Philip Roth Revisited (review)

Book Reviews 117 in demand primarily as dance mUSICians. The rhythmic freedom of logogenic liturgical chant on the one hand and, on the other, the lack of any binding rabbinic prohibition, not to speak of the eventual hassidic encouragement, of the dance as a socio-religious form of communal activity clearly shaped Jewish musical behavior early on with most beneficial lasting effects. In conclusion, thanks to the devoted efforts of a leading German scholar well known for his undivided attention to unwritten as well as written musical traditions, the historical role of Jewish musicians within and outside their own communities throughout Central Europe has now been elucidated to the point where further researchers should find the going considerably easier, provided they can match his remarkable command of Jewish lore and history. A few minor errors do not even deserve mention where genuine empathy and understanding cause such ,unexpected light to shine over a hitherto rather obscure corner ofJewish culture and, indeed, the history of music at large. Alexander 1. Ringer School of Music University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Philip Roth Revisited, by Jay L. Halio. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992. 231 pp. $24.95. Jay Halio is an accomplished Shakespearean who has from time to time written about twentieth-century literature. He has to his credit, among other works, a monograph on Angus Wilson, the editing of two volumes in the ongoing Dictionary of Literary Biography series devoted to British novelists since 1960, and a number of review essays concerned with contemporary fiction in the Southern Review. This versatile critic now turns his talents to Philip Roth. Halio's book, part of a new series which "revisits" writers who are already part of the Twayne canon, appears three decades after the original series was auspiciously launched with Frederick]. Hoffman's William Faulkner-still one of the best studies of the Mississippi writer. Halio's task is a formidable one since Roth has averaged a book every other year during a long writing career; it is no easy matter to find a unifYing thread to stitch together such a diverse oeuvre, which not only contains a number of 118 SHOFAR Summer 1993 Vol. 11, No.4 Kunstlerromane which feature Jewish versions of Jamesian and Joycean artist types but also a political satire, a baseball novel, a midwestern Protestant novel, some autobiographical and critical texts, and a collection of short stories which confront urban Jews with those who have departed for the suburbs. And there are all these literary alter egos, these secret sharers which Roth created over the years-such as Neil Klugman, Gabe Wallach, Alexander Portnoy, Peter Tarnopol, David Alan Kepesh, Nathan Zuckerman, and the "Philip" ofDeception-that Halio has to contend with. Philip Roth Revisited handles all of this baggage with exemplary ease and dispatch; it is clearly the best book on Roth which we have thus far. Halio structures his study chronologically, with two exceptions: he places a chapter on the criticism and autobiography between discussions of Portnoy's Complaint and Our Gang; he treats The Professor of Desire (1977) before The Breast (1972) in a single chapter 10, acknowledging David Alan Kepesh's chronology rather than that of Roth's career. Halio persuasively labels the varieties of the comic which run through Roth's novels and stories; this becomes a unifYing concern throughout Philip Roth Revisited. Letting Go and When She Was Good are characterized as examples of "deadly farce. " Portnoy's Complaint is cleverly called on one occasion "Roth's stream-of-humor novel" (p. 67). "Outrageous," "excess," and "exaggeration" are words that thread their way through the Portnoy chapter. Parody joins satire, we are told, in Our Gang and The Great American Novel; there are parodic moments elsewhere in Roth as well. Zuckerman Bound emerges as a "comic Bildungsroman" and The Counterlife as "a profound comedy of counterselves, or counterlives" (p. 181). Halio ends his discussion of Roth's most recent novel, Deception, with these telling words: "Perhaps this is the ultimate comedy of Philip Roth, a kind of joke on himself, one he and his readers can both enjoy" (p. 201). The insistent dialogue and trompe l'oeil effects here seem to add...