth depicts Jewish lives in 1950s America with an unflinching sharpness of observation.

In Letting Go, a sprawling novel set largely against the backdrop of Chicago in the 1950s, Roth portrays the moral dilemmas of young people cast precipitously into adulthood, and in the process describes a skein of social and family responsibilities as they are brought into focus by issues of marriage, abortion, adoption, friendship, and career. The novel's expansiveness provides a wide scope for Roth's gift for vivid characterization, and in his protagonist Gabe Wallach he creates a nuanced portrait of a responsive young academic whose sense of morality draws him into the ordeals of others with unforeseen consequences.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

PHILIP ROTH: NOVELS AND STORIES 1959-1962
Ross Miller, editor

This first volume of The Library of America's definitive edition of the collected works of Philip Roth, published by special arrangement with the author, presents the two books that inaugurated his literary career. Of Roth's first book, Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories, Saul Bellow wrote: "Unlike those of us who come howling into the world, blind and bare, Mr. Roth appears with nails, hair, teeth, speaking coherently. He is skilled, witty, energetic and performs like a virtuoso." This masterpiece of character analysis and social description is joined here by Letting Go, Roth's first full-length novel, a powerful and ambitious study of the youthful struggle to become independent that is also an extraordinary social tapestry of 1950s America.

About the Author

Philip Roth, acclaimed author of Portnoy's Complaint, The Human Stain and many other works of fiction, is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Medal of Arts from the White House.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 913 pages
• Publisher: Library of America; 1ST edition (August 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931082790
• ISBN-13: 978-1931082792
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #475,483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In the 1990s Philip Roth won America's four major literary awards in succession: the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995), and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for American Pastoral (1997). He won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for I Married a Communist (1998); in the same year he received the National Medal of Arts at the White House. Previously he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Counterlife (1986) and the National Book Award for his first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959). In 2000 he published The Human Stain, concluding a trilogy that depicts the ideological ethos of postwar America. For The Human Stain Roth received his second PEN/Faulkner Award as well as Britain's W. H. Smith Award for the Best Book of the Year. In 2001 he received the highest award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Gold Medal in Fiction, given every six years "for the entire work of the recipient." In 2005 The Plot Against America received the Society of American Historians Award for "the outstanding historical novel on an American theme for 2003--2004." In 2007 Roth received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Everyman.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where greatness began, November 30, 2005

By 

W. P. Strange "Bill's shelf" (Williamstown, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philip Roth: Novels and Stories 1959-1962: Goodbye, Columbus & Five Short Stories / Letting Go (Library of America) (Hardcover)

Philip Roth is a giant of American literature, and this select volume by the Library Of America is a perfect addition to everyone who cares about great literature and likes to see where the greatness began and how it grows in the world of literature. Philip Roth's stature is right up there with Twain, Whitman, Hawthorne, Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and Faulkner. He writes with clarity, and honesty about life, love, death, and has a sense of humor that is sometimes so subtle it is missed. To complain about the size of the print on the binding is as irrelevant as it is mean spirited. Great writers provide substance, how the publisher presents it is of little real consequence. This, and the second volume are a must for all bibliophiles.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The stories tell us a star is born The novel a disappointment, September 4, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Philip Roth: Novels and Stories 1959-1962: Goodbye, Columbus & Five Short Stories / Letting Go (Library of America) (Hardcover)

The stories announce Roth to the world. The long title story 'Goodbye Columbus' seems to announce that a successor to F. Scott Fitzgerald has at last appeared in the world of American writing. The freshness, the youth , the energy, the romanticism tempered by irony. 'Goodbye Columbus' is not Gatsby but it signals the coming of a great new star.
In the other stories too Roth appears with a mastery beyond his age, a techical skill and brilliance, a power of irony, a delightful humor.
He also comes with an offensive irrevence and critical view of Jewish American middle - class hypocrisy. But I believe that as Roth himself would later intimate even the fiercest of that criticism ( as it would come late in the true genius work, 'Portnoy') bore in it a tremendous amount of real feeling, identification, love.
Roth too is a superemely American writer concerned with the broader American destiny and meaning. His politics are not to my taste but one feels in his writing a real sense of the touch and taste of American life, an exuberant appreciation.
These are the first writings of what will become a major American writer.
It is interesting that the novel is in my judgment a flat disappointment. And Roth's career does have many flops mixed in with the gems. Perhaps that is the price of experiment or speaking in many voices.
But the opening stories, the 'Goodbye Columbus' collection is a winner.

4.0 out of 5 stars Inherent dangers of love and independence, October 10, 2010

By 

Saad Butt (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philip Roth: Novels and Stories 1959-1962: Goodbye, Columbus & Five Short Stories / Letting Go (Library of America) (Hardcover)

Written in 1962, following the success of "Goodbye, Columbus," that won the 1960 National Book Award, "Letting Go" focuses on the inherent risks of love and independence while lacking family support and struggling financially. The plot revolves around Gabe Wallach, son of a successful NY dentist, who teaches literature at the University of Iowa. Gabe purposely attends graduate school in Iowa and starts teaching there to be away from his clingy father. Following the death of Gabe's mother, his father strives to strengthen father-son relationship, though Gabe thinks his father mistreated his mother and is cool to the idea. On his visits to NY, the father and son struggle to bond and despite the father's best efforts, there is no breakthrough. Martha is a waitress with two children and is older than Gabe, who becomes his girlfriend. He meets her in Iowa, but their relationship is short-lived due to differences in temperament and general outlook on life. Gabe initially appears happy with her, but comes to disapprove of her taste in clothes to name just one thing. He fails to connect with her intellectually because of a lifestyle devoid of books. One gets the sense, absent worries about money, he is ambling through life infected with ambivalence about the purpose of his life. When they argue it's much ado about nothing. While teaching at the university, Gabe befriends Paul Hertz, a former graduate student like him, who is teaching at a local college. Their friendship begins when Gabe lends Paul his copy of "The Portrait of a Lady." In the subsequent meetings, Gabe meets Paul's wife, Libby, and helps him get hired at the university where he teaches for better pay. Paul and Libby are also from NY, who fell in love and defied their parents by marrying who opposed their union on religious grounds. Paul is Jewish. Libby is Catholic. Though both are not religious. Their intention to marry severs family ties and they are forbidden to contact their parents. As a result they move to Ohio and both begin working. Their relationship is tested soon when Libby develops a kidney problem and can no longer work making Paul the sole provider. Later on, when Libby accidentally becomes pregnant, the doctor warns her about the potential risk to her life for carrying the pregnancy to term. Paul is disappointed by the pregnancy knowing they could not raise a child on his meager income. After the abortion, their relationship deteriorates and Libby accuses Paul of being distant and lacking desire for her. Paul responds he doesn't want to excite her for health reasons. When Libby considers becoming pregnant again Paul is noncommittal, so they agree to adopt and receive vital help from Gabe. Reading the description of their lives, Libby's illness and their thwarted dreams, makes one acutely aware of the risks of failure in the absence of support from the extended family. Lastly, when I survey Mr. Roth's oeuvre, I notice that this was his last novel before he became concerned with shiksas, Alexander Portnoy, Nathan Zuckerman, Mickey Sabbath et al. His books are a pleasure to read!