Home » Writing & Publishing » Literary Prize Winners » Risky and Ambitious: Philip Roth

Risky and Ambitious: Philip Roth

© Diana Adams

I find it hard to believe that in a site devoted to Literary Prize Winners I have yet to mention the prolific and miraculous Philip Roth. In fact, I had not read any of his numerous award winning books until recently, when moving across the country I had the opportunity to pour through both The Human Stain, and American Pastoral. Reading these books I envisioned a literary salon: there is Jonathan Franzen(The Corrections) on the sofa, and I can't help but subtlety sense Saul Bellow lurking in the fabric on the walls and in the carpet on the floor. Setting aside Roth and Bellow as Jewish identity, these are the stories of America, or in Roth's and Franzen's case 'The American Berserk.'

Philip Roth has a long writing career, and a career studded with literary awards. In 1960, he won the National Book Award for Goodbye Columbus, and in the 1990's he won America's four major literary awards in succession. Patrimony received the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award, Operation Shylock the 1993 Pen/Faulkner Award, and American Pastoral the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. It seems this writer has scored well on the literary PGA tour of novels, but unlike Tiger Woods, it took a lifetime of effort to reach these heights.

Just what is it that makes Roth different from the rest in the land of literary legends? If you open the front cover of American Pastoral, for instance, and by- pass all the gushing literary lacquer spread thick by the likes of Time, Playboy, The New York Observer, etc., you will come to page that would make any novelist cringe, a list of his works. What is most interesting about the long list is that they are separated by Roth's alter-ego's. The Zuckerman books, which both The Human Stain and American Pastoral are part of, are narrated by a character Nathan Zuckerman. What makes Zuckerman interesting is that he is a novelist. Let's re-cap: the novelist Phillip Roth writes through the eyes of a novelist Nathan Zuckerman. What does this mean for a reader? It allows us to enter into and witness Roth's art. Besides, there seems to be great public interest in the life of a writer, why not draw the reader into the making of a novel?

Philip Roth is quite a bit riskier than his fellow American novelists. He tackles not only Jewish identity issues, but is able to leap into the lands of other races and religions. Not afraid to talk about hushed and buried issues of the day, Roth has to ability to shock us while holding-up the weary torch of the novelist: to depict our world as it is today, yesterday and perhaps tomorrow. Flaws included. Did I say flaws? Multiple flaws. It makes us once again reality check on the concept of Normal. Normal? Normal has become a whole lot weirder over the years.

The copyright of the article Risky and Ambitious: Philip Roth in Literary Prize Winners is owned by . Permission to republish Risky and Ambitious: Philip Roth in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.