Biography Essay

In 1973, Philip Roth wrote a satirical novel about baseball which he entitled The Great American Novel. The title refers to the parodies of a number of classic American novels in the book, but it also may be an answer to critics who keep waiting for him to write the great American novel and keep castigating him when he doesn't. From the time of the publication of his second novel, Letting Go, critics have been wondering aloud when Roth is going to stop squandering his enormous gifts and create the legitimate American masterpiece. This is not to say that Roth's large and varied output has been unappreciated. Letting Go has been seen as one of the finest achievements in the novel of manners since James; Our Gang has been called Swiftian and Orwellian; Portnoy's Complaint has been regarded as a brilliant exploitation of the new freedom in...