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25th out of 136 books
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22 voters
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American Pastoral (The American Trilogy #1)
by
Philip Roth
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 fat...more
Paperback, 423 pages
Published
October 18th 2005
by Vintage
(first published January 1st 1997)
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You figure "hey, it's Philip Roth. All sorts of awards. Might as well read his Pulitzer Prize winner. Can't be half bad, can it? can't be that bad. He's got other good stuff. This one must be good too."
American Pastoral defies logic with its terrible, terrible writing. This was one of the most boring, most difficult to force myself through books I've ever read. Roth has clearly become more of an old man, rambling on and on about the good ole days of Newark, America, the co...more
American Pastoral defies logic with its terrible, terrible writing. This was one of the most boring, most difficult to force myself through books I've ever read. Roth has clearly become more of an old man, rambling on and on about the good ole days of Newark, America, the co...more
OK let me just say that I am so. excited. about this book. My friend Cal recommended it to me a while back, and I finally got around to it. OH MY GOSH I've been missing out on Philip Roth! He is now my new favorite author. I know that's a rash judgment to make based on one book, but it's just that good.
Cal and I love a lot of the same books for entirely different reasons, which is fun. To put it simplistically (which I hate to do), Cal gets more excited about story / character develo...more
Cal and I love a lot of the same books for entirely different reasons, which is fun. To put it simplistically (which I hate to do), Cal gets more excited about story / character develo...more
Hmm. Well Matt and I had one of our more heated discussions about this book.
I basically don't like anything by Philip Roth.
What prompted the argument...I mean heated discussion...was one of my primary reasons for disliking the book. I will sum that up now and then give the example that led to the heated discussion.
I don't like this book because Philip Roth romanticizes the past in a particular white middle-aged man way that is kind of grating because that pa...more
I basically don't like anything by Philip Roth.
What prompted the argument...I mean heated discussion...was one of my primary reasons for disliking the book. I will sum that up now and then give the example that led to the heated discussion.
I don't like this book because Philip Roth romanticizes the past in a particular white middle-aged man way that is kind of grating because that pa...more
American Pastoral:
This book is a rock that shatters preconceptions of self, family, morality, dreams, life, and nation - many simultaneously - and some individually.
What I felt this book had to say:
(1) No matter what a parent does, a child will have more say in who they become than anyone else.
(2) "Good people" do bad things, sick things, unspeakable things.
(3) Rich and beautiful wife's & husbands of 30 years of monogamy chea...more
This book is a rock that shatters preconceptions of self, family, morality, dreams, life, and nation - many simultaneously - and some individually.
What I felt this book had to say:
(1) No matter what a parent does, a child will have more say in who they become than anyone else.
(2) "Good people" do bad things, sick things, unspeakable things.
(3) Rich and beautiful wife's & husbands of 30 years of monogamy chea...more
Clearly a lot of research went into this book. I only wish Roth hadn’t been so compelled to show off every single trinket of minutiae, arcania, and esoterica (yes, I invent words when necessary) that he could acquire relating to the glove-making industry in New Jersey.
The book is unquestionably too long, and the political allegory can feel a bit oppressive as one strives to believe in characters that remain just short of plausible (excepting a few bit players, such as the bullying h...more
The book is unquestionably too long, and the political allegory can feel a bit oppressive as one strives to believe in characters that remain just short of plausible (excepting a few bit players, such as the bullying h...more
Consider Einstein's definition of "insanity," selected by 12,209 Goodreads readers as one of their favorite quotations: "Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Chutzpah: Pointing out the incompleteness of a genius's definition. Nevertheless, I'm proposing the inclusion of the words "in a laboratory." Yes, we often get nowhere by repeatedly doing what doesn't work. Meet Roth's (or Nate Zuckerman's) Seymour Levov, who d...more
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I found this an impossible read because the central character, Swede Levov, was utterly implausible. He was too handsome, too kind, too modest, too tortured, too innocent(!), but what he was not was real. He was a fantasy. And to all who say they've known a Swede in their lives I'd guess they didn't know that person very well at all. They were too busy gazing from afar at their gorgeous marble idol with its beautiful tears.
