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Artistic license has expired on shtick like that, and further critical explication of the separate realms of fact and fiction can no longer insulate the comedy from the offense . But the sexual obsession and obscenities are intrinsic to Sabbath's exaggerated character as a dirty old man. There is much humor in what makes us uneasy, and Roth extracts it, as he has done for nearly 40 years, with a technique and verbal flair unmatched by his contemporaries. Sabbath the houseguest rummaging through a teenager's underwear drawer or attempting to seduce his host's wife is the sort of baggy-pants antic that a young Philip Roth probably enjoyed in Newark, New Jersey's long-gone burlesque houses. Readers may remember one of them as the place where Alexander Portnoy discovered an unconventional way to break in his baseball glove.
Sabbath is saved from slapstick by his desire to find relief and wisdom in his past. He comes closest in a conversation with a 100-year-old man who once delivered vegetables in Mickey's old neighborhood. Getting the spirit of the aged on paper has become something of a sub-specialty for Roth--notably in Patrimony, his tender and unsparing account of his father's life and death. The encounter between Sabbath and the centenarian is reminiscent of the earlier memoir.
Nostalgia, on the other hand, is not Roth's strongest suit. Sabbath's memories are frequently weakened by his untransformed self-pity. Furthermore, his return to scenes of childhood has an autobiographical tinge that clouds the distinction between the author and his creation: the shameless, self-destructive rebel who wants to be remembered as a "Beloved Whoremonger, Seducer, Sodo mist, Abuser of Women, Destroyer of Morals, Ensnarer of Youth." There should be no confusion between Sabbath the puppeteer and the novelist who pulls the strings. Of course, there will be.