I1 be more accurate than the vision I of Tristero?compare the Dubya ! years?but it'shardly news. I For someone notoriously reclu , sive, Pynchon has made consider able effort to hype the new novel, , voicing over a promotional video 1 and releasing a playlist of songs i mentioned, downloads available 1 from Amazon.com?not, from a i jazz-lover's point of view, a keep ] er in the lot. Years ago I heard a ? rumor thatPynchon tried tohalt the I release of Lot 49 because he thought 1 itwasn't good enough. Now he's 1 pushing a far worse book in as 1 many media as he doesn't have to 1 face, j Robert Murray Davis 1 University ofOklahoma I? Philip Roth. The Humbling. Boston / , New York.Houghton MifflinHarcourt. 1 2009. 160 pages. $22. isbn 978-0-547 I 23969-9 i A reader looking forward to a new j Philip Roth novel (this is his thir tieth) is forced to ponder whether i the newest of these very slim Roth once again feel like a parody of earlier, more vibrant and complex novels and characters. Could Every man, Indignation, and now, The Hum bling, simply be abbreviated medi tations on what itmeans to be a contemporary man, once vital and vibrant,moving inexorably toward inevitable destruction? Or could these characters, named or name less, be stripped-down ideas of what might have been had Nathan Zuckerman and "Swede" Levov not been explored, contextual ized, and fully fleshed out? Whatever the answer, the reader misses the rounded charactersRoth has so long been capable of delineating Simon Axler in The Humbling is the latest ofRoth's less than successful sketch es. A once famous and talented actorwho has lost his nerve, Axler, emotionally paralyzed and close to self-destruction as a result of his lost power, seeks to isolate him self, first in a mental hospital and then in his country house. These sites become thevenues forAxler's adventures, small triumphs, and eventual demise. In a sense, this is a novella of potency and agency recovered and restored, although not in the sensemost readersmight expect. Of course, there isplenty of sexual fris son?and Roth stillhas the skill to create scenes that resonate with the reader. But there ismuch that lends itself to parody?the lesbian made heterosexual, at least for a while, by themuch older man who is a friendofher parents; theolder lover who likens himself to Pygmalion; the love triangle (man and woman vying forthe same woman); and the "artist"who is blocked and moans tohis agent, "Okay, all right,I have amodicum of talentor I can at least imitatea talented person. But it was all a fluke, Jerry, a fluke that talent was given tome, a fluke that it was = taken away. This life is a fluke from = start to finish." = Sadly, even the sex scenes = here have a certain affectless qual- = itybecause they are not essential- = ly connected with the characters. = There is a paint-by-numbers qual- = ity,and although Roth's prose has = its moments of sparkling clarity = and humor, the characters, aside = fromAxler, are rarelymore than = cartoons. = It is fairly difficult to shock = readers these days?the era of Port- = noy is long gone?and child sexual = abuse, salty language, or even green = dildos won't raise too many eye- = brows or libidos. Unfortunately, = even forRoth aficionados, the eye- = balls under thosebrows are liable to = involuntarily roll at the clich?s that = abound inTheHumbling. = Rita D. Jacobs = Montclair StateUniversity = Telf-Taies4; The Global Village. Court- = tia Newland & Monique Roffey,ed. = Leeds, England. Peepal Tree. 2009.212| pages. ?8.99. isbn978-1 -84523-079-1| Tell Tales volumes are published = by a UK-based arts collective spon- E sored by theArts Council of Eng- E land committed to promoting the E literaryformof the short story and E providing a forum for established E and emerging short-storywriters. ? The Tell Tales series attempts to = address thisneglect, and evidenced E by the twenty-six stories in the E fourthvolume, the result isa mixed E bag. There -are a few exceptionally E well-written storieswith fascinating E characters and events that stick in E...