My Life as a Man by Philip Roth
"My Life as a Man" by Philip Roth is a novel that employs a blend of autobiographical elements and fictional narrative to explore themes of identity, marriage, and the complexities of human relationships. The story revolves around Peter Tarnopol, a character whose life mirrors Roth's own, particularly in relation to his tumultuous marriage to Margaret Martinson. The novel is structured around two main narratives: "Salad Days," a lighthearted recounting of Tarnopol's childhood and early experiences, and "Courting Disaster," which delves into the darker aspects of his courtship and marriage to Maureen Ketterer.
As Tarnopol navigates the challenges of his marriage, including its manipulative dynamics and the struggles of personal responsibility, he also finds solace in a new relationship with Susan Seabury McCall. However, his reluctance to embrace traditional family life leads to further emotional turmoil. The narrative culminates in Tarnopol's eventual separation from Maureen, driven by a need to reclaim his identity and creative voice. Roth's innovative storytelling, characterized by non-linear narratives and poignant juxtapositions, captures the absurdities of existence while reflecting on the deeply personal experiences of love, loss, and artistic creation. The novel ultimately leaves readers contemplating the unresolved nature of life's complexities.
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My Life as a Man by Philip Roth
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1974
Type of work: Novel
The Work
In My Life as a Man, Roth invents a fictitious character, Peter Tarnopol, whose life closely parallels his own, just as the life of Tarnopol’s fictitious character, Nathan Zuckerman, closely parallels his. The result is what Roth calls a “useful fiction.” Such fictions help the writer explore alternative ideas of one’s fate—in this instance, alternative versions of Roth’s early years and particularly of his marriage to Margaret Martinson.
The novel begins with two such “useful fictions.” The first, “Salad Days,” recounts Zuckerman’s early childhood, not unlike Portnoy’s, although here it is the father who dominates rather than the mother. Lighthearted and funny, especially in Zuckerman’s seduction of Sharon Shatzky, it is different in tone from the darker humor of “Courting Disaster,” the “useful fiction” that follows it, in which Tarnopol describes his strange courtship and unhappy marriage to Maureen Ketterer.
In “My True Story,” Tarnopol drops his alter ego, Zuckerman, and attempts to tell what really happened. He writes while secluded in Quahsay, an artists’ colony similar to Yaddo, Roth’s favorite retreat. He describes meeting Maureen while an instructor at the University of Chicago. Not her beauty so much as her prior experience, especially with men who had mistreated and abused her, is her main attraction. Eventually, although their affair has been anything but tranquil, Maureen tricks Tarnopol into marrying her, and when the marriage proves to be bad, she will not let him go. She is determined, she says, to make a man of him, to force him to accept his responsibilities. Several years later, Tarnopol gets a legal separation and flees to New York City to try to develop his career as a writer.
Maureen follows and even attempts to compete with him as a writer. Meanwhile, Tarnopol meets and falls in love with Susan Seabury McCall, a charming, rich, and devoted young woman. From the storms and stresses of his marriage to Maureen, Susan provides a calm and welcome shelter. Tarnopol eventually gives her up, however, knowing that she wants children and believes she should have them; he does not want marriage and a family. She attempts suicide. Tempted to return to her, Tarnopol resists the urge. Meanwhile, he has sought help from a therapist, none other than Dr. Otto Spielvogel, and Maureen is killed in an automobile wreck.
The novel ends where it began, with nothing resolved, except that Tarnopol is now freed at last from his marriage. He has also been able to write the story of his life with Maureen—the novel with which Roth struggled for years after his own wife’s death in a similar accident. After five years, he has given up therapy, partly as the result of an article Spielvogel wrote, titled “Creativity: The Narcissism of the Artist,” in which Tarnopol appears, very thinly disguised as an Italian American poet. Like Portnoy’s Complaint, My Life as a Man uses interesting and original fictive devices and techniques, eschewing straight linear narrative for more discursive, nonchronological accounts that are not, however, at all confusing. On the contrary, Roth’s juxtapositions are witty and meaningful, pointing up many aspects of the absurdity of human existence.
Bibliography
Halio, Jay L. Philip Roth Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1992.
Halio, Jay L., and Ben Siegel, eds. “Turning Up the Flame”: Philip Roth’s Later Novels. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004.
Lee, Hermione. Philip Roth. London: Methuen, 1982.
Milbauer, Asher Z., ed. Reading Philip Roth. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Pinsker, Sanford. The Comedy That “Hoits”: An Essay on the Fiction of Philip Roth. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1975.
Pinsker, Sanford, ed. Critical Essays on Philip Roth. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
Rodgers, Bernard F., Jr. Philip Roth. Boston: Twayne, 1978.
Schechner, Mark. After the Revolution: Studies in the Contemporary Jewish American Imagination. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Schechner, Mark. “Up Society’s Ass, Copper”: Rereading Philip Roth. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.
Shostak, Debra. Philip Roth—Countertexts, Counterlives. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004.