I Married a Communist | 
|  | | | Title: | I Married a Communist | | Author: | Philip Roth | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 02 November, 1999 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0375707212 / 9780375707216 | | List Price: | $14.00 | | You Save: | $2.80 | | Amazon Price: | $11.20 | |
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Product Description
I Married a Communist is the story of the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, a big American roughneck who begins life as a teenage ditch-digger in 1930s Newark, becomes a big-time 1940s radio star, and is destroyed, as both a performer and a man, in the McCarthy witchhunt of the 1950s.
In his heyday as a star—and as a zealous, bullying supporter of "progressive" political causes—Ira marries Hollywood's beloved silent-film star, Eve Frame. Their glamorous honeymoon in her Manhattan townhouse is shortlived, however, and it is the publication of Eve's scandalous bestselling exposé that identifies him as "an American taking his orders from Moscow."
In this story of cruelty, betrayal, and revenge spilling over into the public arena from their origins in Ira's turbulent personal life, Philip Roth—who Commonweal calls the "master chronicler of the American twentieth century—has written a brilliant fictional protrayal of that treacherous postwar epoch when the anti-Communist fever not only infected national politics but traumatized the intimate, innermost lives of friends and families, husbands and wives, parents and children.
Amazon.com Review
Iron Rinn (né Ira Ringold) is a self-educated radio actor, married to a spoilt, rags-to-riches beauty, silent-film star Eve Frame (née Chave Fromkin). He is a Communist, and a "sucker for suffering," locked into the cycle of violence from which he has emerged. She has risen by assiduous imitation of what is "classy"--which seems to include a wide swathe of anti-Semitism--and ultimately denounces her husband as a Soviet spook. And who would be the narrator of this McCarthy-era meltdown? None other than Philip Roth's longtime alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, who learns the full tragedy several decades later, owing to a chance encounter with Ira's brother: "I'm the only person living who knows Ira's story," 90-year-old Murray Ringold tells Nathan, "you're the only person still living who cares about it." Characteristically, Nathan also discovers that his own story was bound up with the blacklistings and ruined careers of the immediate postwar period. It seems that he had been tainted by his association with the Ringolds--Murray was in fact his high-school teacher--and was denied the Fulbright scholarship he deserved. "They had you down for Ira's nephew," Murray tells Nathan. "The FBI didn't always get everything right." Roth's acerbic style and keen eye for emotional detail goes to the heart of this moment of high tragedy in which the American dream was damaged beyond repair. --Lisa Jardine
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Customer Reviews:
• La Novela De Formación 11 February, 2008
"Me casé con un comunista" es una novela en que Philip Roth explora la temática de la caza de brujas, que tuviera lugar en los Estados Unidos durante la época del senador McCarthy (años 40 y 50). En este contexto, Ira Ringold, protagonista de la obra, es un excombatiente de la II Guerra Mundial que actúa como propagandista de la causa comunista. En consecuencia, esta es una historia de lealtades y de traiciones. Todos los que están con él, lo abandonan en algún momento, salvo Nathan y el hermano de Ira, Murray. Todos dudan, como hicieron los apóstoles con Jesús, y al final todos caen en la cuenta de que Ira era un buen tipo, algo iluso y llevado de sus ideas como todos los ilusos, pero un buen tipo, más allá de lo acertado o errado que hubiese podido estar en sus juicios.
Me parece, no obstante, que para un escritor como Philip Roth, la trama es sólo la excusa para encarar el tema del creador y su obra, la "relación" del creador con su obra. Aquà el narrador, Nathan, cede su sitio al narrador Murray y éste al narrador Ira, etcétera. En el juego de las perspectivas para juzgar la realidad, Roth siempre resulta vencedor, porque en sus fallos no parece haber culpables, aunque los haya. "Me casé con un comunista" es una novela de vÃctimas, aun cuando se trate de los propios traidores. Lo que me gusta de las novelas de Roth, y de esta en particular, es su especial delicadeza para tratar a sus anta-gonistas. Siempre les concede la cláusula de humanidad que aún estando equivocados, les pertenece, pues en el fondo de lo que se trata aquà es de la dignidad de las personas.
El juego de espejos con que Roth construye su obra es una confirmación de una práctica suya. Yo no dirÃa que es su estilo sino, más que eso, su "arte poética." En cierto modo, Roth es lo contrario de Ellroy pero también lo es de Bellow. Quizá se parezca más a I.B. Singer, aunque su temática es algo más amplia. Y es que a Roth no le interesa tanto el culpable como la culpa, o el castigo como la expiación.
