Philip Roth, who died in 2018 and is considered perhaps the greatest novelist of his generation for books such as “Portnoy’s Complaint,” is the subject of two new biographies. Not many of us have led lives so pure they could stand up to the scrutiny of a biography published in 2021, and so it comes as no surprise that Roth’s legacy now faces cancel culture stake-burning. The New Yorker weighs in with a lengthy feature entitled “The Secrets Philip Roth Didn’t Keep.” Roth and the film adaptations of his works have appeared in several Ivy Style posts, and as he was a fairly trad dresser back in the day, we offer this tribute to his wardrobe, which might just have been the cleanest thing about him.
The cancel culture is getting so bad that I am considering starting a “Samizdat” publishing company, starting with Huckleberry Finn and following with the best of Phillip Roth. Looking for others so inclined as investors. Employees will have to wear vintage Ivy Style clothing, males and females alike.
Looking for more that copyright status will permit.
Forgot to mention department: the weekend Wall Street Journal had an article about the return of wide, broad, baggy jeans. Levi’s and RalphL, among others, are on board. We shall have to wait and see but maybe hope is on the way for the demise of skinny pants.
I think Over Easy makes a valid, nuanced point.
He, along with Updike and Cheever and O’ Hara, captured a lot of what it meant to be a certain kind of man in latter 20th century America. I suspect all of them had deeply ‘traditionalist conservative’ inclinations/tendencies. They — their writing styles and interests and habits of mind/spirit— were uniquely (and I think proudly) American. Like other American male authors, they remained indebted to the lasting legacies of Fitzgerald and Hemingway.
I just watched the fine PBS special on Flannery O’Connor, maybe the finest American female writer. Now, there was one to give the literary critics of today the vapours. I never knew about her relationship with Robert Lowell, a piece of work himself. One would think they would be polar opposites, though he for sure was an elitist. They met at Yaddo with John Cheever, others.