“the agitation of the autobiographical”: National Politics and Aesthetic Autonomy in Philip Roth'sExit Ghost

Abstract

Through a close reading of Exit Ghost, this paper examines in a fresh manner the conflicts between notions of authorial context and autonomous literary creativity that dominate not just this novel, but all of Roth's works. In particular, I will look at how Exit Ghost reprises the antagonism and confusion that has existed between disinterested notions of authorial self-effacement and forms of autobiographical self-exposure within Zuckerman's (and Roth's) writing. By exploring how the fraught relationship between Zuckerman's private self and his publicly accessible body of fiction has been closely tied to his more youthful erotic adventures in earlier novels, I will discuss in detail the significance of the eviscerating impact of old age and impotence that he endures in Exit Ghost. In addition, I will discuss these complex issues of desire and authorship in the context of Roth's creative treatment of the Bush/Kerry Presidential election of 2004 in Exit Ghost. I will look at how the presence, albeit marginal, of such large-scale political events in this novel provides an interesting insight into the tangled intersection between literature and the raw “facts” of American history in Roth's fiction.