Operation Two-Roth

It only seems fitting to follow up a post about "Jewish sperm" with one about Philip Roth's fiction. I'm currently rereading Operation Shylock, which seems entirely different to me now after having read both The Plot Against America and all sorts of books and articles about the history of Zionism and the state of Israel.

As in The Plot Against America, the world of Operation Shylock very much resembles the real world, the exception being that Philip Roth and his concerns play a far more central role in world events. In Plot, the fact that blacks, not Jews, have had it worst in America ceases to matter-- Jews and anti-Semitism become the story of 20th century because that's what matters in Rothland. It is the world reimagined as one in which Rothian concerns are not at all neurotic but in fact the only reasonable things to be worried about. In Operation Shylock, the existence of a second "Philip Roth" grows all the more complicated when it appears that this imposter is in many ways just another Freudian id of the author/narrator/whatever himself. A blonde, anti-Semitic "shiksa" temptress sent by the imposter Roth ought to amuse the narrator/author-alter-ego--how more predictable or self-referential could you get?-- but instead the primary Roth finds himself genuinely, unironically aroused by this woman.

There is more, but I might as well finish the re-reading before going any further with this.