April 15, 2009
Goodbye, Portnoy? I don’t think so.
There’s a fairly new ‘web exclusive’ article on the Vanity Fair Web site and it talks about the rise of the ‘New Yiddishists.’ The terms refers to “today’s talented crop of young Jewish writers, such as Nathan Englander, Michael Chabon, and Dara Horn.”
Now, as much as I applaud David Sax’s efforts in shaping and defining this phenomenon in contemporary Jewish writing, I cannot agree with his central premise of saying that these authors are “weaving tales bound in a newfound ethnic pride.”
After reading the piece, you come away with the sense that these contemporary authors represent some sort of a prideful response to the Jewish loathing found in the characters of Philip Roth or Saul Bellow. I just don’t see it.
If anything, it seems to me that much of modern Jewish fiction writing is an extension of Roth’s portrayals of Jews. Chabon and Englander certainly do not shy away from Roth’s ‘warts and all’ depictions of the Jewish community. Many of the modern Jewish writers Sax talks about struggle with the same types of questions that Roth, Bellow and their contemporaries struggled with: assimilation, Jewish identity, tradition versus modernity and the continuing allure of shiksas. These struggles are taking a slightly different tack among the modern writers but we’re basically still hearing the thoughts and feelings of Nathan Zuckerman, Alexander Portnoy and Moses Herzog.
I’m not complaining here. I like what I’ve read (mostly). I’m just saying that what we’re seeing is an extension of Roth, not a move in a direction away from him.
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