What I wondered when I read this novel by Roth is whether there will even be a writer in the 21st century who will write Jewishness they way Roth did back in the 1990s and still residually today. Will there be this kind of Jewishness in existence for somebody to write about? Or has it already been washed away by the tides of fluidity?
Indignation couldn’t have been written about this century. And not because it mentions the Korean War. Wars abound, so that’s not what makes the events of the novel so firmly rooted in the past. And it’s not the quaint old words like “co-eds” or “Dean of Men.” The undoubtedly Jewish way of being of a boy who dies for the cause of atheism childishly embraced is what feels outdated.
If you cut off your roots in search of freedom, will you find it or will you wither and die? Now that we have shed our oppressive, restrictive familial and cultural bonds, has fluidity given us anything in return? Or are we, like the novel’s protagonist, floating around in limbo, incapable of making a connection with anybody?
Great writer, great novel. And I’m sure the movie has turned it into some tawdry romance flick.
Clarissa's Blog 
\ The undoubtedly Jewish way of being of a boy who dies for the cause of atheism childishly embraced is what feels outdated.
Are today’s young people too cynical to behave so, since cutting off roots includes not believing in anything (any ideals and ideas) fully and embracing “everything is relative and unimportant” stance?
Have you read any good English Bildungsroman novels describing identity formation in the new fluid society?
I read and completely loved Bobbitt’s “Shield of Achilles” and would love to see the new fluid world he describes expressed in art.
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