Operation Shylock

Operation Shylock by Philip Roth is more than just the confession he purports it to be in his subtitle. I will not get into the details of the plot which can be accessed here and here. I am only going to talk about why I found this novel interesting. Let me begin with all that is not good about it. First, unlike my previous (and first) experience with a Philip Roth novel, it is verbose. Long sentences where I lost track of the beginning or the train of thought were a definite disappointment. Second, the beginning is slow and torturously so.

Past these stumbling blocks onto what made the novel worth a read. It explores the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in more than one (or even two dimensions). It impressed on me the fact that it is not as simple as an argument and a counter-argument. That it is a complex web of emotions, intent, conflicting selfish motives and historical legacy; a pot-pouri of thoughts that have often swirled through my head in the context of India's conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir. It brings to fore, through a few conflicted characters, the tangle that a prolonged conflict can become; that it no longer remains a matter of simple logic to identify causality and assign responsibility to one group or another or both find a workable solution. It juxtaposes patriotism against humanitarianism and leaves the reader feeling that neither is as easy to praise or condemn.

Operation Shylock also explores the idea of Jewishness and how the holocaust perpetrated by Hitler may have changed that. It digs into the things that constitute ethnic identity even if one has not been a part of the experience that shaped that community. The conflicts of an American Jew vs. those of an Israeli Jew vs. those of a holocaust survivor all come together to raise questions about the basis of communal identities. It impressed upon me the need to understand why one chooses to identify oneself with a community (social, religious, economic, political or philosophical) and the need to articulate those reasons to one self.

And the final reason why Operation Shylock, despite its failings, will remain a good read to me is the manner in which it explores the curiosity of a writer.