Online viewing tip. Philip Roth.

Via Dwight Garner, who, in his previous post, writes, "The Sunday Times of London provided a service for its readers on Sunday, publishing a kind of 'Philip Roth for Dummies,' timed to the release of his new novel Exit Ghost. The Roth Primer was written by the talented novelist Stephen Amidon, who calls Roth, in his first sentence, 'America's greatest living novelist.'"

The likelihood that you'll agree with every word Roth says in these five minutes can't be too high. For example, when it comes to his remarks on the Iranian president, I myself am probably camped a little closer to Alex Ross's position. At least Roth does recognize that Ahmadinejad is a "monster." At the same time, though, I find it astounding how, in just five minutes, Roth doesn't simply describe but calmly emanates a frustration that, yes, is akin the despair many of us have almost unconsciously sunk into now, I think, long after the shock of the 2004 election has worn off and not quite as long after giving into the realization that electing a majority of Democrats to Congress will have next to no effect.

A related note on the subject of Al Gore (as of May 2006, Roth believed he's the only Democrat who could win the presidency). Christopher Hitchens, as always, delights in goading far more than in his own argument, but as (nearly) always, I can't resist reading him.

To steer all this back to movies a bit, Michael Fleming's got some news at Variety: "Kevin Spacey, Laura Dern, Denis Leary, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson and Ed Begley Jr have been set by HBO Films to star in Recount, the drama about the controversial Florida results in the 2000 presidential election. Jay Roach is directing a script written by Danny Strong."

Posted by dwhudson at September 24, 2007 12:33 PM