Editing Goodbye, Columbus

{{Short description|1959 short story collection by Philip Roth}}
{{About|the novella|the film adaptation|Goodbye, Columbus (film)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox book
| name          = Goodbye, Columbus
| image         = Goodbye columbus.jpg
| image_size = 
| caption = First edition cover
| author        = [[Philip Roth]]
| illustrator   = 
| cover_artist  = 
| country       = United States
| language      = English
| series        = 
| genre         = Novella, short story collection
| publisher     = [[Houghton Mifflin]]
| release_date  = May 7, 1959<ref>{{cite journal |date=May 7, 1959 |title=Books Today |journal=[[The New York Times]] |page=30 }}</ref>
| media_type    = Print (hardback & paperback)
| pages         = 298
| isbn          = 0-679-74826-1
| oclc             = 2360171
| preceded_by   = 
| followed_by   = [[Letting Go (novel)|Letting Go]]
}}

'''''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]]'', along with five short stories. It was Roth's first book and was published by [[Houghton Mifflin]].

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]] as they leave the ethnic [[ghetto]]s 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]].<ref name=nba1960>[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1960 "National Book Awards – 1960"]. Retrieved 2012-03-30. There is a link there to [http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_proth_1960.html#.WyU65C0-K3c Roth's acceptance speech] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180922083751/http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_proth_1960.html#.WyU65C0-K3c |date=2018-09-22 }}. The National Book Awards blog for the 50th anniversary of ''Goodbye, Columbus'' is [https://web.archive.org/web/20121016012719/http://www.nbafictionblog.org/nba-winning-books-blog/1960.html essays by five writers] about the book. The annual awards are made by the [[National Book Foundation]].</ref> The book was not without controversy, as people within the Jewish community took issue with Roth's less than flattering portrayal of some characters.<ref>Zucker, David J.  [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3236/is_1_43/ai_n29426354/ "Roth, Rushdie, and rage: religious reactions to Portnoy and The Verses."] ''[[BNET]]''.  2008.  17 July 2010.</ref> 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]] to discuss minority representation in literature, the questions directed at him became denunciations.<ref>Kaplan, Justin (September 25, 1988). [https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/11/specials/roth-autobio.html?_r=2 "Play It Again, Nathan"]. ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref>  Many accused Roth of being a [[self-hating Jew]], a label that stuck with him for years.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110615124044/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article484395.ece "Profile: Philip Roth: Literary hit man with a 9/11 bullet in his gun."] ''The Times''.  19 September 2004. 17 July 2010.</ref>

The title novella was made into the 1969 film ''[[Goodbye, Columbus (film)|Goodbye, Columbus]]'', starring [[Ali MacGraw]] and [[Richard Benjamin]].

==Roth's own retrospective reckoning==
<!-- ******** THE FORMER LOCATION OF THIS SECTION, which was between the novella's section and the short stories' section, is awkward because this section's reckonings apply equally to both of those sections. So, this section belongs either immediately before or after both of those sections. I vote for BEFORE because its reckonings are too comprehensive and interesting to be sent to the back of the article. Although these reckonings would be more meaningful to a reader who has read the whole article than they are to a reader who has read only the article’s intro (the paragraphs above the table of contents), the intro says enough to enable a reader to catch the points of these reckonings. ******** -->
Roth wrote in the preface to the book's 30th anniversary edition: <blockquote>"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."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Goodbye, Columbus|last=Roth|first=Philip|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|year=1989|isbn=0395518504|location=Boston}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/01/books/goodbye-newark-roth-remembers-his-beginnings.html|title=Goodbye Newark: Roth Remembers His Beginnings|last=Roth|first=Philip|date=1989|work=The New York Times|access-date=June 13, 2018}}</ref></blockquote>

==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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Philip Roth : new perspectives on an American author|url=https://archive.org/details/philiprothnewper00roya|url-access=limited|publisher=Praeger|year=2005|isbn=9780313018039|editor-last=Parker Royal|editor-first=Derek|location=Westport, Conn.|pages=[https://archive.org/details/philiprothnewper00roya/page/n53 43]–57|chapter=3|oclc=518020092}}</ref>

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]]. One summer, Neil meets and falls for Brenda Patimkin, a student at [[Radcliffe College]] who is from a wealthy family living in the affluent suburb of [[Short Hills, New Jersey|Short Hills]]. Neil persuades Brenda to get a [[diaphragm (birth control)|diaphragm]], which her mother discovers.

The novella was adapted into a [[Goodbye, Columbus (film)|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.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}

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 [[Blessed Virgin Mary|Virgin Mary]] 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]]; 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]]'' on March 7, 1959 ([https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1959/03/14/defender-of-the-faith 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]]''.<ref>Philip Roth, ''The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography'', New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1988.</ref>

==="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]] 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]] 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==
{{Reflist}}

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{{s-start}}
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{{succession box
  | before = ''[[The Magic Barrel]]''<br/>[[Bernard Malamud]]
  | title  = [[National Book Award for Fiction]]
  | years  = 1960
  | after  = ''[[The Waters of Kronos]]''<br/>[[Conrad Richter]]
}}
{{s-end}}

{{PhilipRoth}}
{{NBA for Fiction 1950–1974}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1959 short story collections]]
[[Category:American short story collections]]
[[Category:Houghton Mifflin books]]
[[Category:Novels set in New Jersey]]
[[Category:American novellas]]
[[Category:National Book Award for Fiction–winning works]]
[[Category:Books by Philip Roth]]
[[Category:Jewish American short story collections]]
[[Category:Novels republished in the Library of America]]
[[Category:Works originally published in The Paris Review]]
[[Category:1959 debut works]]
[[Category:American novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:National Jewish Book Award winners]]