Should I blame the fictional Nathan Zuckerman and not t...more
Should I blame the fictional Nathan Zuckerman and not t...more
I didn't finish it. I realized that life is probably too short, and certainly I read too slowly, to spend another minute with Philip Roth. He's Jewish, did you know? JEWISH. Also, he is a man. Men have penises, did you know? PENISES! that are very important and special self-starting things, and when they don't work it is an AMERICAN TRAGEDY, and when they do, well they just do stuff and we observe all of that with some very pretty sentences that almost distract a person from how we're basically ...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Seymour "Swede" Levov has it made--a beautiful wife, the family glove business in his capable hands, wealth, a house in suburbia. He was his high school's football star in Newark, New Jersey, makes friends wherever he goes, and spent a brief yet heralded stint in the armed forces, his unit set to ship out only days before World War II came to an end. He enjoys success beyond anything his Russian Jewish immigrant grandparents could ever have even dared hope. By any and all measures, ...more
American Pastoral means "a story about America's Golden Age." And so I guess it is, in some ways, the story of the early 20th century American Jewish immigrant family and in its romantic interpretation they're rich, they're whiter than the white folk and they still fall prey to the adultery, lawlessness and immorality that embraces American culture.
I'm completely flumoxed by this book. I started out enjoying it enormously, especially Roth's editorials about high school ...more
I'm completely flumoxed by this book. I started out enjoying it enormously, especially Roth's editorials about high school ...more
On the book cover, the Guardian recommends Roth's novel as "raging and elegiac". Indeed? Well, in the end it was I who felt raging and elegiac every time I picked up this book.
I must admit I was somewhat wary of the novel before I bought it because I had already disliked "Everyman" - but I convinced myself that "American Pastoral" couldn't be so bad. After all, it had won the Pulitzer Prize for its portrait of a seemingly perfect man, the "Swede"...more
I must admit I was somewhat wary of the novel before I bought it because I had already disliked "Everyman" - but I convinced myself that "American Pastoral" couldn't be so bad. After all, it had won the Pulitzer Prize for its portrait of a seemingly perfect man, the "Swede"...more
This is a tough novel to get through in some senses and one many women find laughably misogynist. I'd argue that while, not unproblematic, the book's treatment of women is very much an effect of the fact that it is a story about men and in particular the anxieties of the sort of men who with some good reason saw themselves as the embodiment of the immigrant's American dream. Naturally these historically important, good-hearted dudes had a somewhat inflated sense of importance and a low opinion...more
In its way, “American Pastoral” (and the entire America Trilogy) is Roth’s true Bellow novel, an old left response to “Mr. Sammler’s Planet.” “Pastoral” is also the best novel about terrorism written by an American novelist, but one concerned with the human ramifications, not the ideology of motivation. Properly speaking, it is not really political at all, it is social, but a society at its most basic unit. This is not “The Wire,” there is no nihilistic attack on the system. Instead, it is peopl...more
(4.0) A lot to get out of the way before one of the best scenes I've ever read
So there's a lot of messing around with Nathan Zuckerman before we get to the meat of the novel. Not actually sure what function this prelude serves other than suggesting that what follows is in fact fiction-within-fiction (of which I'm tiring a bit) written by Zuckerman about one of his high schoolmates: the real novel, about Swede Levov.
We then diddle about for a while filling in tons of backgroun...more
So there's a lot of messing around with Nathan Zuckerman before we get to the meat of the novel. Not actually sure what function this prelude serves other than suggesting that what follows is in fact fiction-within-fiction (of which I'm tiring a bit) written by Zuckerman about one of his high schoolmates: the real novel, about Swede Levov.
