Conversations with Philip Roth (review)

120 SHOFAR Summer 1994 Vol. 12, No.4 feminism to American Judaism have been overwhelmingly positive. Still, she cautions that the stakes for the American Jewish community in distinguishing between constructive and destructive aspects of feminist theory are great indeed, for as she concludes, "The American Jewish community not only shares in all the human consequences offeminism but also carries with it the additional responsibility of preserving three thousand years ofJewish history and culture and confronting the problems of a numerically challenged population as well" (p. 274). Judith R. Baskin Department of Judaic Studies State University of New York at Albany Conversations with Philip Roth, edited by George J. Searles. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992. 291 pp. $32.50 (c); $14.95 (P). Conversations with Philip Roth, edited by George J. Searles, is a book that should prove useful to admirers of Philip Roth. The apparatus of the book consists of a list of "Books by Philip Roth," up to 1991; an "Introduction " that directs the reader to salient information in the "Conversations"; a "Chronology" outlining important landmarks in Roth's life and notable achievements in his career, including various honors and awards; the "ConverSations" themselves, mainly appreciative journalistic interviews and testimonials covering a time span from 1960 to 1991; and, finally, an index of names and titles. Readers would have benefited, I believe, by the inclusion of two important essays that are omitted here: Roth's own 1963 essay, "Writing About Jews," (Commentary, 1963); and a devastating critique of Roth's work by Irving Howe, entitled "Philip Roth Reconsidered," (Commentary, 1972). "Writing About Jews" is an early, thoughtful, well organized direct response to thoseJewish critics who accused Roth of being a self-hater and a Jewish antisemite, and in this essay Roth introduces grievances and ideas that he repeats and elaborates on in later "conversations." Howe's critique is worth reprinting because whether one agrees with him or not, his analysis of Roth's fiction calls attention to undeniable problems. Howe is correct when he observes that "The talent that went into Portnoy's Complaint and portions of Goodbye, Columbus ... has been put to the service of a creative vision deeply marred by vulgarity." There is, of course, a supreme irony in Roth's vulgar streak, since he thinks Book Reviews 121 of himself as a critic of Jewish philistinism, and we must understand this anomaly if we are to understand Roth as a writer. Howe gets to the heart of the matter when he observes that "Roth, despite his concentration on Jewish settings and his acerbity of tone, has not really been involved in this tradition [ofYiddish writers from Mendele to Isaac Bashevis Singer and in English from Abraham Cahan to Malamud and Bellow]. For he is one of the first American-Jewish writers who finds that it yields him no sustenance, no norms or values from which to launch his attacks on middle-class complacence."4 To be more explicit, and perhaps less kind than Howe, Roth knows neither the languages nor the texts of "Judaism," and therefore his criticisms of Jews and Jewishness remain essentially those of an "outsider." Mendele, for example, also satirizes Jews and Jewishness, but he does so from inside, knowing the people as well as the tradition and the texts that shaped them. If the Jewishness of Roth's characters is superficial, it is no more so than Roth's own Jewishness. Howe also claims that Roth cannot"... find sustenance elsewhere, in other cultures, other traditions.... Roth['s] relation to the mainstream of American culture, in its great sweep of democratic idealism and romanticism, is decidedly meager." One need not deny that Roth is a very talented writer (and certainly, Howe grants him that much) or suggest that he is a bad person (which by all indications he is not) to point out that there is a hollowness at the center of his fiction. His novels dealing with "American" subject matter have been total Oops from an artistic and ideational point of view, and were it not for the hostility of Jewish intellectuals to his Jewish subject matter, Roth would seem to have nothing to write about. He practically says as...