- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (1 July 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099288672
- ISBN-13: 978-0099288671
- Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 11.1 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,464,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
I Married A Communist
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Ira Ringold (now Iron Rinn) is a self-educated radio actor married to spoilt, rags-to- riches beauty and silent-film star, Eve Frame. He is a Communist, she is passionately and irrationally anti-Semitic (in spite of her own Jewish origins). Roth's alter-ego narrator Nathan Zuckerman--an idealistic admirer of Ira as a boy--uncovers the story of Eve's betrayal of Ira to a gossip-columnist, and Nathan's own unknowing involvement with the blacklistings and ruined careers of the immediate post-war period. Roth's characteristically acerbic writing and keen eye for emotional detail reaches to the heart of this moment of high American tragedy, a point at which the American dream was damaged beyond recovery.
The McCarthy era has faded, eerily, into nostalgia, just as Capitol Hill produces its own nineties version of witch-hunt and communal obsession with enemies of the state, and perversions of justice perpetrated in democracy's name. Roth avoids nostalgia by making his narrator an active, if unwitting participant in the original drama, caught up in political currents and counter-currents he did not comprehend at the time. --Lisa Jardine --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
Knotted with energy, barely wasting a scene or a word in its crackling velocity - Mail on Sunday; A passionate and coruscating American tragedy - Financial Times; A gripping novel - NewYork Times Book Review
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
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First Sentence
IRA RINGOLD'S older brother, Murray, was my first high school English teacher, and it was through him that I hooked up with Ira. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
IRA RINGOLD'S older brother, Murray, was my first high school English teacher, and it was through him that I hooked up with Ira. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I thought this was a wonderful novel. It throws light on a subject not much understood (left-wing politics in the USA) but its key themes are those of betrayal and (typically for Roth) the difficulties in really understanding others and their motives. I found the ending almost breathtakingly beautiful. Roth is up there with Shakespeare in his ability to mix the sacred and profane. I doubt there is a better contemporary writer.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Roth is an outstanding prose writer, and "I married a Communist" shows him at his best. Illustrating the conflicts of McCarthy-era American through the tale of pugnacious Communist Ira Ringold, Roth creates a panoply of interesting characters set in a powerful narrative with a slow-building, satisfying storyline.
One reservation: Roth is occasionally carried away by his own writing skill. Result: his otherwise excellent dialogue sometimes goes on at excessive length: the book would be more readable edited down by 30 pages.
Conclusion: excellent heavyweight literary fiction with a few dull patches.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Let it first be said: Philip Roth is a genius. His writing is astounding, both for its gorgeous display of language and, just as important, for its truth of character and humanity corruption.
"I Married A Communist", the second in the author's trilogy about the huge political movements shaping post-WWII American history (Vietnam, McCarthyism and, with his latest, "The Human Stain", the Clinton era and p.c.-ness), is a very, very good book. However, "American Pastoral" it ain't.
In this second volume, Roth tells the story of Iron Rinn, a militantly naiive political figure of the post-war generation. The themes are typically Rothian: definitions of success, alienation, what it means to belong, what it means to separate. And, while the plot is fascinating and there are portions of the book that are written so magnificently you'll want to weep, there is a remote quality --- a third-person-ness and therefore an aloofness --- that detracts from the overall effectiveness.
Still, the book deserves four stars because it's part of the Roth canon. He's always worth reading and always astounding and delightful and depressing and devastating. Even when he's merely being a bit more mortal than we've come to expect of a writer with his gifts.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
for devotees of american political history
The ageing novelist Zuckerman meets his now 90 year old English teacher and they recollect the English teacher's life, blighted by blacklisting in the McCarthy era - and his... Read more
Published 5 months ago by William Jordan
Rather rambling
An interesting novel in which the author portrays very clearly the ethos of a time and place. Some good stuff, but this is too rambling and disjointed. Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2009 by John Hopper
The distorting power of bitterness.
Philip Roth is a wonderful writer and a major contemporary voice. I was disappointed with this book, however, because I felt that Roth's vision was blurred by his obvious fury and... Read more
Published on 4 Oct 2000 by J M Johnson
Excellent book, but could be even sharper
The life of Ira, the Communist of the title, is recounted through a conversation between his elderly brother and a young family friend. Read more
Published on 5 Feb 2000 by alex@pressure.to
An American tragedy well worth reading
Set in the McCarthy era, this is an American tragedy; the tale of Ira Ringold, an Abe Lincoln lookalike, and his desperate attempts to escape his haunting past. Read more
Published on 10 Mar 1999
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