''Goodbye, Columbus'' is a 1959 collection of fiction by the American novelist
Philip Roth. The compilation includes the title novella, "Goodbye, Columbus," originally published in ''
The Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published new works by Jack Kerouac, ...
'', along with five short stories. It was Roth's first book and was published by
Houghton Mifflin
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...
.
In addition to the title novella, set in
Short Hills, New Jersey, ''Goodbye, Columbus'' contains the five short stories "The Conversion of the Jews", "Defender of the Faith", "Epstein", "You Can't Tell a Man by the Song He Sings", and "Eli, the Fanatic". Each story deals with the concerns of second and third-generation assimilated
American Jews
American Jews (; ) or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% id ...
as they leave the ethnic
ghettos of their parents and grandparents and go on to college, to white-collar professions, and to life in the suburbs.
The book was a critical success for Roth and won the 1960 U.S.
National Book Award for Fiction.
["National Book Awards – 1960"]
Retrieved 2012-03-30. There is a link there t
. The National Book Awards blog for the 50th anniversary of ''Goodbye, Columbus'' i
about the book. The annual awards are made by the National Book Foundation. The book was not without controversy, as people within the Jewish community took issue with Roth's less than flattering portrayal of some characters. The short story “Defender of the Faith”, about a Jewish sergeant who is exploited by three shirking, coreligionist draftees, drew particular ire. When Roth appeared on a panel in 1962 alongside the distinguished black novelist
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel '' Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953.
Ellison wrote '' Shadow and Act'' (1964), a co ...
to discuss minority representation in literature, the questions directed at him became denunciations. Many accused Roth of being a
self-hating Jew, a label that stuck with him for years.
The title novella was made into the 1969 film ''
Goodbye, Columbus'', starring
Ali MacGraw and
Richard Benjamin.
Roth's own retrospective reckoning
Roth wrote in the preface to the book's 30th anniversary edition:
"With clarity and with crudeness, and a great deal of exuberance, the embryonic writer who was me wrote these stories in his early 20s, while he was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, a soldier stationed in New Jersey and Washington, and a novice English instructor back at Chicago following his Army discharge...In the beginning it amazed him that any literate audience could seriously be interested in his story of tribal secrets, in what he knew, as a child of his neighborhood, about the rites and taboos of his clan—about their aversions, their aspirations, their fears of deviance and defection, their embarrassments and ideas of success."
The novella
The title story of the collection, ''Goodbye, Columbus'', is an irreverent look at the life of middle-class Jewish Americans, satirizing, according to one reviewer, their "complacency, parochialism, and materialism." It was controversial with reviewers, who were highly polarized in their judgments.
The story is told by the narrator, Neil Klugman, who is working in a low-paying position in the
Newark Public Library. He lives with his Aunt Gladys and Uncle Max in a working-class neighborhood of
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...
. One summer, Neil meets and falls for Brenda Patimkin, a student at
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...
who is from a wealthy family living in the affluent suburb of
Short Hills. Neil persuades Brenda to get a
diaphragm, which her mother discovers.
The novella was adapted into a
film of the same name in 1969.
Short stories
"The Conversion of the Jews"
This short story, which first appeared in ''The Paris Review'' (issue 18, Spring 1958) — deals with the themes of questioning religion and being violent to one another because of it.
Ozzie Freedman, a Jewish-American boy about thirteen years old, confronts his
Hebrew school teacher, Rabbi Binder, with challenging questions: especially, whether it is possible that God gave the
Virgin Mary
Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...
a child without having intercourse. Rabbi Binder interprets Ozzie's question about the virgin birth as impertinent, though Ozzie sincerely wishes to better understand God and his faith. When Ozzie continues to ask challenging questions, Binder slaps him on the face, accidentally bloodying Ozzie's nose. Ozzie calls Binder a bastard and, without thinking, runs to the roof of the synagogue. Once there, Ozzie threatens to jump.
The rabbi and pupils go out to watch Ozzie from the pavement and try to convince him not to leap. Ozzie's mother arrives. Ozzie threatens to jump unless they all bow on their knees in the Christian tradition and admit that God can make a virgin birth, and furthermore, that they believe in
Jesus Christ
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
; he then admonishes all those present that they should never "hit anyone about God". He finally ends by jumping off the roof onto a glowing yellow net held by firemen.
"Defender of the Faith"
The story—originally published in ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' on March 7, 1959
online — deals with a Jewish American army sergeant who resists the attempted manipulation of a fellow Jew to exploit their mutual ethnicity to receive special favours. The story caused consternation among Jewish readers and religious groups, as recounted in chapter five of Roth's 1988 memoir ''
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography''.
[Philip Roth, ''The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography'', New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1988.]
"Epstein"
The title character goes through a crisis, feeling at age fifty-nine that by accepting the responsibilities of business, marriage, and parenthood, he has missed out on life, and starts an affair with another woman. His wife believes he has
syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...
so she wants a divorce, then he has a heart attack.
"You Can't Tell a Man by the Song He Sings"
An unnamed narrator recalls the events surrounding his meeting with Alberto Pelagutti, a troublemaker, in high school.
"Eli, the Fanatic"
The assimilated Jews of a small community express fear that their peaceful coexistence with the Gentiles will be disturbed by the establishment of an Orthodox
yeshiva
A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The stu ...
in their neighborhood. Lawyer Eli tries to calm things down, his wife is about to give birth and Eli is suspected to be having a nervous breakdown.
References
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{{Authority control
1959 short story collections
American short story collections
Houghton Mifflin books
Novels set in New Jersey
American novellas
National Book Award for Fiction–winning works
Books by Philip Roth
Jewish American short story collections
Novels republished in the Library of America
Works originally published in The Paris Review
1959 debut works
American novels adapted into films
National Jewish Book Award winners