
Mocking the Age
The Later Novels of Philip Roth
Elaine B. Safer(Author)
State University of New York Press
Published on 9. March 2006
Book
Paperback/Softback
229 pages
978-0-7914-6710-7 (ISBN)
Description
Explores the comic devices Roth uses to satirize his times, the Jewish community, and himself.
The first comprehensive assessment of Philip Roth's later novels, Mocking the Age offers rich and insightful readings that explore how these extraordinary works satirize our contemporary culture. From The Ghost Writer to The Plot Against America, Roth uses humor to address deadly serious matters, including social and political issues, psychological problems, postmodern concerns, and the absurd. In her clear and extensive analyses of these works, Elaine B. Safer looks at how Roth's approach to the comic incorporates the self-deprecating humor of Jewish comedians, as well as the humor of nineteenth-century Eastern European Jewish storytellers and such twentieth-century writers as Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow. Filling the void on critical examinations of Roth's later work, Safer's book provides a thorough appraisal of Roth's lifetime accomplishment and an essential evaluation of his comic genius.
The first comprehensive assessment of Philip Roth's later novels, Mocking the Age offers rich and insightful readings that explore how these extraordinary works satirize our contemporary culture. From The Ghost Writer to The Plot Against America, Roth uses humor to address deadly serious matters, including social and political issues, psychological problems, postmodern concerns, and the absurd. In her clear and extensive analyses of these works, Elaine B. Safer looks at how Roth's approach to the comic incorporates the self-deprecating humor of Jewish comedians, as well as the humor of nineteenth-century Eastern European Jewish storytellers and such twentieth-century writers as Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow. Filling the void on critical examinations of Roth's later work, Safer's book provides a thorough appraisal of Roth's lifetime accomplishment and an essential evaluation of his comic genius.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Albany, NY
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student and over
Edition type
Annotated edition
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 154 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
313 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7914-6710-7 (9780791467107)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2012
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€36.49
Available for download
Person
Elaine B. Safer is Professor of English at the University of Delaware and the author of The Contemporary American Comic Epic: The Novels of Barth, Pynchon, Gaddis, and Kesey.
Content
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: "Sheer Playfulness and Deadly Seriousness"
2. From The Ghost Writer to The Counterlife: Comic Incongruity and the Road to Postmodernism
3. Operation Shylock: The Double, the Comic, and the Quest for Identity
4. Sabbath's Theater: Sabbath's Fear of Death-Raunchy? Picaresque? Heroic?
5. American Pastoral: The Tragicomic Fall of Newark and the House of Levov
6. I Married a Communist: "A Grave Misfortune Replete with Farce"
7. The Human Stain: Comic Irony and the Lives of Coleman Silk
8. The Dying Animal: "Pleasure Is Our Subject"
9. The Plot Against America: Paranoia or Possibility?
10. Conclusion: "The Farcical Edge of Suffering"
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
1. Introduction: "Sheer Playfulness and Deadly Seriousness"
2. From The Ghost Writer to The Counterlife: Comic Incongruity and the Road to Postmodernism
3. Operation Shylock: The Double, the Comic, and the Quest for Identity
4. Sabbath's Theater: Sabbath's Fear of Death-Raunchy? Picaresque? Heroic?
5. American Pastoral: The Tragicomic Fall of Newark and the House of Levov
6. I Married a Communist: "A Grave Misfortune Replete with Farce"
7. The Human Stain: Comic Irony and the Lives of Coleman Silk
8. The Dying Animal: "Pleasure Is Our Subject"
9. The Plot Against America: Paranoia or Possibility?
10. Conclusion: "The Farcical Edge of Suffering"
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index