Indignation by Philip Roth - review by Carole Angier

Carole Angier

Messner’s Wrath

Indignation

By

Jonathan Cape 233pp £16.99
 

In Indignation Philip Roth returns once more to his roots – to Newark, his poor, wildly warm Jewish family, and his move away from both into the rich, cold WASP world. There are echoes of Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy’s Complaint – especially the latter, since young Alexander Portnoy also sang the Chinese national anthem at school in the early 1950s: ‘Indignation fills the hearts of all our countrymen/ Arise! Arise! Arise!’

This is all to the good. Whenever Roth draws on that original spring of inspiration – in both Columbus and Portnoy, in Patrimony (a memoir of his father’s death), most recently in The Plot Against America – he produces, to my mind, his best and truest work. And in many

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

RLF - March

A Mirror - Westend

Follow Literary Review on Twitter