Prometheus remains the quintessential rebel-hero, the mythological figure who defied Zeus, stole the secret of fire from Hephaestus, and gave it to mankind. For that liberating act, he was punished—chained to a rock where an eagle pecked away at his liver. Nathan Zuckerman is a paler post-Modernist version. He defied the American Jewish community, exposed its dirty little secrets and then blabbed the whole business in public—i.e. Gentile—print. For that liberating (?) aesthetic act, he became Rich and Famous, Remorseful and Troubled. Zuckerman's portrait of the assimilated American Jew specialized in warts. No wonder his readers cried "Foul!" when they saw the mirror he held up to their nature.
Nathan Zuckerman is, of course, Philip Roth's fictionized extension, his way of paying off old debts, of exorcizing old guilts, at the same time that he can, and does, insist that one keep author and character forever separated. In large measure the device worked in My Life as a Man (1974) and it was brilliantly effective in The Ghost Writer (1979), but, this time, even True Believers will have trouble swallowing the latest installment of Nathan Zuckerman's "complaints."
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