What is the effect of being told the story through Zuckerman?. Are we led to believe aspects of the story are a projection of Zuckerman"s fantasies about a character who caught his imagination?. How does Roth illustrate this thought?.
In the end, after the packaging is shredded to pieces, and unwrapped with the rash impatience of the compulsive child, it is only the superbly Rothian prose that still remains in the still burning relics of the startled mind. Nothing else. Not the cover, the perfect typeset, the editing, or five or six drafts composed beforehand, but the final instalment of the iconic now text, of the master at the very top of his powers, at his sempiternal game with the reader's self. An indisputable classic amongst the rare Roth's gems.