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Dec 17, 2009

When I wrote my review for China Mieville's The City and the City, I threw out a stray oblique threat to talk about how its central metaphor might say something about fiction. Mieville's conceit is a single physical space that is inhabited by two "separate" cities -- residents of the respective cities have deeply-ingrained habits of unseeing, so that walking through one neighborhood you might, if you violated practices both cultural and legally-mandated, turn your head and catch a gli More...

18 comments like (24 people liked it)

Nov 10, 2008

Jason rated it:

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

So after a month of election obsession here in Chicago, I find my schedule of book reviews in complete chaos: nearly 20 titles read now, all of them awaiting essays, and with me still continuing to read new books on a daily basis. I thought I'd start this week, then, with a whole series o More...

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

May 29, 2010

Jace rated it:

I don't usually do this, but I'm halfway through this book and I want to write a review of my progress so far. For a couple of reasons:
1. The thought has crossed my mind a couple times in the first 200 pages to put the book down. If I don't finish it, I'll probably never write a full review.
2. As I near the midsection of the book, it becomes clearer that things might be about to turn upside down. If so, by the time I finish it I probably will have erased from memory everything I'm t More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Brian rated it:

I gave this book 4 stars. I probably would have given it 5 had it not gotten a bit weak towards the end and the author seemed to lose focus of where his story was going. It seemed like he wanted it to end whereas I wanted it to continue on.

First off let me say this book is NOT what most of these reviewers are calling it. It is far too complex to be thrown into a category of "what-if" histories. The first thing that came to mind when I read it was that is was a memoir. In f More...

1 comment like (16 people liked it)

Jul 28, 2010

Paquita Maria rated it:

Coming soon...must first nurse hangover...having trouble with simple sentences at the moment...

Okay, here goes. This is going to be worded poorly because I killed a lot of braincells last night, but I need to get this out of my system.

I enjoyed this novel. I really, really did. To be more specific, I enjoyed it in the way you enjoy a movie-version of a book you've already read, or a cutesy little romance like The Princess Bride (no disrespect). I mean, you just KNOW More...

13 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jun 19, 2008

David rated it:

In The Plot Against America, Philip Roth lovingly re-creates the lost world of the Jewish community of mid-century Newark, the world of his own boyhood. Then he takes the main characters, modeled on himself, his friends and his family, and tortures them by forcing them to live through state-sponsored Nazism in America.

Roth imagines an America in which Charles Lindberg defeats FDR in1940 by pledging to keep the US out of WWII, then immediately signs non-aggression pacts with both Ge More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2007

Anne rated it:

This alternative history ponders what might have happened had pilot Charles Lindbergh run against and defeated Roosevelt in 1940. The Plot Against America is a wonderful and surprising read -- especially in its restraint. Roth's story provides insightful commentary on how American presidential campaigns are run, our media's role in them, how we choose our leaders, the bigotry behind assimilation efforts, and how corruption can and often will run its course. At the book's end, I was surprised More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

May 19, 2008

J rated it:

I’d been a big fan of Philip Roth since stumbling across Portnoy’s Complaint in college. That book spoke hysterically of the torments of a desire conflicting with one’s upbringing and one’s own better sense. Roth captured so keenly the nature of an almost self-destructive pursuit and the complexities of repression, transference, and what Dostoevsky’s Underground Man referred to as “contrary to one’s own interests…that very ‘most advantageous advantage.’” The book was hilarious absurdity yet hear More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2007

Cate rated it:

My closest book-swapping sidekick disliked this one, and another friend began but put it down soon after, so I started reading with a bit of hesitation.

I should say at this point that Roth's American Pastoral is one of my all-time favorites. It starts incredibly slow (i.e. I didn't expect to read in excess of 50 pages about the inner workings of a glove factory), but knowing that the build-up in this book was well worth it, I stuck with The Plot...

The quality of the wri More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2007

Michael rated it:

Like others here, I often found this book to be a compelling read (though there were some unnecessary bits), but ultimately, I think Roth (do I need to warn about 'spoilers'?) presents us here with a more sophisticated version of the Dallas 'it was all a bad dream' solution, where all the events of an entirely plausible American support for Nazism in the Second World War -- intelligently illustrating how other countries might also have been seduced by fascism and anti-Semitism -- are nearly comp More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 03, 2008

Meghan rated it:

Divine. This is a fantasy book in a way; a history book in a way; and a coming-of-age novel in a way.

