The Prague Orgy (1985) and Zuckerman Bound (1985)

Finished! After reading the three novels and novella that make up Philip Roth's Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy & Epilogue, I sort of feel like this has turned into the Nathan Zuckerman blog. 800 pages of masculine Jewish angstiness is kind of a lot all at once, and it might have been a better plan to break up these novels with a palette cleansing pulpy something between each onslaught.

The final entry in this batch of Zuckerman books (Roth wrote five more, most recently 2007's Exit Ghost, which he says is the last one) is The Prague Orgy (1985), an epistolary novella that has our hero meeting a gregarious Jewish Czech exile in New York. The Czech is also a writer, and is traveling with a beautiful and sad Czech actress. After a bit of conversation and quite a few drinks, Zuckerman is set on a quest to Prague to try and get the Yiddish manuscripts written by the author's martyred father (killed by the Nazis) away from his beautiful and sad (and a bit crazy) estranged wife, Olga.

Once in Prague, Zuckerman soon finds himself in the cynical and depraved world of a group of Czech intellectuals who are consistently repressed and constantly spied upon by the Communist government and their fellow citizens. Their most satisfying activity appears to be having sex, asking to have sex, and talking about having sex, so Zuckerman fits right in. Zuckerman quickly finds Olga, and she admits to having the manuscripts, but will Zuckerman have sex with her? And why does the doorman in the hotel act so oddly?

The novella provides a partial respite from the inside of Zuckerman's mind, which has been extensively explored in the three previous novels (especially The Anatomy Lesson) and nicely explores some of Roth's common themes including fame, the social responsibility of an author, and sex.

Although it was a bit tiring at times, I did really enjoy this group of novels (again, especially The Anatomy Lesson), and I plan to read some more Zuckerman (and other Roth) soon, although I think I'll give it a little time before I jump in.

[All my Zuckerman reviews can be found here.]