Operation Shylock (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: Philip Roth
- First Published: 1993
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Problem novel
- Subjects: Mistaken or secret identity, 1980’s, Novelists, Surgery or surgeons, Jews or Jewish life, Anti-Semitism, Espionage or spies, 1990’s, Holocaust, Jewish, Israel or Israelis, Comedy, Jews and Gentiles, Split personalities, Jerusalem, Jewish-Arab relations, Palestinian Arabs, Secularism, Zionism
- Locales: New York, London, England, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Jordan
OPERATION SHYLOCK purports to be an account of Roth’s experiences while in Jerusalem to interview Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld. But, while the preface admits that minor details were altered, a concluding “Note to the Reader” insists that the book is fiction: “This confession is false.”
At the outset of his story, Roth, recovering from a breakdown induced by Halcion, is scarcely able to distinguish reality from illusion. His fragile sanity is threatened by a report that Philip Roth has been attending the Jerusalem trial of John Demjanjuk, the Cleveland autoworker...
[The entire page is 671 words long]
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