Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It is only once in a great while,, June 12, 1997
By A Customer
even in the work of such a crafty writer as Philip Roth, that the "roundness" of a character (which we are taught to admire and comment on in our reviews) takes on an even higher dimension of reality in order to make its (her, in this case) presence felt. To put it another way: if Tricky of Roth's Our Gang is essentially flat--that is, 2-dimensional--then his Alexander Portnoy is very round (he undergoes change), and consequently more real.
In When She Was Good, we are introduced to that rare 4-dimensional character, and her name is Lucy Nelson. Besides going through changes, she absorbs momentum; a sort of manic kineticism acts on her while she acts on her immediate circle of friends and family. Because of this treatment, and some intriguing structural techniques that ought to remind the reader of Faulkner, the "same" Lucy who evokes deep sympathy eventually demands of us that we dismiss or even ridicule her, until this amazing last page...
To deal with a 4-dimensional character (Hamlet is another example of one) requires a touch of literary mysticism. We must treat the novel as a reality, a chunk of life, instead of a mere representation. Like the main characters of great films (e.g. Citizen Kane), Lucy Nelson bothers our categorization-impulse by putting her internal contradictions in high relief. And she does this without the mimetic advantages that a film possesses.
On the whole, When She Was Good is not Roth's best novel; we do not expect it to be, when we see the photo of Roth (apparently in his mid twenties) on the flap. But that youngster, who went on to stand at the peak of quality and the edge of style in American letters, delivered one of the most compelling ethical statements of our day: systems of moral duties must be constantly fine-tuned when we deal with living, breathing persons instead of hypotheses.
Roth has given us such a person in Lucy Nelson.
Matthew Wayne (scrumle@acad.udallas.edu)
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent read, August 5, 2001
There are few pleasures comparable to reading good prose. Sharply defined characters are to be expected of any writer worthy of publication; similarly, a good plot is rudimentary to decent storytelling. The fact that these nuts-and-bolts components of fiction are singled out for praise in contemporary fiction is an indication of the alarmingly sharp decline of basic literacy over the past 40 years. Good prose, on the other hand, is the result of talent. The prose of When She Was Good is a delight, and well worth enduring the novel's at times heavy-handed critique of Midwestern religiosity and morality in general.The novel, an odd combination of satire and naturalism, follows three generations of the Nelson family, whose Scandanavian roots are apparently responsible for the ferociously puritanical streak in the work's tragic main character, young Lucy. Roth's insistence on making Lucy a symbol of "putritan America" leads to an unfortunately hyperbolic ending in what is otherwise a carefully constrained character study of an ordinary family dealing with alcoholism. Having attained the enlightenment of adolescence, Lucy decides to deal with her father's drinking harshly and unforgivingly, setting in motion a series of catastrophes that include her own forced marriage to an endearingly naive and well-intentioned young man -- by far the book's most sympathetic character -- Roy Bassart. This is excellent story-telling, sharp and clear and vivid. Not every reader will share Roth's point of view or his characterizations, but my, what talent.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Domestic Dispute, June 23, 2007
Those of us that have seen a friend or family member in a bad marital situation may want to look away when they read this book. "When She Was Good" is almost too realistic at times, which can make it uncomfortable to read. It is a sad and painful story, yet it is hard to dismiss as a bad story.
Lucy, the main character of the story, grows up in a home with an abusive alcoholic mother. Seemingly on top of the world, she becomes pregnant during her freshman year of college by Roy. Roy is a somewhat doltish man who has just returned from two years of military service. Convincing Roy to "do the right thing" and marry her seems to begin the downfall of her character. Once contemplating becoming a nun, Lucy has become a controlling wife. In a strange twist of fate, Lucy evolves into all that she loathed in her father in the respect that her own child finds her intolerable and her husband leaves her. The situation mirrors her father being run out of her mother's house.
Lucy is a deeply flawed character that readers will have difficultly liking. Lucy is initially a very moral charcter but has difficuly seeing her faults and eventual backslide. Because Roy and his family are even more vilainous, readers may have difficulty identifying with anybody in the story. Only when Lucy reaches her breaking point does the reader begin to feel sympathy. But knowing Lucy created her own problems, some readers may still have trouble feeling sorry for her.
I really have had trouble deciding if I like this book. I am a fan of many of Roth's other works, yet I find some of his books to be uncomfortably personal and intruding. This is a credit to Roth as a writer even if some readers may not like the feeling of his writing.
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