Roth, Philip (Vol. 3) - Roth, Philip 1933–
Roth, Philip 1933–
A prominent American novelist and short story writer, Roth writes witty, often outrageous, satire. Highly praised for his artistic use of the middle-class Jewish idiom, Roth has, in more recent fiction, satirized the Protestant midwest, the Nixon administration, and baseball. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)
Philip Roth's collection of short stories [Goodbye, Columbus] is the year's [1959's] best fiction work on Jewish life in America, and illustrates a neglected literary principle: sweet and sour are the uses of irony. Sweet? Irony, particularly as Roth uses it to pour ridicule and tribute on his characters, gives the writer a tighter grip on life as well as a sustaining literary medium, and takes him on a sentimental journey to a past so timeless it encroaches on our future. Sour? Such irony as Roth's exposing the foibles of self-conscious, newly-minted American Jews, lets the writer needle...
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