You can only choose one

Just finished Goodbye Columbus and I was thoroughly let down. Does Roth "become" good at some point in his career? Is there a defining text of late-Roth?

American Pastoral. It's like Underworld except actually good.

Portnoy's Complaint was when he really made the news and shocked everyone, after that he starts really coming into his own. His best books were all published during the '90s, though

I loved pic related but part of me wishes it were an essay instead, so after I finished it, I read Closing of the American Mind again.

>wow, i sure love reading longwinded passages about the finer points of sheepskin glove manufacturing!

>Not unironically enjoying learning about the finer points of sheepskin glove manufacturing only to find out that the applicant is ruining his daughter's life and also wants to fuck him as a sexual rebuke of the traditional American ideal

Found the pleb who skipped Cetology.

I'm with this guy. The good parts of that book were few and far between.

I got the point, but the setup was unnecessarily, gruellingly long. Not to mention that some parts read like the ramblings of a dementia patient.

I can't believe it's the same guy who wrote Portnoy's Complaint, which is about as succinct and lively as a novel can be.

Did it really stick in your mind? It took me a minute to remember what you even meant

He peaked around the 90s

really though he is overrated, Updike and Bellow are both better, Harold Bloom just has a Roth boner for some reason