Philip Roth – ‘life in all its shameless impurity’

Philip Roth, who has just died, became known as one of the best writers of the 20^th Century, after a controversial early novel Portnoy’s Complaint. It saw him labelled as a Jewish anti-Semite and literature’s dirtiest old man. A recent novel American Pastoral won the Pulitzer. He saw himself as a chronicler of American life in ‘all its shameless impurity.’

Born 19 March 1933 1am Newark New Jersey, he spent most of his life as an academic and writer after a stint in the army. He was married twice, latterly to actress Clare Bloom.

He had a 3^rd house Sun Venus in Pisces and Mercury in Aries – quick-witted, intelligent, a good communicator; with Mars Neptune Jupiter in Virgo in the communicative/publishing 9^th house, which would give him a philosophical slant. 9^th house tends to be interested in society and what motivates it.

His Sun was trine an influential and deep thinking 8^th house Pluto. He also had an unaspected Saturn in Aquarius; and a Capricorn Moon square Mercury, trine Mars. An unaspected Saturn can incline to solitude and be disinterested in anything that lies beyond the sphere of the individual’s interest. He also had a changeable 4^th house Uranus square Pluto.

It’s not a chart that hangs together well. Except in his 21^st Harmonic, associated with great writers – it has a powerful Neptune Saturn opposition Jupiter square Pluto widely opposition Mars; with Sun trine Neptune Saturn and opposition Venus. Writing was what brought his life together and gave him focus.