Phillip Roth's "The Professor of Desire"

On Tuesday I finished reading Phillip Roth's 1977 novel "The Professor of Desire," which I enjoyed though I reject the protagonist's belief that desire on the one hand, and love and happiness on the other, are mutually exclusive. I find it interesting that the book is dedicated to Claire Bloom (Roth's partner and later wife) and at the end of the novel the character with whom the protagonist, David Kepesh, begins to settle down is named Claire Ovington. Kepesh grows up in a borscht belt hotel, studies abroad, discovers that what they say about Swedish girls is really true, and becomes a literature professor whose discussions of Chekhov and Kafka are engaging in their own right but also germane to his argument. There is a pilgrimage to Kafka's Prague where an analogy is made between domesticity and the communist bureaucratic state. The portrayal of Kepesh's parents, particularly his father, is touching.

Phillip Roth's "The Professor of Desire"

On Tuesday I finished reading Phillip Roth's 1977 novel "The Professor of Desire," which I enjoyed though I reject the protagonist's belief that desire on the one hand, and love and happiness on the other, are mutually exclusive. I find it interesting that the book is dedicated to Claire Bloom (Roth's partner and later wife) and at the end of the novel the character with whom the protagonist, David Kepesh, begins to settle down is named Claire Ovington. Kepesh grows up in a borscht belt hotel, studies abroad, discovers that what they say about Swedish girls is really true, and becomes a literature professor whose discussions of Chekhov and Kafka are engaging in their own right but also germane to his argument. There is a pilgrimage to Kafka's Prague where an analogy is made between domesticity and the communist bureaucratic state. The portrayal of Kepesh's parents, particularly his father, is touching.