indignation

"Indignation" is part of that rarefied class of words that manages to evoke emotions beyond its literal meaning. With this powerfully evocative title, Philip Roth's new novel succeeds before it begins and only gets stronger from there.

Indignation is narrated by Marcus Messner, the book's consistently baffled-and doomed-protagonist. He reveals his fate before page 50, and the rest of the plot is an accelerating race towards his inevitable destruction, centered at the fictional Winesburg College in Ohio. This is a work of Philip Roth, and as such one can mostly predict Marcus' traits and behavior: he's Jewish, he's an overachiever, he's from Newark and his family tortures him.

Roth has made an art form out of this archetype. Although Marcus falls marginally short of the titanic Swede, manic Alexander Portnoy and canny Nathan Zuckerman in terms of sheer polish, he more than holds his own against the other, inferior protagonists of innumerable bildungsromans tossed off since Holden Caulfield wandered around New York in 1951.

However, to label Indignation itself a bildungsroman would be inaccurate. Marcus doesn't come of age over the course of the novel; he never comes of age, as he makes clear frequently and emphatically. Rather, the book is a psychological exploration not only of Messner, but also the Newark culture from which he emerges and the Protestant Midwest to which he immigrates.

Roth's writing is stellar, with his knack for characterization and his evocative settings on full display. And despite the weighty subject matter, Indignation is hilarious, populated by a lunatic ensemble and marked by events like the "Great White Panty Raid" and a debased debauching of Marcus' dorm room and possessions by a former roommate. The book is vintage Roth and a solid gateway into the mind of the man who may be America's greatest living author.

Although not his best novel, Indignation does not disappoint, and anyone seeking to better understand America's collective consciousness owes it to him or herself to give Roth's work a look.