It takes place in America in the early 1940's and takes us through the journey of a Jewish family living in the ghetto of Newark. The twist is: FDR didn't get a third term. Instead Lindbergh wins the presidency. As an isolationist and a Nazi sympathizer, he keeps America out of World War II and begins to implement "programs" that help Jewish Americans assimilate into mi More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jojo rated it:

I do NOT life alternate history. It makes me confused about facts and usually just pisses me off. But this one is different. It's a "what if?" sort of book that feels very real. Probably because Roth inserts his own boyhood self into the narrative. It did make me hate Lindbergh, and I am not sure he deserves quite as much hate as I am feeling. I have to research that! (because the fake history has messed with my head)

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 06, 2010

Ron rated it:

3.5, maybe. Like Arthur Miller's The Crucible, this book may tell more about Roth's state of mind perhaps than any real or likely "history."

Great premise: pro-Nazi, anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh is elected President in 1940. What is the impact on a secular, urban Jewish family in New Jersey, as seen through the eyes of a seven-year-old (in 1940) protagonist?

But poorly developed and told. All sorts of logical gaps. Too complete knowledge. But worst, Philip as na More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 11, 2008

Alena rated it:

What a brilliant novel. Well thought out, based on enough historical facts to feel very real and uses its characters very well. What would have happened had isolationist won the presidential election in 1940 and not Roosevelt? How would his anti-Semitic politics influenced the life of a Jewish-American family? Roth tries to answer this from the viewpoint of 8 year old namesake (I don't know whether family, etc. depict autobiographical elements).

Roth's writing is astounding in that it More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 21, 2008

Brittany rated it:

I'm not really sure how to describe this book. It's an "alternative history," book in which FDR didn't win a third nomination, and somehow Charles Lindbergh got elected instead.

It was fascinating to read the book and compare/contrast and think very deeply about our political situation today: Unpopular war, pro-war president, charismatic presidential candidate and so forth. (And before anyone gets carried away and upset, I said compare and CONTRAST. Some things are clearly v More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2008

Gregg rated it:

Philip Roth’s re-imagining of history reminds me of the old What If? comic books, wherein they take a specific point in history and change an event or the choice someone makes. The narrative then follows this alternate reality to demonstrate how different the world would have become. It’s like Clarence the angel in It’s A Wonderful Life when he shows George how different his entire town would be had he never been born.

But in The Plot Against America, Roth chooses to ask What if Charles More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 11, 2008

Richard rated it:

Philip Roth is certainly one of our best novelists--in fact, he may be among the last of our Great American Novelists, that crew of writers who were renown as much as public figures as writers. Norman Mailer has opted more for the public face aspect of his career than his writing career considering the quality of his work of late, and Thomas Pynchon has no public face at all. Modern masters like Cormac McCarthy (who, age-wise, is in the Mailer/Roth boat but has only become renown in his later ye More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 28, 2008

Nick rated it:

I'm on a small, alternative WWII histories kick (started w/ Fatherland), and I'm pretty sure Roth's contribution will be the meatiest of this weird little sub-genre*. In TPAM, Roth imagines an America that stays out of the war, thanks to isolationist/anti-Semite president Charles Lindbergh. The book charts the effects of Lindbergh's Nazi rapprochement on a Jewish family (in, it being Philip Roth, Newark, New Jersey), and describes how senses of Jewish identity and community are both forged and d More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 16, 2008

Chelsea rated it:

Roth reimagines a 1940's where FDR has not been re-elected, and instead aviation hero (and anti-semite/Nazi sympathizer) Charles Lindbergh becomes our nation's 33rd President.
The story is told from the perspective of the youngest child of a working-class Jewish family living in Newark, New Jersey. This is the genius of Roth, because the little boy, aptly named Philip, critically examines even the smallest, most nuanced change in his little sphere. And we are pulled in, feeling acutely the More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 16, 2008

Tara rated it:

I began this book with sort of low expectations, for a variety of reasons: (1) the other non-sci-fi alternate history book I read recently, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, was disappointing; (2) I had a friend who did not like it; and (3) I started reading it about a year ago and put it down because it didn't grab me. But my expectations were exceeded, and not just because they were low to begin with.

