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page 120, GOODBYE COLUMBUS, by Philip Roth, Modern Libraries Edition.
Finished it moments ago. Some brilliantly accented dialog rich in sentiment. Intra-family relations forshadow Portnoy.
oy, time for library (as Neil Klugman the main character must have thought a million times no? )
and Columbus refers to the Capital of Ohio -- GOODBYE COLUMBUS is a nostalgia filled song honoring the school town . . . libraries and OHIO, what more could one want?
and a comment from the eggheads,
But back in the Patimkin house there is no relief for Neil. The wedding of Ron and Harriet offers an array of middle-aged couples that can only serve to confirm Neil's worst expectations of what the Jewish bourgeois lifestyle amounts to. Many of these people are affluent, but they have paid dearly for their success with emotional frustration, physical decay and spiritual emptiness. They are locked into their tradition of hard work, materialism and puritanism couple with a narrow-minded outlook on everything outside their own circles, and they also suffer from rigid sex rolrs where the male is the provider and the female the excessively proper housewife. There is no room in their lives for joy, passion, or any individualism except mere eccentricity.
(Page 84 of LOVE AND IDENTITY: NEIL KLUGMAN'S QUEST IN 'GOODBYE, COLUMBUS' By: Nilsen, Helge Normann. English Studies, Feb87, Vol. 68 Issue 1, p79, 10p; (AN 7087468)
hum, now an amusement:
