Roth and Pynchon

[MalignD at aol.com]

<< MalignD.....do you have a favorite Roth? If so, which and why. >>

Yes.  The Counterlife and Operation Shylock.  

However, I think there is great reward in reading Roth in chronological 
order, beginning with The Ghost Writer, the first of the Zuckerman novels, 
written in 1980.  Three of these (Zuckerman novels)--The Ghost Writer, 
Zuckerman Unbound, and The Anatomy Lesson--plus a novella, The Prague Orgy, 
can be found in a single trade paperback, one of the great literary bargains 
out there (along with Three by Flannery O'Conner).  The Counterlife is the 
culmination of this series.  All wonderful novels, best read in order, I 
think.

Operation Shylock is not a Zuckerman novel (Zuckerman is a sort of alter-ego 
of Roth's), but, like The Counterlife, it is set in Israel for the most part. 
 Both are brilliant.

He then wrote Sabbath's Theater, which I am not crazy about, and then another 
trilogy:  American Pastoral, I Married a Communist, and The Human Stain.  
These are also Zuckerman novels, but narrated by--rather than primarily 
about--him.  They are different in tone and approach.  Also wonderful.  

Together, written over the last twenty years, the novels comprise the best 
body of work by any writer in that period.  They are intelligent, funny, 
intellectually  rigorous.  The prose is wonderful.  

I can't recommend them highly enough.