From Bondage - Mercy Of A Rude Stream Volume 3 - 'A masterpiece, not remotely like anything else in American literature' (Paperback, New Ed)

The third volume in the late Roth's ongoing autobiographical cycle, Mercy of a Rude Stream, is very much of a piece with its predecessors - A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park (1994) and A Diving Rock on the Hudson (1995). It continues the story of Roth's alter ego, Ira Stigman, now seen wrestling with his artistic and sexual demons as he straggles toward manhood in 1920s Manhattan and also, some 60 years later, as the elderly Ira labors to make sense of missed opportunities and flawed life choices, carrying on an extended, fragmented "conversation" with his computer ("Ecclesias"). This latest novel fictionalizes Roth's longtime affair with NYU teacher and poet Eda Lou Walton (here: Edith Welles), and it's drenched in the kind of self-conscious literary talk that most writers indulge in, then dispense with, in their early work (though, to be fair, Roth does communicate effectively the beady excitement felt by young intellectuals sharing a contraband copy of Joyce's Ulysses, as well as the hopeful Ira's discovery, through reading Joyce, "that it was possible to commute the dross of the mundane and the sordid into literary treasure"). There are too many lengthy disquisitions on favored writers and writing, and - conversely - a plodding recounting of Ira's peregrinations from one unfulfilling day job to another. Still, Roth writes ferocious, flinty dialogue (the scenes between Ira and his younger sister, and former lover, Minnie are charged with an unforgettable admixture of erotic heat and guilty hatred) and pulls off some remarkable technical effects in balancing the young Ira's dreams of literary accomplishment against his aged self's resigned understanding that "performance with words was the only option open to him, the only tramway out of himself." It's odd, and sad, to realize that Roth, who died last October, may eventually be better remembered for this deeply flawed final work than for his one incontestable masterpiece: Call It Sleep (1934), the book of his youth. (Kirkus Reviews)

'A landmark of the American literary century' Boston Globe Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth returned with Mercy of a Rude Stream - a sequence of four internationally-acclaimed epic novels of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York. Written in the last year of Roth's life, this is the impassioned story of a young man's love affair with literature, and with his teacher. As Ira Stigman turns from his incestuous childhood affairs, he finds himself competing with his best friend for the attention of their literature professor. FROM BONDAGE is the the moving culmination of a great writer's life. 'The literary comeback of the century' Vanity Fair 'As unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates' Sunday Times 'A dynamic and moving event . . . a stirring portrait of a vanished culture . . . a poignant chapter in the life-drama of a unique American writer' Newsweek 'Although it is sixty years since a new novel by Mr Roth last hit the bookshelves, it has been worth the wait' The Economist 'Fresh and touching' Wall Street Journal 'A precision of detail which brings the sounds from the tenements, the heat of the sidewalk steaming off the pages' Sunday Express 'A meticulous evocation of a now-distant episode of the American experience' New York Times Book Review Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes 1) A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park 2) A Diving Rock on the Hudson 3) From Bondage 4) Requiem for Harlem.

General

Imprint:	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	July 1997
Authors:	Henry Roth
Dimensions:	198 x 167 x 29mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - B-format
Pages:	416
Edition:	New Ed
ISBN-13:	978-0-7538-0004-1
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	0-7538-0004-7
Barcode:	9780753800041

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