I married a communist by Philip Roth

One of the best books by Philip Roth that I have read - far better than “The human stain” and “Exit Ghost”.

"His skull looked so fragile and small now. Yet within it were cradled ninety of the past. There was a great deal in there. All the dead were there, for one thing, their deeds and their misdeeds converging with all the unanswerable questions, those things about which you can never be sure ... to produce for him an exacting task: to reckon fairly, to tell his story without too much error."

The book is narrated in the first person by the reclusive author Nathan Zuckerman who in turn hears a narration of a story by Murray Ringold his revered high school English teacher. But the central character of the story is Ira Ringold the younger brother of Murray who was to a large extent Nathan's adopted father. Nathan believed he was Ira's protégé but towards the end of the book he realizes it was the converse - it was Ira who was adopted by Nathan.

"How are they chosen? Through a series of accidents and through lots of will. How do they get to you, and how do you get to them? Who are they? What is it, this genealogy that isn't genetic? All were remarkable to me in their own way, personalities to contend with, mentors who embodied or espoused powerful ideas and who first taught me to navigate the world and its claims, the adopted parents who also, each in his turn, had to be cast off along with their legacy, had to disappear, thus making way for the orphanhood that is total, which is manhood. When you're out there in this thing all alone."

This is what Nathan thinks about Ira and maybe Murray too. There was a time when he revered them, he later adored them, grew skeptical of them and finally grew tired of them. That probably explains the need for narration of Ira's life by Murray as Nathan hadn't kept in touch for years. But the narration by Murray puts together the pieces of how Ira's life story unfolded the way it did or rather fell apart.

Coming from a troubled family with an abusive step father, both Murray and Ira had a rough life as youngsters. Though Murray went on to be a teacher, Ira couldn't finish school. The war changed Ira completely as he met his mentor Johnny O'Day. Both Nathan and Murray after meeting O'Day thought of him as a saint - driven solely by his convictions, his devotion to the concept of communism. This was the man who changed Ira - the uncontrolled giant who knew nothing but rage and violence, took to communism like a fervent religious convert.

Maybe that's where the problem lay with Ira - he never truly reformed himself from within; he merely swallowed the ideology to give himself an identity. An identity that gave him some comfort as the years went by. He became the host of the radio show “The free and the brave” with his pseudo name Iron Rinn. Thundering about social equity and worker's rights, he became a popular figure.

And the popularity may have soon caused his downfall. His affair with and eventual marriage to another radio star Eve Frame, was when it all began to unravel. Ira, the troubled boy, the angry teen, the fervent man now desperately sought the stability of a family. But Eve came with her own baggage, just like he did. With a daughter whom she had done her best to spoil and make completely dependent on her as she was on her daughter. With three previous marriages, each as disastrous as the previous, she almost felt the need for another disaster.

As the marriage progressed from disaster to disaster, the only positive about the union was that the marriage to Eve kept him insulated from the blacklist. A political witch hunt in those times, where anyone with any history or sign of leftist activity was the target of a purge. Just like the witch hunt of the dark ages where the goal was to grab someone's property, this witch hunt was little more than a vehicle for either political advancement or to grab someone's job.

Murray narrates how he lost his job because of his union activities and the hardships his family had to face. It took sustained litigation to get his job back. But Ira was not as lucky.

With the marriage close to falling apart, he eventually loses his job as the radio show host. Out of spite comes Eve's book “I married a communist” which paints a picture of subversive communist activity by Ira and him being a terror to Eve and her daughter. The book almost destroys him. Eventually, there is an expose of Eve which eventually destroys her.

The book beautifully captures Nathan's feelings of hopelessness as he visits Johnny O'Day in Chicago - the heart of the American industrial midwest, with O'Day fighting the lone crusade against industry crushing workers’ rights. He probably understands how he grew tired of Ira's hectoring, sounding almost like a broken record, against a man like O'Day who lived in a single room with a single bed under a 60W bulb.

"It's all error. Isn't that what you have been telling me? There's only error. There's the heart of the world. Nobody finds his life. That is life."

Maybe it also explains Nathan's reclusive life as he lives in the middle of nowhere, like a monk, with just his words for company. Murray wants to know why that is so, as they wish each other goodbye, hoping that Nathan would narrate his story to the old teacher. But that would never happen, as Murray dies soon after.

"What you see from this silent rostrum up on my mountain on a night as splendidly clear as the night he left me for good is that universe into which error does not obtrude. You see the inconceivable: the colossal spectacle of no antagonism. You see with your own eyes the vast brain of time, a galaxy of fire set by no human hand. The stars are indispensable."

Maybe that's it in the end. The stars and the infinite skies that laugh at us mortals with our silly games and feuds. A life close to them is what Nathan chose after all.