Volume 42, Number 18 · November 16, 1995
Howl
By Frank Kermode
Sabbath's Theater
by Philip Roth
Houghton Mifflin, 451 pp., $24.95
Checking through the old Roth paperbacks, one notices how many of them make the same bid for attention: 'His most erotic novel since Portnoy's Complaint,' or 'his best since Portnoy's Complaint,' or 'his best and most erotic since Portnoy's Complaint.' These claims are understandable, as is the assumption that Roth is likely to be at his best when most 'erotic,' but that word is not really adequate to the occasion. There's no shortage of erotic fiction; what distinguishes Roth's is its outrageousness. In a world where it is increasingly difficult to be 'erotically' shocking, considerable feats of imagination are required to produce a charge of outrage adequate to his purposes. It is therefore not easy to understand why people complain and say things like 'this time he's gone over the top' by being too outrageous about women, the Japanese, the British, his friends and acquaintances, and so forth. For if nobody feels outraged the whole strategy has failed.
Review, 3373 words
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