Texts, Lives, and Bellybuttons: Philip Roth's Operation Shylock and the Renegotiation of Subjectivity

Abstract

This essay argues that the texts and countertexts that make up much of Philip Roth's writing complement the interplay between autobiography and fiction. Roth's post-Zuckerman books, specifically Operation Shylock: A Confession , create not only a text of the self and a countertext of the other, but also countertexts to the text of the self. While such a postmodern awareness of the self is both honest and potentially liberating, there is nonetheless a danger in losing a sense of self and community. In Operation Shylock , Roth attempts to come to terms with this problem by anchoring questions of identity largely within the Jewish ethnic community. What is more, Roth's text demonstrates that the relationship between autobiography and fiction is most illustrative when it provides us with a means to observe how authors construct their reality and thereby their lives.

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