Philip Roth had little patience with his Jewish critics. When his short stories were collected in Goodbye Columbus (1959), Roth claims that he was attacked from all sides as a “dangerous, dishonest, and irresponsible” person, largely on the basis of his portrayals of Jewish characters. In his 1963 essay “Writing about Jews,” he notes,
Among the letters I receive from readers, there have been a number written by Jews accusing me of being anti-Semitic and “self-hating,” or, at the least, tasteless; they argue or imply that the sufferings of the Jews throughout history, culminating in the murder of six million by the Nazis, have made certain criticisms of Jewish life insulting and trivial. Furthermore, it is charged that such criticism as I make of Jews—or apparent criticism—is taken by anti-Semites as justification for their attitudes … particularly as it is a Jew himself who seemingly admits to habits and behavior that are not exemplary, or even normal and acceptable. When I speak before Jewish audiences, invariably there have been people who have come up to me afterward to ask, “Why don’t you leave us alone? Why don’t you write about the Gentiles?”—“Why must you be so critical?”—“Why do you disapprove of us so?”—this last question asked as often with incredulity as with anger.
In “Writing about Jews,” Roth accuses his antagonists of being bad readers with “cramped and untenable notions of right and wrong.” His stories, he argues, are about characters who happen to be Jews, not representatives of Jewry. It’s as ridiculous to claim that his fiction makes Jews as a whole look bad, Roth argues, as it would be to say that Raskolnikov’s murder or Anna Karenina’s adultery makes Russians look bad. Roth insists on artistic autonomy: “the only response there is to any restriction of liberties is, ‘No, I refuse.’”
Read Full Article »