To literary enthusiasts, Phillip Roth needs no introduction. One of the most incisive, compelling, proficient and dense American novelists of all time – widely celebrated as one of the most prestigious and awarded writers of his generation –, the author of The Human Stain, American Pastoral and I Married a Communist, amongst many other successful books, knew precisely how to navigate by dark subjects and abrasive topics, controversial to American society and culture, that resonates with grandiosity and relevance beyond the atmosphere of the literary universe. Even a book that I haven’t liked too much, The Dying Animal, I admit is abundant in qualities and perennial density, that makes Phillip Roth such an audacious and uncompromised polemicist, at least if analyzed by a conservative outlook.   

Phillip Roth questioned severely the values and principles by which the American society of his generation lived. Nevertheless, by the perspective of drastically diverse literary characters – that were, to a certain degree, representations of himself –, the author expressed different aspects of his personality, through personas with relatively distinct values, priorities and preoccupations. Nathan Zuckerman, his most well-known alter ego, the main character of several novels, like The Human Stain and Exit Ghost, is a reflection of Roth trying to situate himself in a permanently dark world, doomed by the irreversible contingencies of human misery. David Kepesh, on the other hand, the character of three novels, The Breast, The Professor of Desire and the more concise The Dying Animal, is a graduated literature teacher, that has an intrinsically mundane existence. All that he really manages to do with a certain degree of competence, despite having real talents, like a profound knowledge about the subject he teaches, playing the piano, and being an erudite in classical music, is basically seducing and sleeping with his most attractive female students; and all these skills that he possesses and cultivates are used mainly as weapons of seduction. Devoid of this aspect, the life of David Kepesh becomes an absolutely empty, deplorable and meaningless existence.

Phillip Roth is also skilled in what concerns a beautiful prose, despite the fact that he is not a sculptor of the language, like Flaubert. Nevertheless, the beauty, the charm, the sequences, the correct and precise word put exactly in the proper place – combined with the always fragile, vulnerable, subtle, pungent, melancholic and sometimes deeply painful content that he exposes –, describing the ordinary, but constantly vulnerable situations that his characters usually have to endure, makes each one of his works a pleasurable and vivid literary challenge, that only someone that is his regular reader can understand.

​Frequently exposing his Jewish background – and as a consequence, appointed as an icon not only to literature in the broader sense, but as a primordial reference of Jewish-American literature in particular, something that Roth vehemently rejected –, the author blamed his religious upbringing for several constraints that took place in his infancy and adolescence, and as he grew older, he sought to drastically distance himself from Judaism. Eventually, he was known to disregard religion completely, saying “When the whole world doesn’t believe in God, it’ll be a great place”.    

Each book of Phillip Roth has a profound, lugubrious and dark intensity, that excavates and exposes the most tragic, difficult and painful struggles of life, and the intrinsic fatalisms inherent to human condition. In The Dying Animal, Professor David Kepesh falls in love and eventually has an affair with one of his students – a sensual, passionate and ardent Cuban-American named Consuela Castillo –, though after she graduates. So when their affair begins, she is technically not her student anymore, so if anyone discovers, he cannot be prosecuted or expelled from the university where he works. This is mainly his modus operandi, whenever he decides to seduce one of his students. 

​The two main characters get involved in a passionate and very torrid affair, but after some time, his inability to commit to a serious relationship – as well as his age, being Kepesh much older than Consuela – and his relatively indolent inferiority complex, drive the two apart. Though deeply passionate and even obsessed by Consuela, they walk away, to meet again after a long time apart. Noticing her decadent and weakened physical appearance, Consuela tells Kepesh that she was diagnosed with cancer, and has been battling the disease ever since.

So the largely promiscuous, egocentric, self-centered and sex-driven old man is forced to bring to light the more humanitarian aspects of his personality, that – although were there the entire time – he never actually allowed them to be displayed to the outside world. But now, adverse circumstances force him to be a gentle and comprehensible human being.   

Like I wrote some lines above – although I haven’t liked this book very much, it is relatively ordinary and inferior, especially if compared to another Phillip Roth’s books that I personally found marvelous –, even then this novel has qualities to be appreciated, whether it would be in the story, in the beauty and elegance of the prose, or in the subtlety and sensibility upon which the content is displayed to the reader. The conclusion of the book, the best part in my opinion, is very poetic, enlightening and sentimental. I remember Kepesh and Consuela seeing something on television, a theatrical performance broadcast from her home country, Cuba. So Consuela, deeply resented, dismisses the Castro tyranny, and denounces the image of happiness and joy given by the transmission as effectively a lie and regime propaganda. Her people suffers from government repression, persecution and arbitrary imprisonment, but all that the world sees is the fake happiness of a theatrical musical act. So Kepesh feels the anger driving the emotional Consuela, disturbed by his inability to do something extraordinary to please her, and improve her condition. 