En fin, aun cuando "Me casé..." es posterior a "Contravida," esta última me gusta más porque en ella la manera de explorar la realidad se halla más a la vista. Es más notoria. Y en este sentido actúa mejor como la novela de iniciación de un consumado, en tanto guÃa para iniciados. "Contravida" es más explÃcita que "Me casé..." Es más "manual." La realidad es algo más remota porque sirve de resonancia a los protagonistas, al revés de lo que ocurre aquÃ, en que la cuerda de la historia (el macartismo) vibra para que se despierten las musas.
La recomiendo para lectura y relectura. Es otra de mis candidatas para abolir el olvido.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A13PUMDC1R1OJ3
• Marvelous Lessons For Writers In This Tomb 20 October, 2008
I had read about the "revenge" factor in this Roth novel and perhaps because I wasn't quite familiar with the principals (on whom this book was supposedly based on), I ignored the negative spin and just enjoyed the story for what it was ... an invaluable lesson for all writers no matter their genre ... when Leo explains to Nathan why he should ignore the ideology and stick to the art, epiphanies (right or wrong) abound ... there was no putting this one down and the reward (for this reader) was all confirming. Whether it was Murray's decency or Nathan's naivety or Ira's iron will, the story flowed with passion start to finish. The fact there are parents who are victims (and/or) martyrs to their children (and/or their cause(s)) is undeniable (so who needs the revenge spin?). What flows from such a starting point is (probably) almost always disaster. Whether Roth is a brute or not in real life is irrelevant (not to forget the other side of the story--that he may be one hell of a decent human being), do yourself a big favor and ignore the revenge spin. Wagner was an anti-semite but much of his music remains hauntingly heavenly. Roth remains an American/World master of modern fiction.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AGKYAQDUQEEX3
• Roth Just Gets Better 02 August, 2006
It's amazing that Roth continues to produce such first rate novels. This sad story about the seductions of communism in the 40's and 50's, and the hysterical reactions of the paranoid right, is an excellent introduction to the craziness of the HUAC manipulations of public fears (which has so many applications to todays political scene) while telling a story of how the age impacts the lives of one group caught up in it.
Yet the flaws of the characters are fully developed and so that there is no hint of mere propagandizing.
Roth is a national treasure.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1NR9V5HUI2WHN
• Passion, Betrayal, And The Blacklist 04 September, 2006
The life of Ira Ringold, a Communist activist-cum-radio star who was betrayed to the blacklist by his actress wife, is reflected upon by the last two people alive who knew him--his brother Murray, a former English teacher, and Nathan Zuckerman, who grew up idealizing him. The result is a complex and fascinating novel about the nature of human passion, betrayal, and much more.
Ira emerges as a tremendously angry and violent figure who latches on to Communism as a means of civilizing himself. Young Nathan is initially swept along by the purity of Ira's fervor, but ultimately gains perspective as he matures and broadens intellectually while Ira remains mired in a pure belief in Communist doctrine that blinds him to all its faults. Murray tries to act as the voice of reason to shield Ira from his own impusivity and rage. All of this goes on again the backdrop of the Hollywood blacklist and the vicious social mercanaries of the elite. Recommended.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1JH5J1KQAUBMP
• Clever And Thoughtful 21 August, 2007
Roth's subject and style in his later novels has devolved into political/social/personal interrogations of post WW II America; this one is insightful, original, masterfully written, clever, and authoritative. Roth has stated the significant aspect of the novel is 'voice' and this is a perfect example of it. There are fascinating ironies in the book that entwine to develop a multi-layered novel of a variety of Americans caught up in competeting allegiances of the 1940's and 1950's. It is a study in imperfections of the left and right; the confusion of a nation whose citizens grasp after meaning whether through the studies of history; the search for financial security, the fear of the 'red scare,' the ruts that unlearned abstract thinking can lead to as well as the dangers of ideologies when championed by people with personal, unconscious agendas. Roth has the ability to write a finessed novel like Nabokov if he chose to. Thankfully, he has used his talents to create works of importance that are more than literary. Additionally, I listen to about 12-15 audiobooks a year, and Ron Silver, the actor's rendering of the New York City accent is subtle, true and utterly mesmerizing.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1SAZB83QFR0W2
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