A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park

Mercy of a Rude Stream #1

by Henry Roth

Mercy of a Rude Stream marks the astonishing return of Henry Roth, sixty years after the publication of his classic novel Call it Sleep . A book of time, memory, and desire, this new novel is set in the New York of World War a colorful vibrant, carelessly brutal city where an immigrant boy, Ira Stigmanm is coming of age. Like Joyce's Stephen Dedalus, Ira begins to discover the genius and the burden of his imagination, as he takes his first tentative steps toward adulthood.

A contempoary of the great modernist writers, Roth is being rediscovered by a new generation of readers.

Genres: Fiction, American, Jewish, Novels, Literature, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction

285 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Martin Olesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roth vividly recreates the world of his childhood growing up in a Harlem that was an ethnic patchwork at the turn of the 20th Century. However, the overall tone of the book is both bitter and sour. While there are some light-hearted moments and some sympathetic characters, not including the child protagonist who is a confused, angry and belligerent boy albeit with some reason, most of the characters are unpleasant and most of the events are the same. Added to the confusion are the author's flash-forwards to his old age in the 1980s.

[Frabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry Roth, scrittore ebreo americano nato nel 1906 da famiglia di origini galiziane, scrisse in gioventù un solo romanzo, “Call It Sleep” / “Chiamalo sonno” (1934): poi, per molti decenni, (quasi) più nulla. Riprese a scrivere intensamente in età avanzata, lavorando ad un ampio progetto narrativo denominato “Alla mercé di una brutale corrente”, costituito da quattro romanzi concatenati ad alta componente autobiografica da pubblicare, secondo le intenzioni originarie, post mortem - anche per via di certi contenuti forti per i quali l’autore prevedeva spiacevoli reazioni. In realtà, un primo frammento anticipatorio dell’opera - questo, di appena un centinaio di pagine - e due dei quattro romanzi videro la luce entro il 1995, anno della morte di Roth.
Qui lo scrittore inizia a raccontare, proiettandole sul protagonista Ira Stigman, le sue esperienze di ragazzino ebreo nel quartiere di Harlem, New York, a forte componente irlandese: giusto un centinaio di anni fa. Un avvio interessante, caratterizzato da buona scrittura, molto realismo, e pure qualche stacco per colloquiare con il computer, utilizzato nella stesura anche per via di mani mal ridotte dall’artrite reumatoide.
Anni fa mi regalarono “Una roccia per tuffarsi nell’Hudson”, il secondo dei quattro romanzi di “Alla mercé di una brutale corrente”: non sapevo nulla di quanto sopra e quel che ricordo è una buona lettura, con dei passaggi piccanti, ricorrenti, nei quali l’adolescente protagonista Ira Stigman “peccava” - diciamo così -, senza ritegno alcuno, con la sorella…

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intermittently interesting autobiographical novel of growing up Jewish in New York City in the early years of the 20th century. The interpolations of the older author talking to, I guess, his computer, about his difficulty in remembering the events was a pretty stupid idea, one that the editors should have deep sixed; I can see no way it improved the story. Overall the impression of life in the Harlem slums before the area was taken over by the schvartzes is interesting, but not revelatory. The scenes at the end working in the department store basement begin well, but then the silly catalogue of stuff people buy to be delivered gets tedious. A disappointing read, that I wanted early on to give up on, but I am not all that pleased that I didn't, and soldiered on to the end.

[Álvaro Vivanco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Después de leer Call it sleep esperaba algo más de Henry Roth.

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was only after fifty years had passed since the publication of his first novel, Call it Sleep, in 1934—and burning his second novel before it was to be published in 1938—that Roth began to wrestle with another novel, which he came to envisage as a six-volume narrative, Mercy of a Rude Stream. By the time he died in 1995, however, only four of the projected six volumes were finished, and the remaining notes and scraps (over 1700 pages) were edited/distilled into a single volume, An American Life, published in 2010.

I knew none of this when I undertook to read volume 1. I saw there was a second volume, so I read it immediately, but I was still unaware of volumes 3 and 4 till I’d finished reading volume 2. The story of Ira Stigman is Henry Roth’s story, very autobiographical, but this chronicle of the past is also an account of what measures he takes as a writer to shape the flotsam of the past in order to attain some meaning in the meanderings of his life.

The title is a clever appropriation from Shakespeare, when he has Henry VIII speak of being once on a sea of glory, but now, pride deflated and barely afloat, he is carried on by the mercy of a rude stream. The author himself quibbles at the very first about the aptness of this metaphor, and the tone of the book is set: the author recreating passages in his early youth—transforming himself into the character Ira Stigman, who like himself was born in 1906 in Galicia and was raised as a child by his immigrant Jewish parents in various locales in NYC—then kvetching about, even reneging on that portrayal as not being honest enough.