Every book by Phillip Roth is a monumental picture of a certain aspect of existence – or a specific period in time –, filtered by his profound and lucid sensibility, exposed by the peculiarities of deeply disillusioned, complex and morally indulgent characters. The author deeply denounced everything that has disturbed him, and challenged his readers to think for themselves. Although he has died in the last year, Phillip Roth’s literature will continue to resonate deeply throughout the decades, and will remain a permanent anathema to American social and cultural conventions. 

(Read my other article about the author here)


​Wagner

Pupil of the legendary poet Masaoka Shiki, Kyoshi Takahama, born 22 February 1874, in Matsuyama, is considered one of the most important Japanese literary figures of his generation.    

An intellectual with profoundly creative vicissitudes, the literary arts soon were established in Takahama’s heart as a deeply rooted passion. In his early adulthood, Takahama, through an acquaintance, met the Japanese literary giant Masaoka Shiki, who would become his friend and literary mentor. Seemingly heated by the ardent objective of a career in letters, in a fit of audacity and restlessness, Takahama – dutifully ignoring Shiki’s advice – quit school in 1894, to pursue his dream to study Edo period Japanese literature in Tokyo.

The following year, Takahama took a seat at Waseda University – then called Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō – but soon, as his prestige and pursuits prospered, he abandoned it to take up a position as editor and literary critic in Nihonjin magazine. In 1898, at the age of only 24, he took over the board of the literary magazine Hototogisu, previously edited by Shiki, and moved the office from Matsuyama to Tokyo, establishing a new chapter to the enterprise. 

At first, he took a modernist approach to haiku, developing a brave and fearless trend of experimentalism, whose main characteristic was the irregular number of syllables. Unexpectedly, in taking over the editorial command of the literary magazine Hototogisu, he curiously adopted a more conservative approach to haiku, rejecting the form established by a literary school known as Hekigo, which did not follow the pattern of seventeen syllables. In addition, he began to emphasize "kigo" (a word referring to some season of the year), and did his best to completely exclude the more modern tendency of non-seasonal haiku.

The death of his great friend and literary mentor Masaoka Shiki – whom, suffering from tuberculosis and Pott's disease, always had to deal with a tremendously precarious health –, in Tokyo in 1902, at the young age of 34, was a great blow to Takahama, who nurtured profound admiration, deep affection and great respect for this colossal champion of the Japanese literary arts. Takahama was informed of the sad news by Shiki’s mother. 

Bearing an exceedingly creative and restless mind, Takahama had a rich and eventful life, as well as an extraordinary career in letters and a lasting impact on his country’s literary scene. It is speculated that Takahama wrote between 40,000 and 50,000 haiku in the course of his long, fruitful and productive career (although some sources openly say this number is vastly underrated). He also deeply encouraged his daughter – who had inherited her father’s literary talent – to start her own poetry magazine. In 1954, Takahama received the award of the Order of Culture from the Japanese government, in recognition of his distinguished work and contribution to Japanese literature. Posthumously, Takahama was bestowed by the Japanese government with the Order of the Sacred Treasury, 1st Class.

Extremely versatile as a writer, Takahama wrote in a number of genres: a prolific writer of haiku and short stories, he also wrote novels, dramas and essays. Envisioning some sort of artistic evolution in the literary field ahead of him, Takahama ambitioned the excellence of creativity perfectly combined with a strict and disciplined adherence to form, something he masterly accomplished during the course of his literary journey. 

Takahama died 85 years old, in 8 April 1959, in Kamakura. Unfortunately, like most Japanese writers, he is little known in the western world.  



Wagner

Howard Philips Lovecraft, better known as H.P. Lovecraft, was an American writer whose innovative, profound and eccentric creative genius in the literary field of horror, fantasy, science, weird and speculative fiction generated an entire literary genre of its own – now regarded as lovecraftian horror –, being posthumously considered one of the greatest writers on this genre of literature ever to exist, having exercised an everlasting influence in all subsequent generations of writers in the horror and fantasy genres.

A native of New England, Howard Philips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on 20 August, 1890, and very early exhibited traces of unusual creativity, intellectual precociousness, restless curiosity and literary skills, that unfortunately, would hardly help him in his ordeals throughout life. In his childhood, his grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, a prominent New England businessman, was instrumental in encouraging the love for literature in the young Lovecraft. 

Having started his writing at a very early age, Lovecraft appeared to have been shy and introverted as a child, and as a young man had little to no social life. As he was growing up, his writing skills developed brightly, but the literary market, throughout his entire journey, would prove to be a cruel, hostile, unstable and difficult place.

Having tried a great deal of jobs and employments, despite being a theoretical genius in the intellectual level, Lovecraft had no skills nor ambitions in real life, which would be to him a source of constant problems, difficulties and deprivations. Always making efforts to support himself by literary means, Lovecraft worked constantly as a ghost writer, freelance editor, text reviser and proof reader, but the income generated badly covered his personal costs of living, which, for almost all of his life, was always below the necessary to survive decently.

