Blog only! How does Roth maintain the reader's sympathetic identification with Nathan, despite his faults?

Does Lonoff weigh down the story (as well as his wife)?

Is there too much thematic material here for a novel of this length?

Is The Ghost Writer a comic novel?

Does the "artist ha[ve] a responsibility to his fellow man, to the society in which he lives, and to the cause of truth & justice (p. 101)?"

Is Amy actually Anne Frank? If not, does she think she is, or try to make others think so?

More erudite contribution

This from the friend I emailed for commentary last night as we spoke:

Nietzsche is one of the most intriguing and provocative thinkers ever, and he ismuch too complex to answer that question briefly and summarily. I will need toaddres this at greater length to do it justice, i think. However, in anutshell, there is ambiguity in Nietzsche, I think, because he was trying toassassinate Religion (God) and couldn't quite bring himself to do that. Hedeclared Theism (the worship of a divinity figure) "dead," but then turnedaround and entertained an escape hatch from the utterly desolate Universe bysuggesting that the Universe endlessly recycles, and by giving Man the hope offashioning an ethical Universe in "his" image (instead of "His" image).Furthermore, he deified "egoism" of Homo negotiander's evolved capabilities indismissing egalitarianist moralities in favor of pure nonsentimentalizedstriving and assertion of actualized potential. You could consider that a"Darwinian" spin. Acrually, coincidentally, I am going to give a paper on this topic on August 6in Toronto at the American Psychological Association Convention. I will use the1932 Freud-Einstein exchange of letters to discuss Darwin and Nietzsche. Hereis the blurb I put together last November (see Attachment) to capsulize thetopic. If you are interested, I have a superb paper (about 30 pages) by a brilliantcontemporary Nietzschean artist who is among my fondest commentators.

Nietzsche

As someone else put it at the end of group tonight, "G-d is dead" presumes he ever existed. Do "atheists" believe that g-d ever existed? I hadn't thought so. Anyway, I found this online:

Is Nietzsche's "God is dead" misunderstood?
Many people don't seem to realise that Nietzsche's "God is dead" speech was directed at atheists. The point is that if you "kill" God, what then? If you destroy that which was most holy, the fulcrum of belief of billions of people, do you just shrug your shoulders and declare yourself to be a liberal humanist like Richard Dawkins? Dawkins would have nauseated Nietzsche with his bland and banal statements about "morality". Nietzsche's position was that if you kill God you must live up to that astounding act by doing astounding things yourself. "We are the new, the unique, the incomparable, those who impose on themselves their own law, those who create themselves," he said.God is the creator and if we kill him we must become creators in his place. In fact we must become gods in God's place to justify our assassination of him. In short, we must become ubermenschen. Can anyone seriously imagine that a world of atheist ubermenschen would in any way resemble a world of Dawkins-style atheists?So, where do others stand on the Nietzsche/Dawkins atheist spectrum?Do you believe, like Dawkins, in God without God (liberal humanism is morally indistinguishable from Christianity hence can be described as "God without God"). Or do you believe in creating new values, challenging all conventions, proposing radical new moralities - like Nietzsche.How about a new book: The Liberal Humanism Delusion? Or is that too radical for the likes of Dawkins?

I have heard read Dawkins and heard him speak: sounded to me as if he had created an anti-religion religion of his own.

Why does Nietzsche present his message in the form of a story or parable?

What difference does it make for "going under" that Zarathustra's astronomy is off (pp. 79-80), as Nietzsche presumably knew?

Is the spirit that assumes great trials and burdens, like a camel that speeds into its own desert, that of the last man?

If the power of praising and censuring have been the work of lovers and creators, why is it a monster that must be conquered?

Is the overman biologically different from the herd of humanity?

Are there overmen today? How about last men? Any such thing as overwoman?