We then diddle about for a while filling in tons of backgroun...more
I read this book because I thought I ought to read something by Philip Roth. I read this Roth book in particular because of its title. I am interested in pastoral and counter-pastoral modes in an America context. I read this book because I was feeling sick and I needed an excuse to lay in bed sipping tea and reading a novel while feeling like I was making progress on my dissertation and preparing for my future.
What I did not realize until I was thoroughly pulled into the book was t...more
What I did not realize until I was thoroughly pulled into the book was t...more
I recently finished an outstandingly beautiful novel (THE MASTER PLANETS), and immediately went into one of those "I'll-Never-Find-Anything-As-Good-Again" funks. Then I found this book, which is not only a brilliant piece of literature (it's by Roth, after all), but also deals with some fascinating issues similar to those in PLANETS--issues I wanted to read more about.
As just one example: I am not Jewish, but have noticed in certain writings something uniquely poignant in...more
As just one example: I am not Jewish, but have noticed in certain writings something uniquely poignant in...more
Basically this book is an etiology. "Etiology" is a word I learned from the author, Philip Roth, who likes to use big words. Etiology is the study of the causes of disease. In American Pastoral, Swede Levov expends his life trying to determine the cause of the disease that claimed his daughter, made her a murderer and turned her into a nut, and this becomes an allegory for whatever it is that undermines the American promises of prosperity, civic order and domestic bliss.
May...more
May...more
America is its ideals. This is the point Philip Roth steps around and returns to throughout the layered meander of American Pastoral. The author lays out this message by invoking a series of narrative dialectics about American life: country versus city, past versus present, private versus public, peace versus war, order versus chaos, and, on a most basic level, serenity versus insanity. Swede Levov has an American dream—to rise through the ranks of society by contending and winning, to work...more
The only thing I have read from Philip Roth before this was Goodbye Columbus. That was one book that I had liked for its genuineness and for its stories that depicted the life of a community, its place in the rest of the world, the fears and the anxiety and a need for assertion.
American Pastoral came heavily recommended from all Critics lists, and I read it with some amount of expectation. Sadly, I was a little disappointed in it. I found it slow, replete with inconsistent characters, and...more
American Pastoral came heavily recommended from all Critics lists, and I read it with some amount of expectation. Sadly, I was a little disappointed in it. I found it slow, replete with inconsistent characters, and...more
This is the most self-indulgent, pointless book I have ever read. I would string together a series of poorly crafted run-on sentences to attempt to describe this terrible work, but then I would be simply imitating Roth.
I wish that I had the hours that it took me to read this book back. I also wish that Roth's editor would come to my apartment so that I could punch her/him in the face. An utterly pointless story coupled with, as aforementioned, ridiculously self-indulgent and den...more
I wish that I had the hours that it took me to read this book back. I also wish that Roth's editor would come to my apartment so that I could punch her/him in the face. An utterly pointless story coupled with, as aforementioned, ridiculously self-indulgent and den...more
I think this book is one of the best that I have ever read. Yes, I was put off by the details, the pages that were filled with what seemed like unimportant things, the tangents. But I think a lot of people missed out on what this book is really about. This book isn't about the characters (who Roth made me care about), or the town, or the country. The characters could be anyone, the town anywhere, the country and country. Well, no, actually, it was decidedly American. What this book was about was...more
...e per quanto tu faccia per avvolgerti e scaldarti resta sempre qualche zona scoperta, alla mercé dell'imprevisto.
E la vita è incredibilmente abile nello scovarti anche negli recessi più dimenticati, anche se ti sei nascosto in una bella e solida casa sperduta nello sconfinato orizzonte della sconfinata provincia americana.
E' interessante il rapporto tra americani e conformismo: nazione giovane, geneticamente multirazziale, che negli anni zero, grazie ad un'incredibile capacità di mobilità s...more
E la vita è incredibilmente abile nello scovarti anche negli recessi più dimenticati, anche se ti sei nascosto in una bella e solida casa sperduta nello sconfinato orizzonte della sconfinata provincia americana.
