Roth and Pynchon

[Paul Mackin]

As an added attraction, American Pastoral is a sixties novel with a heart
rending intergenerational conflict that is at least slightly redolent of the
p-list. Except that on the p-list the quintessential American innocent is older.

(if you can't read them in order)

P.

MalignD at aol.com wrote:

> << 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.
>
>