Revisiting Roth's Operation Shylock

I’ve been (re)reading Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock (1993), inspired by reviews of the new Roth biography (which I have minimal interest in reading; aren’t his novels, stories, and other writings enough?), and finding the first 100 or so pp. (about 25% of the novel) as hilarious and strange as I’d remembered. What a set-up! Roth begins with an account of a period in his adult life when he’d been on the verge of a psychotic break and was completely unable to write, all of which were attributed to his reaction to the Rx Halcyon; this section feels precisely autobiographical (even down to his using the name of his then-wife, making this much more like an essay than a novel) — but of course his mental instability as described colors and questions the “factual” material that is to follow - which entails this: Roth, recovered from his breakdown/medical poisoning, via word from several friends, learns that a man claiming to be Philip Roth the writer is visiting Israel - in part to “witness” the historical trial of the sadistic Nazi prison official Demjanjuk - and is proselytizing for a scheme to get Israeli Jews to leave their endangered land and return to their familial homes in Eastern Europe (where the Europeans will greet the returned with open arms and celebrate the return of “our Jews”) - obviously a crackpot scheme. But what should the real Roth do? He travels to Israel to confront his alter ego - where he has a # of unsettling encounters. Of course this whole scheme calls into question what is a “character” in a novel: Is one any more the “real” Philip Roth than the other? The set-up is so great that any reader has to wonder how Roth will pull this one off; we don’t read Roth for his plots - more for his style, humor, imagination, social and personal commentary - for his schtick: No writer is more of a performer than Roth. but that’s why with the exception of Goodbye, Columbus (his first book) his works translate poorly into film. I’ll definitely finish (re)reading this novel, but I wonder how well he can sustain the initial hilarity and wonder: Will the novel conclude? Or just end? 4/2/21