Abstract
This chapter discusses Philip Roth's addition to the growing chorus of "diasporists" in the academy and the arts. In his novel Operation Shylock: A Confession, Roth made a cultural statement that not only finds value in recuperating discarded or defunct models, like crinolines crumbling in an old attic trunk, it is part of a postmodern search for value in the interstices, in the outskirts and peripheries of sacred centers and in the imagination of alternative worlds. The book is a narrative fiction whose conventional mandate and popular appeal lie in its potential for entertainment or edification, its main achievement lies in enacting some of the more ludicrous or lurid dimensions of a larger cultural agenda.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Studies in Contemporary Jewry |
Subtitle of host publication | XII: Literary Strategies: Jewish Texts and Contexts |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780199854608 |
ISBN (Print) | 0195112032, 9780195112030 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 3 Oct 2011 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 1996 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Cultural agenda
- Diasporists
- Entertainment
- Fiction
- Narrative
- Operation Shylock
- Philip Roth