From Bondage

Mercy of a Rude Stream #3

by Henry Roth

Henry Roth went to sleep for the last time on the evening of October 13, 1995, but not before completing this transcendent novel, which continues "one of the most poignant projects in American literature." As Tolstoy presaged his own passing in T he Death of Ivan Ilyich , Roth examines his own imminent death in the most lyrical of ways, telling the story of the elderly writer, Ira Stigman, who in spite of his physical frailties, finds solace and redemption through the re-creation of the fascinating love triangle of his youth. Capturing the dizzying vitality of the 1920s and the literary world of Manhattan, Roth has set the stage for one of the most memorable literary romances of this century.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, New York, Literary Fiction, Novels, Jewish

420 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Cyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

H. Roth was a fascinating man whose writing career was cut short by his inability to address his guilt at incest with his sister and younger niece. For an autobiographical fiction writer whose life is his work, this was nearly the end of his career. However, near his death, Roth churned out volumes of thinly-veiled fictional biography that addresses his "bondage."

From Bondage drags a bit at times, but is written in a meta fictional style with the elder writer (Ira Stigman IS Henry Roth) commenting in his youthful self as he writes that story.

This is the third of four volumes of the series, Mercy of a Rude Stream. It and the last volume were published posthumously.

Roth's vocabulary is prodigious. I found words I had never seen used before.

[Eoin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is alchemy. The subject and object of it is the difficult beauty of base and terrible things. It lives up to the work's title. Worth it for the conversations with M alone. Worth it as an answer to the question: What would James Joyce write if he grew up Jewish in New York and took on Marcel Proust's task? Worth it. Note: this book is third in the series and ought to be read in context.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The entire series is fantastic. Henry Roth writes about Ira Stigman, who is really Roth. The descriptions of the early years in NYC, on the lower east side are so real, you are transported back in time.

The series, which runs from Henry (Ira) as a child, to a young man and, finally, an elderly one, is a vicarious trip through his life. And an exciting, inspiring trip it is. You can't help but love the man, though he is a far from perfect one. As a writer, however, he is perfect.

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volumes one and two—A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park and A Diving Rock on the Hudson—were revelations, and I was eager to follow up with volumes three and four (which I hadn’t known existed). Volume three, From Bondage, continues to explore Roth’s persona’s relation with his past and the fiction of his past (and even the present). It sounds like a complex of layers, but the reading is clear and straightforward, even the digressive interludes where Roth’s in-the-present authorial persona is describing his present or his musings on the proper representation of his memories.

Roth continues the story of young Ira Stigman, now a college student in the company of mentors and friends whose lives and words advance his notions of the possible. In A Diving Rock on the Hudson, Roth twice alluded to Blake’s “mind-forged manacles” to describe the limitations young Ira Stigman imposes on himself, even as he begins to widen his thoughts and ken more than his Jewish-immigrant upbringing. In this third volume’s subtitle—From Bondage—we gather that Ira is becoming more aware and slipping off those mind-forged manacles.

However, Ira’s progress is not so clearly divided into stages, and this volume only incrementally shows the breaking of shackles, a process which only appears to become complete in volume four, Requiem for Harlem, when Ira at last moves away from his Harlem home to live with a college professor in her Greenwich Village flat.

In this volume, Ira’s friendship with the handsome, polished Larry Gordon begins to fray as each vies for the attentions of poet, critic, and professor Edith Welles. Ira continues to dwell on the abomination of his relations with both sister and cousin, and he is certain that these perversions of love will taint any normal relationship. However, the progress towards winning Edith’s affections and consummating a normal sexual relationship moves at a glacial pace, and even in volume 4, Requiem for Harlem, at the close of the novel, this is still only an intimation.

What keeps this novel moving is the interplay between the lively, well-crafted scenes of late 20s/early 30s NYC and the scenes of present-day Henry/Ira crafting his so-called novel in the mid- to late 80s. This interplay heightens for me one of the series’ greatest strengths, its evocation of the role of memory in shaping a person and his personality. Two other ongoing issues that kept me piqued were Roth’s present-day disaffection with Joyce (though Ulysses’ style was the basis for Roth’s 1934 novel Call It Sleep), and the prospect of seeing Ira become the author of Call It Sleep.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incest angle is less in this volume, but still present. Still is jarring and some how out of place with the rest of the novel. Despite that I like these books

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

GAN: Great American Novel

FGAN: Fuckin' Great American Novel

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

"It was language that elevated meanness to the heights of art. Like the irritating particle that bred the nacre of the pearl, language ameliorated the gnawing irritant of existence; it interceded between the wound and the dream".

This is BRILLIANT writing. The flow of words out of Henry Roth's pen is exhilarating and a gift to those of us who love books. Unfortunately, the subject matter is about himself, so...boring.

The semi-autobiographical novel takes place in '30s New York. The Jewish immigrant experience jumps from the pages. Masterful in that regard alone. Ira Stigman, our narrator, is a thinly veiled Henry Roth. The book goes back and forth from the alone and dying Ira, writing down an account of his time as a college student, where life was filled with literary passions and an obsession with sex. As a young man, he was involved in a strange obsession with a friend and elder lover. This weird menage occupies a lot of the book and is ultimately boring. And then there is his "bondage", which he says he wants to escape from. It is the ugly secret of his incest with his sister and under-age cousin. And as much as Ira pretends to deplore his depravity and hope for normalcy in his sexual relations, he keeps going back for more.

Ira (Henry) is a user. A user and predator. He uses people and relationships to fill HIS needs. He schemes, he lies, he is strategic. Ugh, people like that are so tedious and now I am spending 400 pages with this creep? His sister and cousin are there for his sexual satisfaction, and he weeps and moans about his bondage to incest, more concerned how these depraved acts may condemn HIM as corrupt and evil rather than expressing any concern of how his actions may be harming these young girls/women in his family. His friends are there to be used for "literary material". In essence, Ira (Henry) is a parasite. And the fact that he can tell us about it in beautiful, exciting prose, does not make the reading experience any better for me.

Art has been an excuse for bad behaviour forever. Yawn. I call bullshit to that. Reading about a self-serving, sex-obsessed white dude who writes beautifully, is just not my jam. Even if that dude produces some of the most magnificent and sparkling prose and has some brilliant literary insights.

This is Henry Roth's love letter to himself. A beautifully written justification for his life of predation.
Nah.

[Gelo · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good book. Would probably haven appreciated it more if I read it in context. This is the third out of four volumes.