E' interessante il rapporto tra americani e conformismo: nazione giovane, geneticamente multirazziale, che negli anni zero, grazie ad un'incredibile capacità di mobilità s...more
I was near tears for so much of this book. It begins innocuously enough, the author Zuckerman recounting his remembrances of the Swede, a high school hero, some chance encounters and a conversation with the Swedes brother that destroys his idol status a little bit.
What follows is an account of one of the best men that has ever lived. He is flawed, he takes for granted, he is not faithful, he is slow to act, but he is good. He is the last of an older generation, even if he has been t...more
What follows is an account of one of the best men that has ever lived. He is flawed, he takes for granted, he is not faithful, he is slow to act, but he is good. He is the last of an older generation, even if he has been t...more
I really wanted to love this book, a lot. I didn't. It felt important, but like it was really TRYING to be important, and just ever-so-slightly missing the mark. And something about that whole thing made me just not like it.
The character study is truly phenomenal, there is no denying that. Roth has nailed the most subtle, deep, psychological underpinnings of the American psyche. But it's specifically the Baby Boomer American psyche. Utterly self-absorbed, and even though trying ...more
The character study is truly phenomenal, there is no denying that. Roth has nailed the most subtle, deep, psychological underpinnings of the American psyche. But it's specifically the Baby Boomer American psyche. Utterly self-absorbed, and even though trying ...more
Having read this book a few weeks ago, I wanted to take some time to digest the story, its meaning and its impact before proffering comment. As profound as I found all of them to be, I'm still not sure I can do this opus justice.
This begins as a somewhat stereotypical rendering of the great American dream, wherein an immigrant family comes to New York, settles in and sets about building a very successful family business, started by his father and passed down to protagonist Swede Levov,...more
This begins as a somewhat stereotypical rendering of the great American dream, wherein an immigrant family comes to New York, settles in and sets about building a very successful family business, started by his father and passed down to protagonist Swede Levov,...more
I'm having a hard time starting this review without cursing. Maybe the story of Swede Levov's picture-perfect life and the misery it concealed would've captivated me. But instead, Philip Roth chooses to frame the story, right from the beginning, as coming entirely from the imagination of the novelist character Nathan Zuckerman. What a great way to distance this reader, at least, from the story. I kept reading none-the-less because I wanted to know what became of Merry, and more pressingly, w...more
American Pastoral is the posthumous narrative of the life of fictional former high-school sports star Seymour "The Swede" Levov, born and raised in the Weequahic neighborhood of Newark where Philip Roth himself grew up (the novel is narrated by Roth's alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman). While Weequahic was a largely middle class Jewish neighborhood prior to the 1960s (when Roth would have been living there) the demographic makeup of the area, as was the case with the rest of Newark, was alter...more
I've only read one other Roth book, and it was The Plot Against America. Both books have this political ambition to them. They both seem intent on coming to some conclusion about American history. The big difference, though, is that The Plot Against America descends into this science fiction type narrative that gets more and more hokey as the book goes on. American Pastoral doesn't wander so far from actual history. There are some crucial plot points that are presented in that same "this co...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| why do people like this so much? | 11 | 107 | Oct 26, 2011 01:48pm | |
| Constant Reader | 375 | 290 | Dec 25, 2008 01:46pm | |
| Zuckerman Order!? | 2 | 35 | Mar 05, 2008 02:14pm |
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Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained early literary fame with the 1959 collection Goodbye, Columbus (winner of 1960's National Book Award), cemented it with his 1969 bestseller Portnoy's Complaint, and has continued to write critically-acclaimed works, many of which feature his fictional alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman. The Zuckerman novels began with The Ghost Writer in 1979, and inc...more
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“You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion. ... The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you.”
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127 people liked it
“He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.”
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108 people liked it
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