Complicating Constructions: Race, Ethnicity, and Hybridity in American Texts

12. Portnoy's Neglected Siblings: A Case for Postmodern Jewish American Literary Studies

12 Portnoy's Neglected Siblings A Casefor PostmodernJewish American Literary Studies DEREK PARKER ROYAL EWISH AMERICAN FICTION HOLDS A CURIOUS place in contemporary literary studies. During the 1950S and 1960s it established a dominant position not only within ethnic literary studies, but within postwar American literature as a whole. Much as Americans in the postwar periodwere migrating from the dties to the suburbs, many Jewish American writers were shifting their focus from theconfines oftheirethniccommunities tothelargerrealms ofthe national culture. Unlike earlier writers such as Abraham Cahan. Henry Roth, Anzia Yezierska, Michael Gold, and Sholem Asch. these second- and third-generation Jewish writers concerned themselves not so much with the Eastern European flavors of the Lower East Side as with the uptown savvy of Manhattan. the quiet suburbs of New York and New Jersey, the midwestern sprawl of Chicago, and even the pop culture capitals of Hollywood and Disney World. Their literary reputations migrated in a similar fashion. In the 1970S both Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer received the Nobel Prize for literature. And according to Raymond Mazurek, in his survey during the late 1980s of contemporaryliteraturecourses taught throughout the country, Bellow, Joseph Heller. Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, and Bernard Malamud all ranked within the top fifteen ofthe most significant or the most taught novelists. Twentieth-century Jewish American writers had definitely established a formidable canonical presence. Atthe sametime, this canonical status mayhavehelpedto stifle Jew. ish AmeriCan literary studies in certain ways. As with any other literature , Jewish American writing has undergone a series of shifts and realignments that reflect not only the place of Jewish culture in particular but also the larger intellectual climates in which it is written. The modernist or largely humanistic emphases of Bellow, Malamud, and Singeraredifferent from those ofmorecontemporaryauthors who have directlyengaged postmodernist issues oflanguage, identity, andauthority . Yet despite the notable work of such contemporary writers as Stanley Elkin, Max Apple, Steve Stern, Cynthia Ozick, Thane Rosenbaum, Allegra Goodman, and Philip Roth (especially in his later writings), the critics ofJewish American literature have neglectedto focus on the post· modern aspects of their subject matter. This is not to say that certain Jewish writers have never been critically considered within the rubrics ofpostmodernism (howeveronechooses todefine "postmodem"). Stanley Elkin, Philip Roth, and Joseph Heller have al1 been read as self· reflexive writers concernedwith the deconstruction ofreality, texts, and thesel£ However,whilethereare anumberofjournal-andchapter-length studies devoted to various postmodern concerns in individual works or of individual authors (see, for instance, Elizabeth Rose's and Michael Greenstein'sessayson Ozick, AlanWilde'sworkon Elkin, Michael Dunn's essay on Woody Allen, John Williams's book on E. L. Doctorow, or the substantial body of criticism on Roth's Zuckerman novels), there has been noefforttocontextualize the various postmodemstrategies among contemporary Jewish American writers as awhole. Indeed, most ofthe extended studies of Jewish American fiction have tended to center on whatcould be considered the "old guard" ofJewishwriters, those fol1owing primarily modernist models and/or whose reputations were established soon after the SecondWorldWar.I All ofthese works concentrate on authors such as Bel1ow, Malamud.early Roth, and Singer. while more orless neglectingtohighlighttheexperimental orless conventional side ofthis literature. This is nottosuggestthatwriters such as Bellow, Singer, Mailer, andMalamudare notsignificantwithinthe scopeofJewish Amer· ican literary studies. On the contrary, these writers have helped to lay 2SI PORTNOY'S NEGLECTED SIBLINGS the foundations ofthe postwar literaryexperience, ethnic or otherwise. Butcertaintexts, suchas thoseofElkin. OZick. and Roth, have attempted to explore issues ofidentitywithin certain postmoderrustassumptions. The notion of a core or a center to the ethnic self has been justly questionedbyseveral Jewishwriters. Despitethe notable interest in the area of Jewish ethnicity and the construction of self. to date there has not beenoneextended studyonthepostmodemelementsthat make upmuch of contemporary Jewish American writing.2 This lack of critical attention to the postmodem elements of this fiction within an American ethnic studies context is unfortunate, and the issue of formulating an understanding of postmodern Jewish eth· nicity needsto beaddressed. Insteadofapproachingthese primarytexts as developing a series ofethnic-specificthemes, more emphasis should be placed on the diverse ways many Jewish American writers employ ethnicity to engage issues of identity, community, and textual interpretation . In light ofthis revealing context, a studyofthis kind will necessarily foreground two interconnected strategies of interpretation: (1) approaching contemporary Jewish American fiction as an ethnic literature and (2) developing the reading of this literature in terms of postmodern ethnicity. On the surface, the first ofthese strategies may seem superfluous, ifnot outright redundant...