From a disappointed Roth fan. . .

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	• American Pastoral Philip Roth Vintage, 1998 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 218 reviews view larger image
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Horror Story

As an analysis of Weather Underground types, or homegrown violent terrorists the story fails completely. The book says almost zip about the 60's. This is yet another book by Philip Roth about the mindset of Philip Roth. Basically the US is a horror story for Philip Roth. Roth sees a littleness in the United States and for Roth terrorism is a natural response. This is more a horror story than a work of literature.

Recovery impossible

From reading through various reviews on here, I imagine my opinion on this book is shared by the majority but there are still many who disliked it very various reasons. I was born after all the events of the 40's, 50's, 60's, and seventies took place. This book was a giant eye-opener for me and taught me more than any textbook or college course. This was one of those books that so touched me personally, and helped me conceive of how my grandparent's moralistic generation warped into the mess of today, that I feel I will never recover from reading this book. For better or worse it has changed me. It may be the heaviest book I've ever read.

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From a disappointed Roth fan. . .

Amer pastoral

In this novel, Roth's alter ego Nathan Zuckerman ("Skip") returns to his beloved northern New Jersey--in this case, Newark, during the halcyon days of the 40's and 50's. Back then, Newark was a thriving city of immigrants, many of them Jewish, who worked harder than we can possibly imagine today, but indeed caught the golden ring and realized the American Dream. Growing up, Skip lived in an innocent world of sports and school, worshipping the magical Swede, so-called because this blond god didn't look Jewish. Swede was an athlete and hero, and a look or a kind word from him was enough to send a young boy to Cloud 9. Swede grows up to live out a Jewish version of the American fantasy--he marries Miss New Jersey, buys the old stone mansion of his dreams, has a daughter, and lives the life of an upper middle class WASP. But it all turns into nightmare as daughter Merry grows up and gets caught up in the turmoil of the 60's.

Many consider "American Pastoral" Roth's masterpiece, and it won a Pulitzer. But as a Roth fan, I was disappointed. Was this story merely Skip's imagining of what had happened in the Swede's life? I tended to think so, which might explain the lack of immediacy I felt as I read. Too much of the second half of the book consists of Zuckerman's imaginings of the obsessions in Swede's mind as his personal American dream turns into a hellish nightmare. I felt as if I was going round and round in this poor guy's brain, never to escape. No doubt that's what Roth wanted to convey, but I found it wearing. I find other works of Roth far more compelling, "The Plot Against America" The Plot Against America and "The Human Stain" The Human Stain: A Novel among them. If you felt the same as I did about "Pastoral" don't give up on Roth; try these others.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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 former Miss New Jersey, inherit his father's glove factory, and move into a stone house in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock. And then one day in 1968, Swede's beautiful 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.

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