128 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel
does not detract from the story’s cosmopolitan valency. This is
because Eli exhibits a desire for Otherness and “the foreign” that
reflects the “visceral aspects of cosmopolitanism” and transcends
the physical limits of the local.^5 Posnock broadens the discussion
of Roth’s cosmopolitanism to include almost his entire oeuvre and
makes a compelling argument that the writer has built upon a long
and tortuous lineage of American writers who have played what he
calls the “game of appropriation.”^6 This is a game that encourages
an empowering sense of cultural egalitarianism, whereby the indi-
vidual, as Henry James writes, can “pick and choose and [... ] claim
our [cultural] property wherever we find it.”^7 In the analysis that
follows, I build upon both Spector and Posnock’s analyses to argue
that in the American Trilogy, Roth provokes a critical cosmopolitan
vision of American culture and society that is anchored in political,
ideological, and historical awareness.
Beginning with The Human Stain (2000), I illustrate how Roth
prompts the reader to contemplate the performative nature of eth-
nicity, particularly within the American context, and to question its
image as a static category of human identification. In the discus-
sion of American Pastoral, I argue that Roth encourages a critical
cosmopolitan vision of neoliberal free-market ideology that exposes
its social flaws—flaws that can impede cosmopolitan conciliation.
In the analysis of I Married a Communist, I contend that while the
novel touches upon a number of similar themes and evokes ideas that
complement a critical cosmopolitan view of American culture and
society, Roth also highlights the shortcomings of an ideologically
over-determined world vision. However, considered as a whole, the
trilogy also invites (and to a certain extent demands) the reader to
read the texts in opposition to each other. This aspect of the trilogy
has been observed by Shostak, who applies the Bakhtinian concept
of dialogism to explain how the three works rely upon contradictory
voices and ideas, which drive “the logic within each narrative as well
as the juxtaposition of one novel to the next.”^8
I also contend that a significant portion of the ideological, polit-
ical and social substance, if not earnestness, of the novels is not
stated overtly but, rather, is illuminated through the deployment
of what Pierre Macherey calls “eloquent silence.”^9 These narrative