Very interesting interview.   This should be required reading for anyone who thinks Obama is an empty suit.  

Portnoy's Complaint, too, Barack? Subsequent revelations could be - 32 years on - the equivalent of Jimbo Carter's "lusting in his heart". CC to Playboy.

Yep, Noam, once everyone who cares goes off and reads the wikipedia page on Roth, there will be a flood of questions?  Mostly of the "Who is Philip Roth?" variety.  And compared to most of my friends, I am extremely well read.  I at least know who Leon Uris is.

well, he did say somewhere that he read Philip Roth's latest book over his mini-vacation in the Virgin Islands, which I took note of as a Roth fan.

Actually, that makes me like him a little less.  There have been a couple of Roth books I've enjoyed, but never got much out of most of his stuff.  He's really, to me, the bottom of the Updike/DeIllo/Roth trioke which is so often lumped together (and not my favorite stuff, anyway).  But: at least he is a reader.

He seemed to hit the right notes (e.g., people experiencing suffering) and he struck the consensus of most American Jews that Israel's security must be protected, but that the damn settlements are a real pain.

I wish that Goldberg had asked him about his relationship with Rashid Khalidi, though.

Having made it through three Roth novels, I think I'm done.  I know this probably marks me as intellectually enfeebled (as do, no doubt, most of my posts around here), but I just don't like his worldview.

Wait, he read Philip Roth and didn't realize Roth was Jewish?  Sort of like Homer Simpson coming to the shocking realization, "Mel Brooks is JEWISH?!?"

I think he more meant he never made the connection that so many of his favorite writers were Jewish.  

But I do kind of like to think of it your way.  

"Wait, are you telling me Pynchon is paranoid about things?"

"Toni Morrison is black????  And a girl?"

Was that a joke, glacial?  I'm slow these days.  I think Obama meant that he didn't know they were forming his sensibility, no that he didn't know they were Jewish.

I'm happy he didn't allow too much of Leon Uris to seep into his own prose, though.  Dodged a bullet there!

What's the deal Doc? You don't like suffocatingly cynical fare? Some would say he is the Lemonade Maker without Peer. Just add some wan mixed with the unredeemable absurdity of human nature and voila....

Once upon an adolescence ago I was a fan. Happily I'm still here to make an occasional post.

I made it through "Portnoy's Complaint," "Sabbath's Theater" and "American Pastoral" and all of them felt like the literary equivalent of a toothache.

"John Grisham went to law school?!?"

Irony, I think I catch Obama's drift, but the ambiguity gave me an excuse to quote Homer Simpson.  Some commenters used this post to show off their familiarity with Roth, I used it to showcase my Simpsons chops.  Kind of how I roll.

Michael Creighton goes to the White House and advises the leader of the free world on global warming policy?

Oh, wait ...

For the sake of his candidacy, Obama should leave off talking about his "sensibility."

Jeffrey Goldberg agrees that Obama's mention of Philip Roth was the most interesting nugget from