"It was as though being in tune with life was an accident that might sometimes befall the fortunate young but was otherwise something for which human beings lacked any real affinity. How odd. And how odd it made him seem to himself to think that he who had always felt blessed to be numbered among the countless unembattled normal ones might, in fact, be the abnormality, a stranger from real life because of his being so sturdily rooted."
It's hard being normal.
Back from the Dead
7 years ago
What is the source of the Roth quotation? One of his novels? An interview? An essay?
ReplyDeleteIt's from American Pastoral, what I consider to be his best novel. Maybe I should start including the work too from now on.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Collin. I've read all of Roth's works in the last 18 months, so can't keep the sources straight.
ReplyDeleteI don't know which is my favorite, but I've read Patrimony about 3 times -- his story of his father's losing battle with a brain tumor.
What a master of English prose we have in Roth!