Anger and indignation are not equivalent; whereas anger might constitute nothing more than a strong but temporary displeasure, indignation unrelentingly stresses the extreme injustice of whatever or whomever has wronged the indignant. This specific kind of fury resonates at the core of Philip Roth's newest novel, "Indignation."
Few living American novelists can boast as prolific and as celebrated a career as Roth. His 1997 novel, "American Pastoral," earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; he has twice won the National Book Award; and Roth is the only writer to win the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction three times. Among his most famous and beloved works are "Portnoy's Complaint" (1969), "Sabbath's Theater" (1995), "The Human Stain" (2000), "The Plot Against America" (2004) and "Everyman" (2006). "Indignation," published Sept. 16, is Roth's 29th novel.
Set in the year 1951, Roth's new novel centers on the story of Marcus Messner, a young, diligent student at a college in Newark, N.J. His father, a Kosher butcher for whom Messner has a great deal of love and respect, irrationally questions his son's whereabouts and incessantly worries about his safety, concerns compounded by the threat of the Korean War. Oppressed and longing to get as far away from his father as possible, Messner transfers to rural Winesburg College in Ohio. There, though determined to do nothing more than study, Messner must confront even more interpersonal conflicts, including his perplexing relationship with the psychologically wounded beauty, Olivia Hutton, the fraternities that want to make him an unwilling member and his inability to live with any of his roommates.
An explosive altercation between Messner and Winesburg's Dean Caudwell -- arguably the climax of the book -- propels the novel through its devastating conclusion; a snowball fight escalates into a drunken riot and a large group of male students storm the girls' dormitories in a mass panty raid. The subsequent expulsions expose a great number of young men, including Messner, to the draft and the horrors of the Korean War.
One of the most interesting aspects of Roth's new novel -- this is not a spoiler, as the information is revealed quite early on -- is the narrator's death. Following his expulsion from Winesburg, Marcus is drafted into the Korean War where he dies. About a quarter of the way through "Indignation," Messner reveals himself as a disembodied voice suspended in what he believes to be some kind of afterlife, but what is actually an emulsion of morphine and memory, a prelude to his death in the war. It is in this seemingly timeless space -- one which brings to mind the works of Samuel Beckett -- that the story unfolds, constituting a successful technique on Roth's part.
Roth's novel also draws strength from the manner in which he explores the theme of indignation, largely by creating parallels and echoes in his characters. Messner, both his parents, the dean and president of Winesburg College and the entire student body itself all experience justified anger in different ways. Through their anger, through its repression and its release, Roth simultaneously examines the consequences of intellectual and social oppression, of oblivion to the world at large and the drastic consequences of seemingly benign, insignificant choices.
Messner aside, several characters come across more as caricatures or devices by which the author could achieve his purposes, rather than as genuine representations of human individuals. Consider, for instance, the character of Hutton: a slender girl, ethereally pale, with dark hair and a brilliant but eccentric mind. Not only are there several clichés at work here (think indie films), but she seems almost the daguerreotype of a hauntingly alluring woman in an Edgar Allen Poe story.
Additionally, for the great majority of the novel, instead of intimately exploring Messner's irrational and obsessive paranoia, Roth reports his behavior to us through other characters' perceptions; explanations for the father's fear are offered briefly but never developed. There are a few others as well, who, while perhaps possessing thematic importance, fail as true characters. Furthermore, the rapid and somewhat implausible denouement risks imparting to the reader a sense of undue haste, as though Roth did not have the patience to fully elaborate his protagonist's undoing.
"Indignation" may not be one of Roth's masterpieces, but the work is still a highly enjoyable read with an interesting narrator and themes of great importance particularly relevant to our generation.
