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Philip Roth and the Jews PDF

336 Pages·1996·5.9 MB·English
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PHILIP ROTH AND THE JEWS I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I PHILIP ROTH AND THE JEWS ALAN COOPER STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS SUNY SERIES IN MODERN JEWISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE SARAH BLACHER COHEN, EDITOR Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 1996 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New Yark Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246 Production by E. Moore Marketing by Fran Keneston Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cooper, Alan, 1932- Philip Roth and the Jews I Alan Cooper. p. cm. - (SUNY series in modem Jewish literature and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-2909-1 (HC : acid free). - ISBN 0-7914-2910-5 (PB : acid free) 1. Roth, Philip-Criticism and interpretation. 2. Jewish fiction -History and criticism. 3. Roth, Philip-Characters-Jews. 4. Roth, Philip-Religion. 5. Judaism in literature. 6. Jews in literature. 1. Title. II. Series. PS3568.0855Z62 1996 813' .54-dc20 95-19591 CIP 1098765432 FOR ROBERT Is it me? Is it me Me Me Me Me! It has to be me-but is it? -Ozzie Freedman, "Conversion of the Jews" . . . to be raised as a post-immigrant Jew in America was to be given a ticket out of the ghetto into a wholly unconstrained world of thought. Without an old-country link and a strangling church like the Italians, or the Irish, or the Poles, without generations of American forebears to bind you to American life, or blind you by your loyalty to its deformities, you could read whatever you wanted and write however and whatever you pleased. Alienated? Just another way to say "Set free!" A Jew set free even from Jews-yet only by steadily maintaining se~f-consciousness as a Jew. That was the thrilling paradoxical kicker. -Nathan Zuckerman, The Anatomy Lesson You think in the Diaspora it's normal? Come live here. [Israel] is the homeland ofJ ewish abnormality. Worse: now we are the dependent Jews, on your money, your lobby, on our big allowance from Uncle Sam, while you are the Jews living interesting lives, comfortable lives, without apology, without shame, and peifectly independent ... We are the excitable, ghettoized, jittery little Jews of the Diaspora, and you are the Jews with all the confidence and cultivation that comes offeeling at home where you are. -Shuki Elchanan, The Counterlife CONTENTS Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii 1. The Ironic and the Irate 2. Starting Out 24 3. Biography versus the Biographical 51 4. Duty before Rage 72 5. The Alex Perplex 94 6. Absurdities: Post-Portnoy Seventies 125 7. The Most Offensive Piece Roth Ever Wrote 140 8. Watershed 158 9. Zuckerman Bound 179 10. Zuckerroth 210 11. Operation Shylock 252 12. Master Baiter: Sabbath's Theater 281 ix

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In a style richly accessible to the general reader, this book presents Roth's secular Jewishness, with its own mysteries and humor, as most representative of the American Jewish experience. Thirty years into his career as a writer, Philip Roth remains known to most readers as a self-hating Jew or a
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