Criticism

Brookhiser, Richard. "The Gripes of Roth." National Review XLV, No. 6 (29 March 1993): 68-9.

Unfavorable assessment of Operation Shylock.

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.

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."

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.

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."

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.

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.

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."