Philip Roth, one of America’s most distinguished living novelists, has attacked as “repugnant” the “orgy of national narcissism” that has gripped the United States since September 11.His comments risk the fierce opprobrium that has greeted other American intellectuals - among them Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag - who have dared to question the patriotism that still dominates America’s public rhetoric.But with his reputation in recent years cemented by a sequence of intensely political novels - including The Human Stain, I Married A Communist and American Pastoral - his is a powerful voice of dissent.“What we are witnessing since...