Main Characters in Three Novels

On first meeting him, we might consider James Page in Gardner's novel to be a completely cynical and rageful man with no redemptive qualities whatsoever. As Gardner paints him at the beginning of the novel, Page is a man we would probably not like to meet, much less spend over four hundred pages reading about. Page is shown to be a man who has lived most of his life, has learned to be distrustful of everybody and everything, and is not about to change his ways for anybody or anything. He has blasted his sister's television for reasons which essentially comprise his views on life. He had shot it

for its endless, simpering advertising and, worse yet, its monstrousl

. . .
In other words, the story of Henry Zuckerman is the story of a man not only trying to discover his own reality, but also trying to salvage that not-yet-fully-discovered reality from the distortions of his brother's books. The book itself is a hunt for reality. As with James Page, Henry Zuckerman is an angry man. At Nathan's funeral, Henry sits fuming as an editor of his brother's extols Nathan for writing a book which exposed the family's darkest secrets: The thing that drove our family apart, thought Henry, is here being enshrined---that was designed to destroy our family. . . . Here they all sat, thinking, "wasn't it brave of Nathan, wasn't it daring to be so madly aggressive and undress and vandalize a Jewish family in public," but none of them, for that "daring," had to pay a goddamn dime (Roth 235). The question is, is Henry only angry at Nathan, or also, even primarily, jealous for his success and his "courage" in exposing the family. For all his apparent self-knowing, however, Henry is a repressed individual who grates on the reader much more than the outright obnoxious James Page. James Page is a character who lives every moment to the fullest, despite his gross character shortcomings. Henry is a much more civilize
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Henry Zuckerman, James Page, Roth's Counterlife, Page Gardner's, James Page---who, Todd Andrews, James Gardner, Floating Opera, James James, james page, Page James, henry zuckerman, life death, floating opera, todd andrews, repressed henry zuckerman, philosophy life, reality life, passion opposed, gardner's book, son's suicide, james page james, philip roth's counterlife, barth's floating opera, john barth's floating,
Approximate Word count = 2171
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Main Characters in Three Novels