Philip Roth Cover Image

Philip Roth

Start Free Trial

Further Reading

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

  • Bakewell, Geoffrey W., “Philip Roth's Oedipal Stain,” Classical and Modern Literature 24, no. 2 (Fall 2004): 29-46. (Examines The Human Stain and its sources within Sophocles's Oedipus plays.)
  • Baumgarten, Murray, and Barbara Gottfried, "The Suburbs of Forgetfulness: Goodbye, Columbus" In Understanding Philip Roth, pp. 21-59. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990. (Interpretative analysis of the novella and five short stories, focusing on Roth's representation of suburban Jewry.)
  • Bloom, Harold, ed., Modern Critical Views: Philip Roth. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986, 188 p. (Collection of critical essays addressing Roth's corpus.)
  • Brookhiser, Richard, "The Gripes of Roth," National Review XLV, No. 6 (29 March 1993): 68-9. (Unfavorable assessment of Operation Shylock.)
  • Deer, Irving, and Harriet Deer, "Philip Roth and the Crisis in American Fiction," The Minnesota Review VI, No. 4 (1966): 353-60. (Proposes that Roth's short stories feature characters who find themselves caught between European Jewish tradition and modern American individualism.)
  • Fein, Esther B., "Philip Roth Sees Double, And Maybe Triple, Too," The New York Times (9 March 1993): C13, C18. (Feature article based on an interview in which Roth discusses Operation Shylock and the Jewish-American novel.)
  • Gessen, Keith, “Deposition for a Master,” Dissent 47, no. 4 (Fall 2000): 115-19. (Explores the strengths and weaknesses of The Human Stain, asserting that the book explores moral choices made in everyday life, lauding Roth as a leader in contemporary fiction.)
  • Gray, Paul, "A Complaint: Double Vision," Time 141, No. 10 (8 March 1993): 68, 70. (Favorable assessment of Operation Shylock in which Gray contends that the "social and historical range of Operation Shylock is broader than anything the author has attempted before.")
  • Gross, Barry, "American Fiction, Jewish Writers, and Black Characters: The Return of The Human Negro' in Philip Roth," MEWS 11, No. 2 (Summer 1984): 5-22. (Examines Roth's portrayal of African Americans in the novella Goodbye, Columbus, arguing that Roth is singular among Jewish American writers of the twentieth century in that he does not use black characters to personify unorganized, irrational forces.)
  • Halkin, Hillel, "How to Read Philip Roth," Commentary 97, No. 2 (February 1994): 43-8. (Presents an overview of Roth's works and suggests that the key to interpreting Operation Shylock is related to Roth's habitual blending of truth and fiction.)
  • Israel, Charles M., "The Fractured Hero of Roth's Goodbye, Columbus," Critique XVI, No. 2 (1974): 5-11. (Purports that the principal theme of Roth's novella is the hero's inability to arrive at an understanding of himself.)
  • Johnson, Gary, “The Presence of Allegory: The Case of Philip Roth's American Pastoral,” Narrative 12, no. 3 (October 2004): 233-48. (Explores the relationship between narrative and allegory, focusing on American Pastoral and the ways this novel examines the construction of allegories.)
  • Kakutani, Michiko, "Of a Roth Within a Roth Within a Roth," The New York Times (4 March 1993): C17, C23. (Remarks that although much of the self-absorbed "talk" by the characters in Operation Shylock is "brilliantly rendered … it throws the book off balance, undermining its ingenious but fragile plot.")
  • Koenig, Rhoda, "Torah de Force?" New York 26, No. 10 (8 March 1993): 83-4. (Provides a mixed review of Operation Shylock. Koenig faults Roth for taking liberties with the lives of real people in the novel but argues that "Operation Shylock is a good deal more vigorous and absorbing than anything Roth has written for a long time.")
  • Lee, Hermoine, "The Art of Fiction LXXXIV: Philip Roth," Paris Review 26, No. 93 (Fall 1984): 215-47. (Interview with Roth in which the author discusses his life and fiction.)
  • Louvish, Simon, "Rothology," New Statesman and Society 6, No. 247 (9 April 1993): 57. (Questions the validity of the events Roth describes in Operation Shylock.)
  • MacLeod, Norman, "A Note on Philip Roth's 'Goodbye, Columbus' and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby," The International Fiction Review 12, No. 2 (Summer 1985): 104-7. (Delineates thematic similarities between Roth's novella and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, asserting that Roth's work is "a conscious part of the artistic design of the later story.")
  • McDaniel, John N., The Fiction of Philip Roth. Haddonfield, NJ: Haddonfield House, 1974, 243 p. (Attempts to position Roth in contemporary American fiction by examining his artistry, heroes, and critical reception.)
  • Milbauer, Asher Z., and Donald G. Watson, eds., Reading Philip Roth. London: Macmillan Press, 1988, 205 p. (Contains twelve original essays enveloping Roth's entire body of fiction, in addition to an interview with Roth by the editors.)
  • Parrish, Timothy L., “Ralph Ellison: The Invisible Man in Philip Roth's The Human Stain,” Contemporary Literature 45, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 421-59. (Examines treatments of ethnic identity and racial politics in The Human Stain and Ralph Ellison's novel The Invisible Man.)
