“Verbal catnip to an eager adolescent’s reading hunger”
How does a love of reading blossom and thrive? For Philip Roth, it was a visit to the Weequahic Branch of the Newark Public Library where he discovered his euphoria.
“You know, I wasn't raised in a literary environment. I wasn't raised in a literary household. And I think part of the excitement was just that, that this was all new to me. And it was a whole new way of looking at the world and looking at life and thinking that was utterly foreign to me and it worked right for my brain. So it was a lifelong passion.”-Philip Roth, 1999 [1]. Philip Roth revealed this statement during Norman Manea’s master class at Bard, during which time I Married a Communist was being discussed.
“I had some books that were favorites. I read the sports books of John Tunis, if any of you knew those. Then I had baseball fantasies. He wrote baseball fantasies in my head and these didn't hurt. I think they were very good books. Did you read them? Was it John Tunis? And then I read books by someone, what was his name, Pease, P-E-A-S-E? They're kind of adventure stories. I suspect that it must have been the era, it was very good. Then I read Howard Fast. When I was 11, 12, 13 years old, because I was developing very liberally left political positions. I was 13 in 1946. And would have voted in 1948 for Henry Wallace if they let 15 year olds vote. And so I read Howard Fast, a book about the Revolutionary War called Conceived in Liberty and then it was a book about the Haymarket Riots, I forget what that's called, Freedom Road? But he meant a great deal to me. Then, at about 17, 16, I guess, I discovered reading and literature in a big way, when I began to read Thomas Wolfe, who probably no longer serves that function in people's lives. But he did for my whole generation. He was a powerhouse to me. Look Homeward, Angel, Of Time and the River, The Web and the Rock, You Can't Go Home Again, I read them all. They are massive books, 800-900 pages long. A little book called Only the Dead Know Brooklyn, and I love the title, I still like the title. And then from there, I went on to college, and then I really began to read a lot. But as a child, no more than the ordinary child used to read back then, now back then, ordinary children read quite a bit. And the public branch of the public library in our neighborhood in Newark was busy. This is not a nostalgic recollection. It was busy. You'd see kids going in and out with five, and six, and 10 books, and taking them out and putting them in the bicycle basket and bicycling home and coming back. And so as a group, I think we read quite a bit. Because, of course, needless to say, there was no television. But I don't think I was an exceptional reader for a child.” [2]
References:
Philip Roth, remarks made while visiting Norman Manea’s master class at Bard College, 1999.
Philip Roth, remarks made when visiting Trinity University after a reading from Patrimony, 1992.