This book isn't your typical alternate history (taking a sci fi alternate history a More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2008

David rated it:

This book definitely has a great coming of age story involved in what is looked at as a historical novel. But the best insight that I got from it was something along the lines of this: it warns of the dangers of big government. And by that, i mean not the actuality of large government, but how a large government can fall in to the hands of the wrong people and easily become a dictatorship or a fascist state.

As a liberal, its easy to romanticize the New Deal era and all of its program More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2008

Jesse rated it:

Read probably 3 seconds after it came out. Roth takes a faintly possible fictional premise--Charles Lindbergh wins the 1940 Presidential election, then proceeds to implement suspiciously Hitleresque policies--and imbues it with relentless realism. It's an astonishing act of bravura...or chutzpah, if you prefer. This is what it would have felt like to suddenly realize that coded speech, political discrimination, the whole gamut up through pogroms, could happen here, to coin a phrase. Roth has alw More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2008

Jennine rated it:

As a fan of the "alternate history" subgenre of speculative fiction, I found The Plot Against America disappointing. I didn't think that Roth pursued his alternate history far enough into his narrator's future, and I didn't think he explored its implications thoroughly enough. Roth uses the Lindbergh presidency to good effect to highlight American anti-Semitism in the early 20th century and the less flattering features of some illustrious "great Americans", but I thought t More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2007

Jonathan rated it:

[http://jonathan.touboul.free.fr/article.php3?id_article=53]

Cette uchronie nous emporte chez l’auteur lui-même, dans les années 40. Famille juive américaine de Newark, Sumit Avenue (New Jersey). Une ville bien tranquille, 3 synagogues concurrentes, où il fait bon être juif. A tel point que le père du narrateur refuse une promotion professionnelle pour y rester et y protéger sa famille. Mais toute cette tranquilité va vaciller, et même s’effondrer, le jour où Charles Lindberg, l’aviat More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 06, 2008

Sam rated it:

Note that I will discuss major plot points in this book, including the end. If you have any intention of reading the book, don't read below. I'll simply say that I was very disappointed.

I was very disappointed by this novel. Philip Roth does a good job of building the hopes of the reader that he will find a compelling and provocative More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 19, 2008

Antonia rated it:

It took me awhile to get into this, but I ended up enjoying it. I think I read generally for characters more than for plot, and this book was all about plot. Eventually, the characters developed enough for me to care about them, to make the plot feel less like a (fictional) history lesson, and at its best, the book did put a very personal perspective on events. But there were still way too many long passages devoted to national events and political intrigue, and not enough about how this was all More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 23, 2009

Sean rated it:

i'm not going to lie -- i didn't fall in love with this novel from the get-go. it's not that it was uninteresting; it was. i just felt as though i should be enjoying it more than i was.

at some point, however - and i'm not sure exactly when that was - i was sucked in. this is peanut butter and chocolate, a reese's peanut butter cup, if you would. literature with a capital L meets alternate history, introspective flowery meandering meets epic frontpages 128 point headlines. it's n More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2011

Mark rated it:

An enjoyable read as Roth theorises what might have happened had America kept out of WW2, and elected a Fascist sympathiser in place of Roosevelt. I find it difficult to understand the "it couldn't have happened here" comments that so often accompany this book. Those who believe that clearly have understood neither history, nor men's hearts. The US treatment of Japanese during the period described shows how those perceived as enemies were in fact treated, and Roth's description of the More...

0 comments like

Mar 08, 2009

Jeff rated it:

If you crossed Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" with Robert Coover's "Public Burning," this is no doubt the story that you would come up with. At once frightening (because of the possibilities that this could have truly happened given the reactionary tendencies of the American people in certain situations) and also hilarious (because...well it's Philip Roth.)

I don't think that it is mere coincidence that this book was published in 2004, when it became more More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

In 26 books, Roth has painted panoramic views of America's social landscape, from neurotic Jewish-American families to 60s-era cult figures. (See our Book by Book profile on Philip Roth, July/Aug 2003.) Plot Against America casts a politico-historical lens on the fear and uncertainty experienced by a young Philip Roth, the semi-fictional narrator. The novel, at once a suspenseful thriller, family drama, and coming-of-age story, speaks to the devastating forces that entangle the individual with h

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)