Volume 24, Number 17 · October 27, 1977
One-Man Band
By Robert Towers
The Professor of Desire
by Philip Roth
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 263 pp., $8.95
To the charge that Philip Roth is repeating himself in his new novel, the response should be one of qualified relief: he may be going in circles but at least he's sailing in the mainstream of his talent and not stranded in those swampy backwaters from which The Great American Novel and The Breast emerged dripping mud and weeds. The weight of Roth's past performances, together with his tendency toward self-indulgent trickiness and the recurrent need to explain his intentions to his public, places an unfair burden on The Professor of Desire. If it were the first instead of the third in the series that includes Portnoy's Complaint and My Life as a Man, it would, I believe, be universally welcomed as the stylistically handsome, entertaining, and melancholy work that it is. If the book is finally disappointing, it is so because Roth fails to mount and sustain an action that is commensurate with its stylistic achievement; about two-thirds of the way along, the momentum falters, and the rest is a tour de force that is more eloquent than convincing.
Review, 3189 words
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