  • Pinsker, Sanford, The Comedy that "Hoits": An Essay on the Fiction of Philip Roth. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1975, 121 p. (Examines Roth's techniques for transcending suffering in his fiction.)
  • Pinsker, Sanford, ed., Critical Essays on Philip Roth. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1982, 278 p. (Includes reprinted criticism encompassing all of Roth's works prior to 1982, as well as four original essays.)
  • Rodgers, Bernard F., Jr., Philip Roth. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978, 192 p. (Offers several essays addressing predominant themes in Roth's collection, Goodbye, Columbus.)
  • Rodgers, Bernard F., Jr., Philip Roth: A Bibliography, 2nd ed. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1984, 386 p. (Features annotated bibliographical listings of primary and secondary materials prior to 1984.)
  • Roth, Philip, "Writing American Fiction," Commentary 31, No. 3 (March 1961): 223-33. (Comments on the shocking nature of contemporary American society and its impact on literature, including his own fiction.)
  • Royal, Derek Parker, “Fictional Realms of Possibility: Reimagining the Ethnic Subject in Philip Roth's American Pastoral,” Studies in American Jewish Literature 20 (2001): 1-16. (Maintains that The Ghost Writer and American Pastoral include protagonists who reimagine their realities and establish territory where they can “renegotiate their subjectivity.”)
  • Rubin, Merle, "Ironies within Ironies," The Christian Science Monitor (29 April 1993): 11. (Describes Operation Shylock as "an ongoing argument that its author is having with himself" and comments on the question of the novel's factuality.)
  • Rubin-Dorsky, Jeffrey, “Philip Roth and American Jewish Identity: The Question of Authenticity,” American Literary History 13, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 79-107. (Provides discussion of Roth as a Jewish American writer, asserting that his recent work contains a “contemporary spirit of Jewish self-examination and cultural inquiry.”)
  • Schiavone, Michele, “The Presence of John R. Tunis' The Kid from Tomkinsville in Malamud's The Natural and Roth's American Pastoral.” (Asserts that John R. Tunis's The Kid from Tomkinsville provides source material for Bernard Malamud's The Natural and Roth's American Pastoral.)
  • Searles, George J., "Philip Roth's 'Kafka': A 'Jeu-ish American' Fiction of the First Order," Yiddish 4, No. 4 (Winter 1982): 5-11. (Provides a laudatory critical overview of Roth's "'I Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting'; or, Looking at Kafka.")
  • Searles, George J., "The Mouths of Babes: Childhood Epiphany in Roth's 'Conversion of the Jews' and Updike's 'Pigeon Feathers,'" Studies in Short Fiction 24, No. 1 (Winter 1987): 59-62. (Uncovers thematic similarities in "Conversion of the Jews" and Updike's "Pigeon Feathers," focusing especially on the role of religion in these works.)
  • Searles, George J., The Fiction of Philip Roth and John Updike. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985, 197 p. (Surveys the social realism, literary method, and predominant themes of Roth's and Updike's fiction, drawing comparisons between the two authors.)
  • Siegel, Lee, “Love in the Ruins,” Los Angeles Times Book Review (6 May 2001): 1. (A mixed review of The Dying Animal, asserting that Roth's style has become clear and mature, but faulting him for using “outmoded and banal” concepts.)
  • Simon, Elliot M., "Philip Roth's 'Eli the Fanatic': The Color of Blackness," Yiddish 7, No. 4 (1990): 39-48. (Asserts that the protagonist's donning of black clothing is a métonymie expression of his connection to the sacred.)
  • Spargo, R. Clifton, “To Invent as Presumptuously as Real Life: Parody and the Cultural Memory of Anne Frank in Roth's The Ghost Writer,” Representations no. 76 (Fall 2001): 88-119. (Provides analysis of Roth's treatment of the Anne Frank story and the Holocaust in The Ghost Writer.)
  • Thomas, D. M., "Face to Face with His Double," The New York Times Book Review (7 March 1993): 1, 20-1. (Favorable review in which Thomas compares Roth's use of the double in Operation Shylock to that of Alexander Pushkin in his "Egyptian Nights.")
  • Waxman, Barbara Frey, "Jewish American Princesses, Their Mothers, and Feminist Psychology: A Rereading of Roth's 'Goodbye, Columbus,'" Studies in American Jewish Literature 1 (Spring 1988): 90-104. (Addresses the stereotype of the Jewish American princess in the novella Goodbye, Columbus.)
  • Zucker, David, “The Breath of the Dummy: Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman Trilogies,” Studies in American Jewish Literature 22 (2003): 129-44. (Examines Roth's Nathan Zuckerman trilogy, the treatment of the concept of ventriloquy, and explores themes of self-identity within the works.)

Get Ahead with eNotes

Start your 48-hour free trial to access everything you need to rise to the top of the class. Enjoy expert answers and study guides ad-free and take your learning to the next level.

Get 48 Hours Free Access

Already a member? Log in here.

Previous

Roth, Philip (Milton) (Short Story Criticism)
Loading...