The Anatomy Lesson

Two artists have elevated Jewish angst to mythical proportions--Woody Allen and Philip Roth. According to them, the American urban male Jewish intellectual is a self-conscious, sex-obsessed, hypochondriacal New York denizen, afflicted with a partly tragic, but mostly ridiculous, psychic pain. Only comedy can render his anguish. Roth's alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, is the very embodiment of this kosher Quixote. This novel, the third of the Zuckerman trilogy, continues the aural collaboration between Roth and narrator George Guidall. In it, the middle-aged Zuckerman can no longer write because of a seemingly psychosomatic pain in his back that has laid him prostrate. Guidall is in fine form here, romping with the humor and sensitive to the underlying anguish. His timing is flawless, his understanding resonant, his personal genius as a performer a perfect complement to Roth's as a writer. Y.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine