I've read a few of his novels, and I am surprised when some people say he's the best English-speaking author of all times, comparing him to Faulkner,Mark Twain, Fitzerald, etc.
He's won more awards than anybody else (except for the Nobel, which I doubt he will) , and he is the only living author who has his complete work in the American Library.
But at the same time, he's hardly known/read. Hes name doesnt ring much of a bell. Many people just know who he is when they find out that he wrote The Human Stain, which was made into a movie with Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman.
His plots tend to be about New York university professors (guys in his 60s and 70s) shagging the hell out of their young students, but the whole thing seems sophisticated, because of that university , East Coast landscape; He's Jew, so there's an extra intellectual touch. (everything Jew has intellectual connotations).
I think he is the literary version of Woody Allen, but in a more serious way.
I prefer Paul Auster (who is as well Jew and writes about university teachers) any day of the week. Paul Auster is much more deep, and his subjects are much more wide, while Philip Roth just looks like a dirty old man pretending to be cool, and trying to make interersting to the audience his own fetishes.
Anyway, what do you think? Have you read him? Any opinion?
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