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The Vicissitudes of Popular Sovereignty

Sorin Radu Cucu

in The Underside of Politics: Global Fictions in the Fog of the Cold War

This chapter first analyzes Milan Kundera's novel The Joke (1967). It argues that the novel constructs a narrative economy that establishes complex links between the erotic and the political in the ... More

This chapter first analyzes Milan Kundera's novel The Joke (1967). It argues that the novel constructs a narrative economy that establishes complex links between the erotic and the political in the context of Cold War discourse. The discussion then turns to Philip Roth's novel I Married a Communist, one of the most eloquent examples in American contemporary fiction of what Kundera called the “privatization” of the political. It is argued that I Married a Communist is not only a Cold War text, but is also a novel about the legitimacy of pragmatic selfishness in American culture.Less

Introduction

in In History's Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy

Newark is a small city in New Jersey, a sad, unwelcoming place with a sinister aura, with a meager skyline that stands in stark contrast to a vast expanse of crumbling buildings, streets, and ... More

Newark is a small city in New Jersey, a sad, unwelcoming place with a sinister aura, with a meager skyline that stands in stark contrast to a vast expanse of crumbling buildings, streets, and neighborhoods. Yet Newark occupies a place in American history, whether we talk about the War of 1812, the Civil War, industrialization, mass immigration, the rioting and unrest that took place in the late 1960s, or the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It is also the setting for Philip Roth's fiction, including his three novels, sometimes called the American trilogy but more accurately can be called the Newark trilogy: American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000). Roth, who grew up in Newark, uses it as a vehicle for exploring American character in conjunction with American history. In the Newark trilogy, he re-creates the history of Newark on a grand scale and makes such history interchangeable with the city.Less

At History's Mercy

in In History's Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy

In his Newark trilogy—American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000)—Philip Roth depicts history as an abstraction that moves through patterns larger than any ... More

In his Newark trilogy—American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000)—Philip Roth depicts history as an abstraction that moves through patterns larger than any individual story and less general than fortune or circumstance. As a place that is very often left, Newark is stereotypically American, whose destruction lies at the core of Roth's three novels. The city's decline is connected to the July 1967 riots, the national meaning of which is peripheral to the Newark trilogy. These riots resulted in the loss of neighborhood life, of communal memory, of a city that immigrants, particularly blacks, had done much to build. Like literacy, muteness is one of the trilogy's master themes, reflected in its opposite—the assertive plenitude of narrative, storytelling, and literature.Less

Leaving

in In History's Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy

In Philip Roth's Newark trilogy—American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000)—there is no discreet moment of departure. There is no packing of bags, or train ... More

In Philip Roth's Newark trilogy—American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000)—there is no discreet moment of departure. There is no packing of bags, or train leaving the station, or hand waving goodbye. In other words, leaving Newark is a natural and liberating experience. America rewards leaving or does not seem to punish those who leave. Roth's three protagonists leave to embrace America, not to liberate themselves from it. In a lot of ways, the Newark trilogy is haunted by Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, where Ishmael, the melancholic New Yorker, embarks on a long journey. Two other novels by Roth, Sabbath's Theater and Goodbye, Columbus, also deal with leaving, while William Shakespeare's drama Julius Caesar is an anachronistic, illuminating commentary on the Newark trilogy.Less

Newark

in In History's Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy

One of the oldest cities in America, Newark was founded in 1666 by Puritans from Connecticut who wanted to start a new life on new soil. In his three novels, the so-called Newark trilogy—American ... More

One of the oldest cities in America, Newark was founded in 1666 by Puritans from Connecticut who wanted to start a new life on new soil. In his three novels, the so-called Newark trilogy—American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000)—Philip Roth presents Newark as a riddle that defines everything and yet is a place of metamorphosis itself. The protagonists are set in motion by a moving city, intent on leaving the city. As a riddle, Newark resurfaces (often uninvited) as the unchanging terrain of childhood, in the psychic landscape of its many children who may be far away from New Jersey. In its first four decades, Newark suffered from the Great Depression and World War II, only to recover both industrially and economically, as seen by the construction of a metropolis inhabited by Irish, Italians, Germans, Slavs, Jews, and blacks.Less