Word: roth
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Philip Roth's When She Was Good is an intriguing failure...
...intriguing because any book by Roth is bound to stir up interest. Although only thirty-four, Roth has published two very good books. In his twenties he brought out Goodbye Columbus, a collection of five stories and a novella, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1960; a couple of years later, the novel Letting Go appeared. His other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Sciences...
When She Was Good is also interesting because Roth, in his choice of subject matter, is commenting on current literature and on American society. Almost all of his past works have been "Jewish novels" in many senses. They feature Jewish characters. The conflict between the self-conscious piety of the older generation and the agnosticism and intermarriages of the younger often forms a subsidiary theme. And Roth tends toward the tone associated with everyone from Saul Bellow to his namesake Harry Roth--a wry humor which softens the portraits of even sharply satirized characters' perceptive details and realistic conversations...
...Philip Roth's work before When She Was Good is clearly based on characteristics of his own life. For instance, he has spent much of his life teaching--and he often writes of academic life. He tends to be most concerned with people in their twenties and thirties. And certain themes recur in Roth's fiction--such as the way parents use children to try and solve their own problems...
...When She Was Good, Roth...