Deception may be Roth's Monsieur Bovary. Like Flaubert,he's interested in the way boredom feeds desire - and erotic feeds-and often obsesses-the imagination." Glamour

Review Portnoy's Complaint.

Philip Roth wrote lots of books, and he can be really uneven. He's trying out different forms, and this one frankly doesn't work for me. The whole thing is presented as direct dialogue by a writer and his lover.
I thought I could work through the confusion of dialogue without context, when you can't even tell who's talking and what about at times, but frankly I didn't think the payoff was going to be worth the effort. So I gave up.

This is one of my favorite writers- I totally love the Zuckerman books- but this one is no good. ( )

These days, it's not very fashionable to read Philip Roth (1933-2018), but Deception (1990) is remarkably prescient.

"Can you explain to the court why you hate women?"

"But I don't hate them."

"If you do not hate women, why have you defamed them and denigrated them in your books? Why have you abused them in your work and in your life?"

"I have not abused them in either."

"We had heard testimony from expert witnesses, expert witnesses who have pointed to chapter and verse to support their every judgement. And yet you are trying, are you, to tell this court that these authorities with unimpeachable professional standards, testifying under oath in a court of law, are either mistaken or lying? May I ask you, sir—what have you ever done that has been of service to women?"

"And why do you, may I ask, take the depiction of one woman as a depiction of all women? Why do you imagine that your expert witnesses might not themselves be contradicted by a different gang of expert witnesses? Why—?"

"You are out of order! It is not for you to interrogate the court but to answer the questions of the court. You are charged with sexism, misogyny, woman abuse, slander of women, denigration of women, defamation of women, and ruthless seduction, crimes all carrying the most severe penalties. You are one with the mass of men who have caused women great suffering and extreme humiliation—humiliation from which they are only now being delivered, thanks to the untiring work of courts such as this one. Why did you publish books that cause women suffering? Didn't you think that those writings could be used against us by our enemies?" (pp.113-4)

Deception is a cleverly constructed novella about an adulterous couple and their affair. The reader has to deduce everything about them from their intense, claustrophobic encounters, and it's delivered entirely in dialogue.

He's an unemployed Jewish English writer in the bedsit where the affair is conducted. It's furnished minimally, with just two chairs, a desk and his books. It's where he writes. They make love, presumably, on the floor. (Presumably, because sex is barely mentioned in this story.) He's named Philip, but I call him The Writer.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/10/31/deception-by-philip-roth/ ( )

Video review forthcoming. ( )

Didn't love most of the book, though the hijinks around the author's relationship to the narrative were kind of neat, and the reason for the form of the book became clear amid those hijinks. So the trick and the fact of it were ok but the particulars didn't do much for me. ( )