"The Little Cell Called Your Life": The Scorch of Character and Bodily Data in Philip Roth's Nemesis

Abstract

Abstract:Nemesis (2010), Roth's plague novel, presents a world glutted with the "scorches" and stains of bodily data that elsewhere singly identify Rothian character. Tactile sensations flare vibrant and deadly in a community on fire, as Nemesis asks how the "little cell" of protagonicity at its center, Bucky Cantor, can have a meaningful relationship with bodily matter once it is reconstrued as toxic. This article argues that as a destabilized realist novel, Nemesis reflects critically on the fate of fictive character when the human has been "unmasked" as naked data.