Before the twenties begun, Lovecraft started writing letters to magazines, criticizing, in one of them, the lack of content and consistency of some of the stories, as well as the opacity of some writers featured. Lovecraft’s constant letters and criticisms soon caught the attention of editors and writers in the market, and subsequently Lovecraft was introduced to the world of pulp fiction magazines.

Being able to sell stories, Weird Tales became the magazine which would feature most of Lovecraft’s work, and very soon, the unknown writer had developed a cult following, with a lot of the public buying the magazine just to read his stories. 

Unfortunately, this would not change his situation in life. The income generated with selling stories was mediocre, to say the least, and, although Lovecraft had developed a considerable fan-base with his work circulating in magazines, nobody expressed interest to publish him in book form. 

Nevertheless, Lovecraft’s prestige as a writer grew, especially among other writers, and soon he was being recognized by his peers as one of the most talented and innovative writers of his generation. Several friendships grew out of this, and Lovecraft started a lifelong correspondence with writers like Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Howard (a pioneer of the sword and sorcery genre, creator of Conan the Barbarian) and August Derleth (which would become Lovecraft’s literary executor, after his death), among others. They frequently exchanged ideas, and borrowed characters from one another. Several monsters and creatures from the lore of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos were borrowed by these authors, with Lovecraft’s happiness and approval. From lack of a better name, posterity would call this literary group “The Lovecraft Circle”, which would prove itself to be a rather peculiar set of friends, since most of them never met in real life, but corresponded frequently. In fact, letter writing was a major part in Lovecraft’s life, to the extent of having him being regarded today as the second most prolific letter writer in human history, staying only behind Voltaire (it is estimated today that Lovecraft wrote no less than 100.000 letters in his life). Soon, Lovecraft would become a mentor to other writers as well, like Frank Belknap Long. At this moment in life, Lovecraft would be surrounded constantly by a lot of other writers, that acknowledged him as friend, adviser, erudite and literary genius.

Mid-twenties brought to him a change in life, that Lovecraft believed was for the better, but soon proved to be for the worst. He married a woman seven years older, named Sonia Greene, and both exchanged Providence for New York City, a move that would cost Lovecraft a great deal of turmoil and difficulties. 

Although being a hard working woman, with attitude and energy, that treated Lovecraft well, the hardships of living in New York would be extenuating for both. A little less deprived than what he was used to (Lovecraft’s weight increased significantly because of Sonia’s meals), soon unemployment, lack of opportunities, robberies, burglaries and financial constraints would make life in New York exasperating for Lovecraft, that would divorce his wife, and return to Providence for good. His time in New York also hardened Lovecraft’s view on race and ethnicity. Being a proud anglophile and a pervasive WASP, which held in high regard British culture, having a fondness for everything 19th, 18th and 17th century related, a cosmopolitan city like New York, being a confluence of immigrants with no traits of its own, was seen by Lovecraft as a place of decay, degeneration and degradation, where all subhuman species mixed together. His racist points of view, as well as his partiality and favoritism towards everything Anglo-Saxon related, although a little subjective sometimes, is prominent in his fiction, and to this day remains controversial.       

Returning to Providence, Lovecraft would start the most creative and ambitious literary moment of his life (which, spanning the years from 1926 to 1937, would be his last decade), and probably his most daring and fascinating works were written during this period.

Towards the end of his life, Lovecraft endured a progressively hard situation. His last days were particularly difficult ones. Dying of cancer, having no money, no food, and little to no assistance, America’s soon-to-be greatest literary legend spent his last days in hunger, pain, solitude and suffering. Having lived a tough life with poor prospects, Lovecraft was dedicated and fully committed to literature for all his life, having had little – if any – in return. With no practical real skills to support himself in life, not being able to maintain any jobs – sometimes treating fine opportunities with apathy – and never capable to generate any substantial money through writing, creative literature seemed to be the only place where Howard Philips Lovecraft could find a little consolation from the grips of life, as well as a sense of purpose. Ironically, this poor, neglected and forgotten man would achieve great worldwide success after his death, being acclaimed as one of the most original, complex and complete horror and fantasy writers of his generation, acquiring a posthumous reputation that most authors would hardly achieve, being subsequently translated to all major languages spoken today. Nevertheless, his fame came through primarily as the working effort of Arkham House, a publishing company that started printing and publicizing Lovecraft’s work after his death, and whose co-owner, author August Derleth, had been a personal friend.

Having died being a nobody, 46 years old, on March 15, 1937, in his native Providence, Howard Philips Lovecraft became one of the greatest literary icons of 20th century world literature. With a vast and immense bibliography, Lovecraft was also one of the most prolific writers in history, having written hundreds of poems, and dozens of short stories, novelettes and essays, as well as ghost writings, collaborations and miscellanea, in addition to a hundred thousand letters, of which a small amount have been preserved and published. Today, his most read and famous works are At the Mountains of Madness, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror, The Colour Out of Space, The Doom that Came to Sarnath, The Statement of Randolph Carter and The Horror at Red Hook, amongst others.