Now, I suppose it’s not really fair to characterize him as a recluse, but one can’t help but be just a little surprised at the level of depth in the interviews he’s giving as part of the promotion junket for his newest work, EVERYMAN. The best of the bunch comes from the LA Times’ David Ulin, who met Roth at the offices of his publisher, Houghton Mifflin, to discuss his early work, why it’s tough to watch friends and loved ones die, and why Roth scoffs at being classified as a post-modernist. “I’m the only writer in the world who doesn’t know what ‘postmodern’ means,” he declares, with a touch of indignation. “I’m not being faux naive when I say this: I have no idea what the word means. Who are the postmodernists? I don’t know who they are.”
Roth also speaks about the Library of America’s quest to collect all his works into several volumes, but the most curious thing about this project is that there’s a projected end date for the last of the eight volumes — 2013. By which point Roth will be 83 years old, and so is this some sort of clue that he won’t be writing books past that date? Or that he has some psychic insight into how long he’s actually going to live? Because if he continues his prolific output of late, maybe eight really isn’t enough…