If it were only a matter of wit and intellect, Philip Roth's position as one of the masters of American fiction would be unquestioned. But egged on by some perverse internal logic, he has since Portnoy's Complaint usually resorted to the tactics of a schoolboy: playing pranks, defying conventions, alternately revering and mocking his elders, and scandalizing his peers. His new short novel, Zuckerman Unbound, is another extravagant complaint, this time putting the blame on fame, though certainly not exonerating, even on grounds of double jeopardy, the family….

The voice is familiar—the exasperation, edged with laughter, bordering on hysteria, of Portnoy's "Whew! Have I got grievances! Do I harbor hatreds I didn't even know were there!"—but we can't recognize the prose. The merriment and rollicking buffoonery of the controversial earlier novel are noticeably missing.

His sentences punctuated by an incredulity that reminds us of the maniacal...