I found compelling the old man’s quest to reformulate his past, to understand the significance of his memories, to conjure with his skills something of substance and aesthetic merit, to understand his life. Roth is able to render vividly scenes and exchanges with friends, family, and school and work mates, and there are skillful evocations of pre- and post-WWI NYC settings. These are posted in a beguiling sequence, but at each posting there is demurral, doubt, and extenuation about what he is at the moment doing to render the past. I can imagine many readers finding fault with the postmodern authorial interventionism, wondering why Roth doesn’t simply get on with telling the story straight…

My pleasure in the book is that Roth is both recollecting and creating, and he is sharing the process with his readers. The interpolative writer “Roth”—alongside his sidekick Ecclesias—is itself a persona, but this writerly persona attains my confidence almost effortlessly, and I trust that he is not only the person creating (re-creating) the life of Ira Stigman, but that he is also the character of Ira Stigman. I believe (in) Roth’s efforts to explain his efforts, and I came to view during my reading that his exposing himself via different personae inhabiting different eras is akin to my own muddled thinking about what it is to know myself.

While I’ve just finished volumes 1 and 2 of the four-volume series, I am currently awaiting arrival of volumes 3 and 4. Depending on how long I wait for them to arrive—because I find Roth’s narrative and his account of his joinery so congenial—I may end up re-reading both 1 and 2 in order to read all without intermission.

[David Massey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was ultimately disappointing. It’s interesting, but it leads nowhere. It’s formless. However, it is probably unfair to judge this book on its own: it is only the first volume of a multi-volume novel called Mercy of a Rude Stream, and that mercy has not had a chance to reveal itself yet except in the beneficent influence of the narrator’s wife on his self-image. Henry Roth is in any event a talented writer, one to be reckoned with in any discussion of 20th century American literature. A Star Shines over Mt. Morris Park displays Roth’s talents well and entices one to read further in the story of Ira Stigman, just as one is pulled from volume to volume of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. I would recommend this book despite its anticlimactic close.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great follow-up to Call It Sleep, not as good as Roth's much-earlier first novel, but definitely worth a read. Some of the references are dated, and therefore a little hard to follow. Overall, this picture of early 20th century New York is a richly colored work of historical fiction.

[Maria]

ffff bastante flojillo e…. los presentes no aportan nada……no ha dicho prácticamente nada en general un poco bajón pero bueno me quedan 3 de los cuatro libros todavía

[Rosalind · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of personal historic interest to me. My mother's family lived in Harlem near Mt. Morris Park. Found it all very interesting and well written. Wonderful passages about the young writer's love of words, books, and the the problem of "how do you say it". Lends itself to comparison with writing by other more recent immigrants.

A favorite passage; "And he passes below the hill on Mt. Morris Park in autumn twilight, with the evening star in the west in limpid sky above the wooden bell tower. And so beautiful it was; a rapture to behold. It set him a problem he never dreamed anyone set himself. How do you say it? Before the pale blue twilight left your eyes you had to say it, use words that said it; blue, indigo, blue, indigo. Words that matched, matched that swimming star above the hill and the tower; what words matched it? Lonely and swimming star above the hill. Not twinkling, nah, twinkle, twinkle, little star - those words belonged to someone else. You had it match it yourself; swimming in the blue tide you could say...maybe. Like that bluing Mom rises white shirts in. Nah, you couldn't say that...How clear it is. One star shines over Mt. Morris Park hill. And its getting dark, and its getting cold - Gee, if instead of cold, I said chill. A star sines over Mt. Morris Park hill. And its getting dark, and its getting chilll..." Ira at 11 years old.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

While billed as fiction, the main character in this novel, the first part of Henry Roth's tetralogy Mercy of a Rude Stream, is clearly based upon the author. We follow young Ira Stigman from his family's move from the Jewish East Village to an Irish and Italian section of Harlem in 1914. From ages nine thru 14 we see him struggle to find his place as a disliked minority, to deal with his abusive father and his mother's large extended family of fresh-of-the-boat immigrants. World War I serves as a backdrop but really this is a coming of age story as Ira learns more about the world and his place in it. (I did think it was pretty funny to be reading a barely-disguised autobiographical novel by another Jewish author named Roth!)

[casually_20th_century · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 / 5

[William Shoemaker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a great read, but an essential introduction to the MORS series, a look at the creative birth of a genius, possibly the only of its kind in the modern era.

Roth grew up in Harlem, spent eight years writing the most artistically accomplished novel ever produced by an American, and then quit writing for almost 50 years. That's some shit if I ever hoid it.

Read this book, and then read the rest of MORS.

[Eoin · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you overcome 45 years of writer's block? Thoroughly, it is evident. Though not quite as spectacular as his first masterpiece, Mercy of a Rude Stream, insofar as the first volume of four published, two tba, is a finely made, cuttingly honest sequel. If you are willing to find the beauty in growing old and an impoverished youth, this is the book for you.

[Lezidezi Higgins · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very slow to begin with and although it did get better toward the end it was still kind of boring. I didn't like the present tense parts at all and felt them to be very unnecessary, confusing, and the author trying somehow to make this more than what it was.

[Peggy Aylsworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting novel based on Henry Roth's childhood in New York City.
There is ethnic flavor...as well as the pains of prejudice.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the second book first so I wanted to complete the set. This gave new insights to what I read in the second.

[Michann]

Recommended for historical background on my neighborhood in Harlem.

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

MEH NEEDS MOAR INCEST