Sabbath theater

Brothers and sisters, join hands with me now and let us lift our voices in prayer that Philip Roth does not receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, as has been threatened from time to time.

Mind you, not because he doesn’t deserve it — if any American writer deserves those Swedish laurels, it’s Philip Roth. But I’d hate to see him turned into a pissy old crank, as happened after V.S. Naipaul got the nod, or terminal self-consciousness, as was the fate of Saul Bellow. Let Roth continue at this peak of productivity and quality, and let him keep the clear-eyed understanding of what’s happening in America, as demonstrated in this interview.