Word: shylock
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Solely on the basis of his output over the past 10 or so years--which also includes the uproarious Operation Shylock (1993); the brooding, death-haunted Sabbath's Theater (1995); and the terse, erotic The Dying Animal, published in May--Roth, 68, would win much support as America's best working novelist. Who else during the same period published so much of such consistently high quality? Even more remarkably, Roth has maintained this elevated standard for more than 40 years, a creative marathon that totals 20 books of fiction. Not all of these are masterpieces, but all are unfailingly ambitious...
...question would slip through the cracks. Maybe a new edition of the Cliffs Notes for "Hamlet" had passed under my mom?s radar. Maybe two pages of her "Henry V" notes got stuck together. Whatever the reason, there were occasional lapses; a quiz might allude to one of Shylock?s character traits - and one or two vigilant (and stubbornly optimistic) students might recognize the description from a passage in their Cliffs Notes. The odds of a slip-up weren?t good at all - but that may have made victory twice as sweet...
...Merchant of Venice," Shylock says over and over, "I stand for law." But the verdict of the play is that true justice is more than a strict adherence to law, and that what is right is not always what is legal...
This realization undermines the centuries-old myth of Judaism as severe and unforgiving, a slave of Pharisaic ritual, as opposed to the grace and charity of its progeny religion. Lieberman will not dethrone Shylock, still the single most influential Jewish figure in Western culture, for whom the law is pitiless law. But Lieberman's prominence and practice will illuminate the little-appreciated fact that Rabbinic Judaism is an attempt to take a very stark document--the Bible--and, by interpretation and adaptation, make it habitable for fallible human beings...
...Merchant of Venice works up from its simple beginning, whirling through widening spirals of hatred and loss. A strange, contradictory suspense builds throughout the play, and the judgment scene in which Shylock calls in his bond before the law is riveting. Hillel Drama, through its shrewd interpretation of Shakespeare's work, uncovers the ironies and contradictions in the text, creating a true and more effective production...