Archive for January 7, 2011
THE COUNTERLIFE by Philip Roth
Long though it is, this quotation sums up just about everything about Roth’s magnificent novel of 1976: its strange title, its grand theme, its somewhat simplistic view of history, and its humor that jumps cheerfully into offensive self-mockery. A long section of the novel takes place in Israel shortly after the Yom Kippur War, when the stereotypes were indeed being turned on their heads, and conversely significant criticism of the state was beginning to be heard from the West. But Roth’s principal subject is not the engaged Jews who assert their selfhood either through Zionism or religion, but the countless secular Jews like himself, living securely in a distant country; how do they establish their identity, especially in mid-life when the question of “Is this really all I am?” typically arises.
January 7, 2011
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Judi Clark В· 
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Tags: 20th-Century, Around-the-World, Jewishness, Literary В· Posted in: Award Winning Author, Contemporary, Identity, Israel, Literary, National Book Critic Circle (NBCC), Time Period Fiction
