American Pastoral
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Product Description
As the American century draws to an uneasy close, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all our century’s promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth’s protagonist is Swede Levov, a legendary athlete at his Newark high school, who grows up in the booming postwar years to marry a ex- Miss New Jersey, inherit his father’s glove factory, and go into a stone house in the idyllic hamlet of Ancient Rimrock. And then one day in 1968, Swede’s gorgeous American luck deserts him.
For Swede’s adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager—a teenager capable of an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longer-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk. Compulsively readable, propelled by sorrow, rage, and a deep compassion for its characters, this is Roth’s masterpiece.Amazon.com Review
Philip Roth’s 22nd book takes a life-long view of the American experience in this thoughtful investigation of the century’s most divisive and explosive of decades, the ’60s. Returning again to the voice of his literary alter ego Nathan Zuckerman, Roth is at the top of his form. His prose is carefully controlled yet permanently fresh and intellectually devious as he reconstructs the halcyon days, circa World War II, of Seymour “the Swede” Levov, a high school sports hero and all-around Fantastic Guy who wants nothing more than to live in tranquillity. But as the Swede grows older and America crazier, history sweeps his family tree inexorably into its grip: His own daughter, Merry, commits an unpardonable act of “protest” against the Vietnam war that ultimately severs the Swede from any hope of happiness, family tree, or spiritual coherence.
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Pieces of it are okay–it might even contain the makings of a few fleeting tales–but taken as a whole, it’s meandering, repetitive and just unadorned dull.
I’m part way into it and suspect it’s never going to get to the point, so I don’t intend to end it.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
This is one of the most dull and purposeless yet highly acclaimed work of fiction that I ever read. A guy who had everything he could question for in his youth (why, he was blonde, handsome and an brilliant athlete) looses it all because he had a stuttering daughter who chose to blow up some thing to get attention.
The writing is extremely self conscious with the narrator wanting to be clever and profound all the time. Why can’t all these acclaimed modern authors deal with their appealing themes in an appealing way(the presumed theme in this novel is of class mobility, social integration and the linked loss of ethnic identity and sensitivities and all the guilt and misgivings caused by this). The same theme could have been expressed in a Dickensian way with character carricature, a bit of comic exaggeration and human responses ranging from outright stupidity to outright genius. We would have got the same message in an entertaining way and we would have cared for the characters in the book and remembered their successes and follies even many years after closing the book. This book is a pain to read and I finished up with no sympathy for any of the characters or their plights.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
This certainly is a prime example of brilliant manipulative speechifying by the leader, well executed for maximum readerly affect. In some respects thouroughly blameworthy, though. (I do not expect to get a positive response from this review, but that’s okay).
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
This book is too ancient, too male, too white and too long… It examines in excrutiating detail all trivial issues and neglects the appealing and vital ones. The tale goes nowhere quick and keeps sinking after you’ve finished.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This tale and character is too ancient, too white and too male… It doesn’t go anywhere, but down… Leaving out the excellent parts and ruminating over the trivial parts of the main character’s life, the book was a train going nowhere…
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5