The Jewish-American novel after Bellow & Roth

[Bekah]

I've read all the books mentioned in the article except I didn't finish the "Policeman's Union" but have read several of Chabon's other works.   Yes,  I've  noticed a kind of "new generation" of Jewish-American writers.   But what I thought I perceived  is that these writers,  being another generation removed from first-hand experience of the Holocaust,  are freer to explore it with "flashier" literary devices.   They're totally unafraid of humor.  If I remember correctly,  Bellow was funny but within a certain respectful distance.  Foer isn't bound by that in Everything is Illuminated.   

I enjoy Roth and Bellow and also  Chabon and Foer (Krauss the least).  They're just different generation talking about  the same thing (the Jewish experience in America) in different ways.    Shoot - life in America is different from what  Augie March experienced in the post WWII 1950s.    Bellow and Roth have a certain resonance of post WWII  Americana - the others are post  9/11.    

I'm probably a bigger fan of the later Roth than of any of the others but he can be quite uneven.  Overall  Roth and Bellow are probably the better writers,  but they've got what - 20 books each over a period of 40 - 50 years?   What about Bernard Malamud,  Isaac B. Singer or  Cynthia Ozick?   I really think there used to be more Jewish authors - maybe not. 

Bekah


On May 14, 2011, at 5:21 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> What is going on here? Why are these young American Jews trying to
> find out things about their fathers and grandfathers? I think each is
> attempting to answer the question: how does one write Jewish-American
> novels after Bellow and Roth?
> 
> http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2011/04/jewish-american-history