152 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel
looks, and “all-American” charm (p. 19). This image of Levov pres-
ents strong parallels with the archetypal Aristotelian “tragic hero.”
Indeed, Levov’s (and one could argue his generation’s) tragedy
is more in keeping with the conventional Aristotelian form than is
Silk’s. This is because Aristotle’s criteria, that the hero should be of
high social standing and possess a clear set of moral virtues, fit much
more neatly with Levov’s than they do with Silk’s. As Zuckerman
explains, not only is he “glamorously heroic” and a star high-school
athlete, but he a lso comes from a privileged midd le-cla ss Jewish fa m-
ily, owners of the rapidly expanding Newark Maid glove tanning
factory (p. 15). To complete the character’s “god”-like “perfection,”
he is also an affable, modest individual with, much to Zuckerman’s
chagrin, no discernible streaks of pettiness or corruption that are to
be found in everyone. It is this impossible perfection that prepares
the ground for the tragedy that unfolds:
Where was the Jew in him? You couldn’t find it and yet you knew it was
there. Where was the irrationality in him? Where was the crybaby in
him? Where were the wayward temptations? No guile. No artifice. No
mischief. All that he had eliminated to achieve his perfection. No striv-
ing, no ambivalence, no doubleness—just the style, the natural physical
refinement of a star. (p. 20)As the quotation reveals, Zuckerman’s understanding of Levov is
marked by his own peculiar preoccupations and idiosyncrasies. As
in the case of Silk, Levov is not known intimately by Zuckerman,
and the two only appear to meet twice as adults. Not only does
Zuckerman admit to knowing little about Levov’s motivations and
mindset, but even the questions he asks in trying to “understand”
the character are themselves heavily conditioned and framed by his
own personal anxieties. To fill in these “gaps” in Levov’s story, the
narrator uses conversations with the latter’s younger brother, Jerry,
who, upon reading Zuckerman’s finished manuscript, declares the
latter had “Perfectly misjudged” Levov, and had not “understood”
who he really was (p. 75). As in Silk’s case, this elusive quality of
the protagonist contributes to the pathos of his tragic fall in that it
preserves a space of “unknowability” that problematizes a fully satis-
factory empathic engagement. This therefore elicits, in the manner