Jewish Artist: “Pourquoi écrire” by Philip Roth

There is an exciting amount of “annexes” texts gathered here. In subtle ways Philip Roth offers some insights analyses of his work, touching on the genre issues of our time. As always with him, the texts are full of irony.

This is what makes the difference in his work. He performs a “salsa” that never locks him even in the truth. The mockery is there. Anyone who has been defined “American Jew or American Jew of Newark” denounces this denomination. He considers himself an American ” unquestionable, mindful of his country’s past charms”.

Roth plays with his doubles and amuses himself when he writes to Wikipedia, which criticizes him for wanting to correct the page dedicated to him . But the author remains a great distance by the way he goes behind the scenes of his work and takes advantage of it to add lures to the decoys.

The imagination is there even in the magnificent portrait of his father (text “Heritage”) as his taste for life and the reality of others. Even in the lyricism the author is not true: he is sincere, which is much better in the face of all the misunderstandings that have constantly followed him.

The writer dialogues with his peers (Saul Bellow, Primo Levi, Kundera and many others) helps to understand his literature when he projects it into that of others.

Interviews are first to be held in this collection. Much more than the “Explanations” part, which which is often nothing more than empty words. There are texts of special occasions (such as the one about Portnoy’s funeral, which alone saves this part).

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